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Ross Fulton Analysis: What Is The Biggest Concern For Ohio State's 2024 Defense? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning. From Monday, May thirteenth. I'm your host,
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  Tom Moore. The Akron game in one hundred and ten days, the
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  game against Michigan in just two hundred and one days. It's almost here.
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  Can't wait. We're going to be talking about the Ohio State defense today.
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  We talked about the offense on Friday Show. Today we're flipping to the other
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  side of the ball. There's more to be excited about here, and there's
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  some stuff we got to talk about, stuff that maybe a little bit up
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  in the air. We're doing that with our buddy Ross Folton, the exits
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  of Nozguru, buckey Huddle dot com and when we talked to Ross. We
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  are sponsored by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse, the award winning upscale steakhouse in downtown Columbus,
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  named one of the top fifty steakhouses in America by Food Network. Just
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  go to Jeffruby dot com slash Columbus to make it reservation today. All right,
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  Ross, this is a side of the ball where ol High State fans
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  have over the years, at least since twenty nineteen Boyd have not felt great
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  about it. At times. You go through that twenty twenty team, and
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  it's like, boy, they could have won the National championship except the defense.
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  Twenty twenty one team, Boy, they could have won the National championship.
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  Accept the defense. Twenty twenty two, you're kind of having some of
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  the same conversations. Twenty twenty three, that defense got pretty good. Twenty
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  twenty four, boy, everyone's coming back. They might be real, real
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  good this year. We were talking before the show. There just are not
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  that many questions about the defense this year. But one spot where I think
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  there are some open questions is at linebacker, where Amieckenberg off for the NFL
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  Steel Chambers off of the NFL. You got Cody Simon back, who has
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  made a bunch of starts over the years, but there are still some open
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  questions that, especially that will linebacker spot. I mean, how is that
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  all going to shake out this year? Yeah? I would agree that the
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  defense, like you know, the thirty thousand foot views, that they're in
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  very good shape. I mean, Caleb Down's a great player, They've got
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  a great secondary, they got a really good defensive line. I think Cody
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  Simon is pretty well positioned. I just but yeah, I still think,
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  you know, Will linebacker is an important position, particularly for reading, reacting
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  and making tackles, and I just you know, I would say that it
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  makes her an interesting discussion regardless, because I would say that C. J.
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  Hicks and Sonny Styles are two fan favorites in general going against each other.
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  But you know, at the moment, what's interesting to me is that,
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  you know, people can say, prior to Lathan Ranson's injury last year,
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  like, regardless of what you called Sunny Styles, he was functioning as
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  a Sam linebacker. You know, he was playing at the quote unquote nickel
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  spot. But all that means is like you took a nickel off the field
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  and put him there, and you know, that's what you do. That's
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  what an NFL four three team would do, for instance, Right, so
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  you have him a will linebacker, but at least in the spring he was
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  mostly second string while becoming then the plane as the Sam linebacker and three linebacker
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  sets, so it seems like a secutest way to get right back to where
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  things were, and it didn't seem to be sort of maybe people quite pay
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  picking up on that. You know, I don't know how much they're going
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  to do three linebacker sets. I'm sure, it depends somewhat on the amount
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  of twelve personnel or two tight ends or bigger sets they see. You know,
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  presumably they'll get that against Iowa, Babe Michigan, you know, so
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  it definitely has to be part of the package. But like in my opinion
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  against Jordan Hancock is certainly one of their best football players, so I would
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  personally want to minimize the amount that he is not on the field. I
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  think that limits their flexibility because he's very good against the run, even being
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  a cornerback size guy. So that makes then you know, let's say at
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  most they run three linebacker packages, you know, fifteen to twenty percent of
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  the time. Seems a lot to me, But let's just like assume that.
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  That's like if Sunny sALS isn't playing at Will, that would be a
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  lot of snaps he's not playing it. All that said, I mean again
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  didn't get to see all the practices except for the spring game. I still
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  think he's probably gonna be the answer at Will over Hicks, although I wouldn't
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  be surprised if they rotate them in some capacity. I just you know,
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  I still worry about j Hicks, Like he looks good blitzeeing and and you
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  know, the coaching staff and others like to focus on that, but like
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  again, like to me, the bread and butter at that position is like
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  reading, reacting, being able to adjust it pass coverage. I'm still just
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  not sure he's like a fit for that. And I think I got Styles
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  actually looked pretty good doing some of that stuff on in the spring game.
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  And so you know, you can have some packages obviously where kind of like
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  a dime look where Styles maybe comes as the mic, and you know,
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  you can have some flexibility there, you know, get your Maine Matthews on
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  the field. Do I think like they need to find a role for because
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  he's just like too good to not play at all, and he obviously reps
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  some in Nickels, so you can have a dime where he's the other slot
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  orn essentially. So, but I you know, so I guess I would
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  still say like they have a you know, as I'm saying, a plethora
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  of defensive backs that are really good. But I just that will position does
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  need to be solidified, and it'll be interesting to watch as my guess is
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  it ends up being some type of time share. But I think I feel
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  a little bit more confident. Styles ended up being the starter of there at
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  the moment. And if you're doing a time share there, is that based
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  on what you're expecting? Is that a put gut you know, hey,
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  this guy does this better and this guy does that better, and you know
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  you're doing it based on that. Is that just a pure rotation? How
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  do you think they might do a time work a time share there if that's
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  what they do, Yeah, I could see some that's a little bit of
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  both, right, Like again like styles obviously does you know my flipping comment
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  aside, like offer you something as in the passing game as a having safety
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  experience. So I could see something where they maybe some up they're both on
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  the field and some kind of like nickel packages or passing game packages, but
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  also just basically similar last year, I think we're Tony Simon rotated in with
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  steel Chambers for much of the year. Like I could also see that where
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  they each play a couple series and then the other guy comes in and so
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  you sort of keep everyone interested in getting snaps that way as well. The
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  other thing you mentioned before the show to me was taking with coverages in the
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  secondary. And this is interesting to me because they have such a veteran corner
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  unit and such a veteran safety unit that, you know, there's an argument
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  for kind of the old Iowa method, where it's just you're going to do
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  this, We're going to keep it simple, we're going to do the you
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  know, we're going to do this this one thing. You're gonna know what
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  we're doing, but we're just gonna out execute you. And then there's also
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  the well, if you have all these incredible athletes and you can do other
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  stuff, maybe you don't worry about keeping it simple and you get a little
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  more diverse in some of the coverages, and you make yourself a little harder,
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  you know, harder to figure out what do you think they're going to
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  do there? Which which path do you think they're going for? Or in
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  year three of the Jim Noles defense, Yeah, I mean what I compared
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  it to, you know, is they could have they could be like the
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  Cleveland Browns or last year who played a ton of man coverage because they had
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  three really good corners, good deep safety, and you could you could do
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  that right like and and I thought maybe they'd go that way. But I
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  actually thought, as you know, as we've discussed previously. Like my argument
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  is not for doing that and for diversifying their coverages. And as we've talked
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  about, like last year, they kind of took this like winding path I
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  think, certainly influenced by Lathan Ranson's injury, as we were just talking about
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  sunny styles like post Ransom injury. I think they got they played a lot
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  more sort of like soft cover four, less like man and Cover two and
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  you know, but I think they'll mix all of that in. They actually
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  you know, there were some indications for Jim Knowles that he wasn't like super
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  into match quarters, but then in the spring game we saw it uh and
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  they actually ran it pretty regularly. Different types of you know, Cover four
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  UH Man match concepts so where you're you know, you're you're defending. There's
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  different ways to do what we've talked about. But you know, you have
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  a zone, but you're you're playing man within that zone. Once the receiver
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  enters in that zone match or man match, you're like using manned principles but
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  then trading off receivers. So I do think it seems to me like they're
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  going to continue to diversify again. I think having Lathan Ransom back and then
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  Caleb downs again allows you to do a lot of that because he's very flexible.
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  So you know, that's obviously my vote. So my my perhaps maybe
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  optimistic or self interested perspective is that they should keep going down that path and
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  not just rely on their you know, innate talent, which they could do
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  most of the time. But it's certainly something that I'm going to continue to
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  keep an eye on. All right. On the last show, I asked
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  you about the concerns on the offense and are there areas where you know,
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  it's it's a little unsettled in your mind? On defense, they're pretty have
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  pretty much have everyone back, and we already talked about the linebackers and that's
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  kind of the one spot where they did lose a couple of starters. Are
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  their concerns for you? Are there areas where it's like, well, I'm
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  you know, I would like to see a little more from this guy or
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  this position group, or I will allow you to cheat and talk about special
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  teams here instead if you would prefer me. I'm not going to talk about
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  special teams. I mean, obviously I expressed like some of my interest in
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  like the will linebacker, some concern both in terms of how they can fill
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  the role as an actual like read and react linebacker, as well as I
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  guess my overall scheme concern about like being too reliant on a three linebacker.
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  Looks I would add, you know now are really like nitpicking though, right,
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  Like maybe they're a little thin in the safety room. I mean,
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  it would help to get Malie carp for back, but you're basically down to
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  like one backup. Like, yes, you're freshmen and like Jane bond to
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  McClain got lots of experience this spring. I'm still not sure like you'd want
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  to get to that point. But like your starters are really good, right,
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  it could like your worst place to be, like the same at defensive
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  tackle. You know, I feel very good about ty Hamilton and Tyler Williams.
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  You'd probably like to have at least one more that you're willing to like
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  rotate at no's and ideally too uh. You know, Tyler Williams spent a
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  lot of snaps last year, so you'd probably like to be able to reduce
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  that amount. So like, I think there's still some like depth questions.
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  I think, you know, there's interesting like what's the defensive end depth gonna
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  shake out as like who's number three, who's four, who's five. But
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  again, these are certainly what you would consider first rowd problems when you're worrying
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  about like the amount of backups you have and how good they are. So
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  yeah, I would say certainly, like if you're ranking issues, putting aside
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  the punter we got, you know, there's certainly more question marks on the
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  offense right now, just personnel wise, than on defense. I will remind
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  you the punter is six foot seven and Australian, so I think you can
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  cross that one off the list without ever having seen him kick in person.
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  I feel like that pretty much ticks off all the boxes that I need to
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  feel pretty confident at punt a game this year. But we'll see, We
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  will see how that goes. We will see how the defense and the offense
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  go as well this fall for the Buckeyes. It'd be a really interesting year.
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  everything you need today. That'll do it for today. Thank you guys all
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  for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow