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What Will We Learn Inside Ohio State Football Spring Practice? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buck guys tomorrow morning. From Monday, March fourth, I'm your
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  host, Tom Moore. The Akron game is in one hundred and eighty days,
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  the game against Michigan in two hundred and seventy one days, the start
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  of spring practice in one day. The first interviews of spring practice actually happening
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  today will be over at the Woody Has Athletics Center, talking to some of
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  the Buckeyes previewing spring football and much more. It's going to be a very
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  busy, very entertaining week this week, so make sure you were at bucke
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  Huddle dot com for all of that YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle. So
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  all right, spring football it's a very interesting, very exciting time of year.
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  You can learn a lot, but you can also gets misled at times
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  as well by what you're seeing. So I'm bringing in Tony Gerdham to bucke
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  Huddle dot com. He and I have covered a whole bunch of spring football
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  seasons over the years, so we're going to share a little bit about what
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  you really but you can learn what you maybe don't want to read too much
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  into how many times you have to see something before it's like, Okay,
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  this is actually real all that kind of stuff. I guess let's start with
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  day one on Tuesday, we walk into the Witty Hayes Athletic Center, whether
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  they're inside or outside, and what are we looking for on day one?
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  Day one? I am looking for, first off, any position moves.
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  And the difficult part about that is you also have jersey changes, so sometimes
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  there's some all right, who is number six now? Who is number three?
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  Now? Wires there number I don't remember thirty four over here, So
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  you're trying to just get a lay of the land, and then they'll get
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  into some stretching and you're trying to see who is stretching first or who is
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  like in the lead of the because generally the leaders of the team will be
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  in front jogging and things like that. So you kind of get just an
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  assessment of that, like, okay, oh, I did not expect Kenyana
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  Jackson to be among the first group leading a line of people. That's interesting.
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  Then he gets into position groups and the drills and you're like, okay,
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  who's repping first in those drills? Is really where you get your first
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  opportunity to get some sort of a depth chart and it's it's not the best
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  way to do it, but it's what we have at the outset. And
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  until we start seeing them in eleven on eleven and seven on seven, or
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  you know, offensive line against defensive line, until you really start seeing that,
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  it's kind of like, okay, so the receivers repped in this order,
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  the running backs repped in this order, the quarterback's repped in this order,
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  and then tom it's well, the first drill it was Devin Brown repping
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  first, the second drill it was Will Howard repping first, and then the
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  third drill it's Lincoln Kenole's repping first. So you gotta then also assess how
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  often did somebody rep first, because what we saw did we see CJ.
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  Stroud and Jack Millier kind of go back and forth for a while in terms
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  of who is repping first. Justin fields, I don't really remember Matthew Baldwin
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  or anybody repping first ahead of him, but we know Kyle Riccord and Devin
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  Brown have done this back and forth, and so he just tried to get
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  some idea of where the piece is lined up by who's going first, because
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  somebody had to tell them what order to be in and it's not just a
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  willy nilly order for the most part. And I think one of the big
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  things about day one is there are no firm conclusions to draw on day one
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  because guy is with a new position group. Great, how many times have
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  we seen Hey, this guy whatever, this center or this this former tackle
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  is repping its center on day one of spring practice, Like, whoa,
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  this is crazy, this is wild, But do you think it means And
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  then day two he's back at tackling You never see him at center game or
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  you know, the corner has moved to safety or the safety has moved to
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  corner, and like, oh wow, what do we think this means about
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  the depth chart in The answer is nothing, because he's gonna be back in
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  the old spot on Thursday. They just throw a bunch of stuff at the
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  wall and sort of see what sticks. But I think the most important thing
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  about day one is that's a that's not a data set. That is a
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  data point. You have one piece of information. The most important thing that
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  Day one does is gives you something to compare it to on Thursday in two
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  weeks, in three weeks, to know, hey, here's how things have
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  changed, here's where someone has maybe moved from a different spot, and you
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  can sort of start to learn something from that. Yeah, that's why I
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  think we all write down the order people are repping in so that you can
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  go back and compare it two days, two weeks. Oh, so this
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  guy has moved up four spots, and then we'll see more than the seven
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  on seven and eleven on eleven's and see, well, this guy has moved
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  up from third team to he's getting some reps in the first team. One
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  of the difficult parts about the first day or the first couple of days is
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  there's a lot going on and you're trying to take it all in, and
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  you will you may miss something that somebody else sees, and somebody else will
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  report like, say, you know, saw Josh Fryar at left tackle,
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  and I'll be like, why I missed that one, And so then the
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  question is, like, what I about Josh Fryar left tackle? Or you
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  know, you report something that you see that somebody else didn't, and there's
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  just like you said, it's a temporary thing. They're just looking at stuff
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  trying to figure out what goes best. So you can't read too much into
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  it, but you jot it down in case that becomes clearer down the road,
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  Like okay, now, remember we saw earlier Josh Fryer over here repping
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  doing this, so if something else happens over here, they can do this
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  because they're comfortable doing it, they've done it before. It's a lot of
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  information. It doesn't always lead to anything solid, but that's why they're trying
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  to find what is the most solid things we have on this football team.
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  We got to figure out what everybody else can do, and then we're all
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  privy to some of this. And it's kind of like when a stand up
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  comic is putting out some new material. They're going on the road doing new
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  material. They're like confiscating cell phones because they don't want the bad material out
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  there for the public. They don't want to see it on YouTube. A
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  lot of this is just trying new material, new jokes, and it takes
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  some time to work it all out, and sometimes it's not that funny on
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  day water day two time. Yeah, and it'll look pretty rough and ragged
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  at times on day one and day two. I mean, you have heard
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  Ryan Day talk about guys who are just still trying to figure out, like
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  where the meeting rooms are and how to practice, and these practices are.
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  You know, one of the reasons that someone might see something and other people
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  might not is there's a lot to watch. This is not just they're lining
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  up and running football plays and we're all watching the same thing. Cornerback,
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  the quarterbacks are in one part of the field. Running backs are in a
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  different part of the field. The wide receivers are maybe doing something else.
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  The offensive line is in a different corner. The safeties are in one spot,
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  the corners. Sometimes the corners and the safeties are working together, other
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  times not. The linebackers are somewhere, the defensive line is in another spot,
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  and if I'm watching the defensive line, the offensive line is way on
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  the other side of the field, so I've got no idea what's going on
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  there. And even when we've got three people there to watch practice, there's
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  always something you're not watching that someone is not watching at some time. So
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  you can have different people seeing different things at different times. So you know,
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  just because one person says something and someone else doesn't doesn't necessarily mean that
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  one of them is wrong. It just maybe someone is looking at something else.
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  So that's a lot of the stuff you can't learn from There are some
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  things you can learn from day one, because there is always it seems like
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  Tony a freshman who is like the holy crap freshman of the year. And
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  I mean you mentioned Justin Fields earlier. He was obviously not a true freshman,
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  but he was new to Ohio State, and I just remember the first
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  practice we got to watch him. Every quarterback who was throwing whatever, thirty
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  yard outs or whatever it was, the ball was arcing above a certain line
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  on the wall and Justin Field's ball was staying underneath there, and you could
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  just you could see the arm strength from all the way across the field and
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  it was like, wow. I go back to Garrett Wilson and watching Garrett
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  Wilson coming out of breaks during a little just a little you know, five
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  yard hitch kind of thing, and just he turns, he catches, and
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  boom he accelerates. It was like, holy crap, this guy is really
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  explosive. I mean, Jackson's been a jig, but I know we've talked
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  about, but you can sometimes also have that first impression that's like, oh,
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  okay, I get it. Like I've seen the recruiting rankings, now
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  I get it. Yeah, and there are positions that lend themselves to that
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  more than others. Like it's hard to see that at running back and linebacker
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  because they're not necessarily doing a lot of between the tackles stuff, and so
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  a lot of it's passing game, short passing game. It's situational, So
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  like, I don't always expect to be blown away by a linebacker or a
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  running back because it's not even thud at that point. There's just very almost
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  no contact. So it's hard to judge a running back when there's no tackling.
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  But there are still guys, you know, quarters can stand out,
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  safety is covering a ton of ground can stand out. And then you'll get
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  to see some one on ones with the defensive line and the offensive line where
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  you can just tell guys, you look at guys like that dude is quick.
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  I remember watching Isaiah Prince and it's like that dude is very mobile for
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  an offensive lineman. And we've seen defensive linemen in the same thing where it's
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  like that guy is unnatural basically how quick he is, how fast he is.
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  And then you see some guys like Kate McDonald, not specifically, but
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  like that that are big and they've got a quick first like Robert Landers,
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  like how is this guy moving that quickly? You get to see that early
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  on. It's bringing again. That's just some things that just stick with you.
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  But then there are the things that just never never leave you. And
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  you've mentioned a few of them, justin Fields Jackson Smith and Jig but Garrett
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  Wilson, where you knew that those guys were legitimately going to change things.
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  Ohio State do some special things, So I think it's always interesting to see
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  in the anticipation of will we see that? And that's always fun, whether
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  it's in the day two of spring or day ten, whenever we get a
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  full opportunity to watch these guys. Because there is enough talent on hand at
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  Ohio State at any given recruiting class where you could see that, and this
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  is one of those recruiting classes. And you also have to be careful not
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  to draw too many conclusions from one play or one thing. The thing that
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  always jumps out to me was this wasn't even something we were there for.
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  This is something that Ohio State put out on one of those little sizzle reels
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  from camp and it was just one rep and it was Alex Williams, who
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  was a defensive end going against Nick petit Frere, who is an offensive tackle,
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  and Alex Williams. I mean like I think Nick petite Fair might have
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  done a backwards summersault. That's how badly he got beat on this one rep.
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  And just to let you know where those two gentlemen are now, they
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  both actually ended up playing football in Nashville, Tennessee. Alex Williams had sixteen
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  total tackles after transferring to Vanderbilt, and Nick petite Ferret started sixteen games for
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  the Tennessee Titans as a rookie in twenty twenty two. So one play does
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  not necessarily mean anything a whole you know, several plays does not necessarily necessarily
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  guarantee greatness or that this guy's a bust because he had one bad play or
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  three bad plays. It all, it's all just individual little things we can
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  learn a little bit from. We will start learning all of that stuff on
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  Tuesday. We'll learn a little more on Monday before we even get in there
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  for Tuesday with those interviews. Start learning on Tuesday. We'll start telling you
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  what we're seeing, what we're hearing, what we're learning and we'll do that
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  all the way through spring ball, all the way through to the spring game
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  on April thirteenth, and we'll be doing that all at buckeyebble dot com.
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  That's where Tony, Kevin and I cover the team, Mark covers recruiting.
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  We've got our whole team of ex's and o's guruz making you smarter football fans.
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  Also the huddle Board presented by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse. That's where we interact
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  with all of you, answer your questions, talk football, share videos,
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  share share photos, all that good stuff. All you got to do is
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  sign up at bucke huddle dot com. Give it a try for a month.
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  This would be a great month to do it. There's gonna be a
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  lot of stuff for us to talk about there, brooding season, heading into
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  uh kicking into high gear, as well as you have visits during the course
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  of the spring, several potentially big name targets possibly on commitment watch soon.
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  There is a lot to a lot to talk about. We're talking about it
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  all at Buckeyehuddle dot com. That will do it for today. Thank you
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  guys all for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.