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How Ohio State's Transfer Portal Additions Will Change The 2024 Buckeye Offense · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Wednesday, January tenth. I'm your host,
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  tom Or. The Akron game is in two hundred and thirty four days.
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  The game against Michigan in three hundred and twenty five days. Today we are
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  welcome back our good bunny Ross Fultonfuckeyheaddle dot com. And when we brought welcome
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  Ross in, we also welcome back our friends from Jeff Ruby steak House,
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  the award winning upscale steakhouse in downtown Columbus name one of the top fifty steakhouses
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  in America Buy Food Network. Glad to have them back, Glad to have
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  Ross back. We're gonna be talking today a little bit about the Cotton Bowl.
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  Not too much. We're going to give you just the absolute bare menium
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  of the Cotton Bowl. I know you guys don't want to think about it
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  or hear about it, but we got to talk about some stuff in terms
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  of what's got to be fixed for twenty twenty four. So Ross, We're
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  going to start by talking about some of the guys they have brought in to
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  maybe address some of the issues that we saw in the Cotton Bowl. Quarterback
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  Will Howard transferring from Kansas State, running back at Gwinshawn Judkins transferring from Ole
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  Miss Center, Seth McLoughlin transferring from Alabama, and tight end Wilkest Merrick transferring
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  up from Athens, Ohio and the Ohio Bobcats. What do these guys have
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  in common? How does this you know, how does this sort of approach
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  to the transfer portal maybe address what Ohio State is going to be trying to
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  do offensively in twenty twenty four? Sure, so I guess starting with Will
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  Howard, we just go and sequential order there. You know, I kind
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  of feel like that Will Howard is the guy that they hoped Devin Brown would
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  be but hasn't been yet and wasn't in the Cotton Bowl before he got hurt.
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  You know, He's a big, strong guy who's willing and able to
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  run between the tackles and open up some some re stuff and some quarterback runs.
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  You know, not the biggest arm, but he's accurate, and you
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  know, I think that we can talk about this a little bit later,
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  but I do think you'll see more of a general move back more akin to
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  the twenty nineteen or how to say it, offense with justin fields that was
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  more of a mix of spread run concepts and under center downfield stuff. You
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  know. Judkins, I mean, he's just a really good player. I
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  think the one thing that he does offer, you know, I think he
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  can do some of everything. He keeps a change movie. He's a little
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  bit of blakeborn in that way. But like he is good on stretch.
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  And so I note have as we've discussed, I've never thought that's been traveon
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  Henderson's you know, best run play. And so to the extent that that
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  remains part of the offense, which I you know, assume it will be,
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  even if it is and should be a smaller part, I think he
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  can be really effective, like we've seen still, you know, if you
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  think back to Dobbins or even Tray Surum, like how effective that play is
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  when you have the right tail back to read it and run it correctly.
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  And then you know, I mean, I think the you know, between
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  McLaughlin, I mean that the the center situation that Cod Bowl was was a
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  disaster. It'd be frank, you could tell that they were not iding anything
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  up front correctly or making line calls in the proper way. And so Missouri
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  just had a bunch of unblocked defenders coming off the edge. No, nothing
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  was ever identified. And so you know, I don't know what to make
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  of Kurts and Hintsman. He wasn't particularly great all season just in terms of
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  blocking, and so you know, I mean Blachlan started twenty five games at
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  Alabama like that in itself is a pretty big step. And so either you
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  know that if you lock down the center position, which I think was a
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  bit of a problem this year, you then have even if you're not assuming
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  person Hinsman as a starter perhaps guard, you still have three other starters back,
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  assuming domand Jackson returns, you know, and then you have to hope
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  that Luke Montgomery's ready. I mean, they burned his red shirt neck this
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  year for one to two plays a game, so you would hope that they
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  did not do that without more of a plan in mind, and assuming that
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  he'd be able to play next year. And so that will get you to
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  five and at least quite a bit of experience. And then the tight end
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  blocking, like people like to talk about the offensive line blocking this year,
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  you know, which had its ups and downs. I actually, thinking light
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  of having watched Michigan in the last two games. I think the Ohigh State
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  offensive line actually held itself up pretty well in ann Arberd, probably better than
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  the Alabama and Washington lines did against Michigan. The con Bowl is obviously a
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  mess with the line changed, but like the tight end blocking has been just
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  such a mess, and like especially like if you want to run stretch,
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  if you want to run some of the outside stuff that we're going to talk
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  about, particularly like with the quarterback red element, like bash play is like
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  they just can't have the blocking that they've had at that spot. And so
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  I think, you know, maybe the he could the tight end position that
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  could be like the biggest transferring of all, justificant to slidify the blocking at
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  that spot. Yeah, Will kes Merrick the only guy not to come from
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  a Power five conference team, got a couple guys coming out of the SEC,
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  Will Howard, a longtime starter of the Big twelve, And it might
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  be the guy from Ohio University who is could be the biggest immediate impact guy
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  there for the buck Eyes. You know, let's let's talk real briefly.
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  I promise everyone we're going to keep this as brief as humanly possible. We
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  know you don't want to think about the Cotton Bowl any more than you have
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  to, but there is some there is some learning to be done here.
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  We're gonna talk just about the first play of the game and how this sort
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  of shows some of the issues that Ross is talking about here that are going
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  to need to be addressed. So what walk us through this first one?
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  Yeah, so honestly comes out in this two tight end look, but with
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  one of the tight ends as a full back essentially offset and brings Trayvon Henderson
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  in motion from the slot. And they're running a GT counter bash with the
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  quarterback right, so they're blocking countertrait for the quarterback away from the bash or
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  like the sweep to Henderson right. And so your first problem comes here is
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  like Devin Brown misreads his play like I you know, he obviously got hurt.
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  He only played like sixteen or so plays, but unfortunately I think he
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  was making incorrect reads on nearly every one of them, whether that was in
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  the run game or the past game, which obviously makes it difficult. And
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  so to our point about Will Howard coming in with a lot of experience,
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  you know, he can both bring the run element but ideally be making these
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  reads correctly. Then you know we're talking about like the misidentificational game. You
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  have two tight ends here who both try to block the same guy. So
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  you're already numbered because the balls going the wrong place. It should have stayed.
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  Brown should have kept it and run the counter blocking. If you see
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  it, it's pretty clean to the opposite side. But then you're you're already
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  so you're at number four to three on the bash side. But then you
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  have two guys blocking the same guy, so that exacerbates the issues. So
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  you just saw this all game, and you know, unfortunately the problem was
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  like they obviously again I think they've had this concept of what they've wanted Devin
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  Brown to be and like how it could expand the offense. And I think
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  that's probably part of the reason that like they were okay moving off from Colin
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  McCord because of like his physical limitations and like what they thought they could bring.
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  So like whenever you saw Devin Brown come in the game this year,
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  like they'd immediately run plays like this, like with a you know, quarterback,
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  countertrait bash concepts, but like they could not execute it well. And
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  like throughout this game they kept trying to do this stuff and it wasn't working
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  both because like quarterback was reading it and correctly, they weren't blocking it right
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  and so like then there were things that were working, like they gotten heavy
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  personnel and ran like power a couple of times that works, but they never
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  went back to it or like inside zone read. So all this is to
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  say that, like if they want to add these elements to the game to
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  their plan, which I do think will help. Again, that is a
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  lot of what they did with justin fields also like running bash plays where he
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  would be the inside ballcare like, you know, they need to be able
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  to incorporate in a way that works and that starts both the execution as well
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  as like not getting too married to things like this, you know. And
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  it's so it will take I think some work to go back to sort of
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  that plan of mixing these kind of quarterback runs in without getting too married to
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  the concepts and like being able to run the rest of the offense as well.
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  Well. We just named four different guys who are going to be new
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  faces for the Buck guys on offense in twenty twenty four. There's another X
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  factor in all of this, and that's Hey, there's probably gonna be another
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  offensive coordinator, assuming the Football Scoop report from the end of last week is
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  accurate and based on you know, what I would speculate would be the sourcing
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  on that, I'm going to guess that the Football Scoop report is going to
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  be accurate and there is going to be a new offensive coordinator calling plays,
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  least at least in conjunction with Brian Day. How much do you think not
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  having Kevin Wilson there this year and Kevin Wilson's experience with you know, the
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  sort of spread run game and the spread power run game that he had from
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  his Northwestern and Oklahoma days, how much do you think that impacted the offense
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  this year? And if you're going to bring in a quarterback like Will Howard
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  to presumably start for Ohio State this year, and you're going to have a
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  quin Shawn Judkins in there, you know, potentially in conjunction with Trevon Henderson
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  and all of that kind of stuff with the offense that you're sort of looking
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  for them to run this year. Do you have names a name or names
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  in mind in terms of, hey, this would be a guy who at
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  least runs the type of offense or might be a good fit for what Ohio
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  State you know, might be looking to do this fall. Yeah, not
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  necessarily. I mean I guess the things I would be looking for is like
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  to your Kevin Wilson point, I think a veteran presence up in the booth
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  would be helpful. You know, I have said throughout the year we've talked
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  about this, like I didn't necessarily have a problem with Ryan Day calling the
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  plays, and I still don't, but like you can only see so much
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  on the sideline, and like this goes to like the cotton pole pointing up
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  adjusting. You know, it's just hard if you're particular, if you're like
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  only have a couple guys upstairs, and they're both pretty young and not a
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  lot of experience, and like how much is he actually relying on them?
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  Like you have to be able to adjust serious to series, and so you
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  know, at a minimum, I would think like a Wilson like veteran presence
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  would help. I do think that they need to. It would be nice
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  to revamp the run game somewhat. And that's not even getting into like the
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  quarterback run stuff. That's just like talking about how they approach the run game.
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  And gap schemes in the mix of inside and zone and outside zone with
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  you know, power and countertrait and how they're blocking him up front. So
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  finding someone that could help with help sort of buff up the run game because
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  they do think they're going to need to run the football better, and like
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  bringing in Will Howard like I think they expect to and with these two tailbacks,
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  assuming Henderson comes back, even without him, I mean, I think
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  Judkins has been, you know, one of the best backs in the college
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  football the last two years. So they need to be able to run the
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  football better. And so that's you know, another part of it. But
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  I really just think it's like someone who's on the same page with Day in
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  terms of offensive philosophy and scheme, and then can you know, serve as
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  someone upstairs because it's just it's a lot on Day's play and I feel like
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  you can like physically see like the overwhelming burden on him at times on his
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  shoulders, and I just think he's been trying to carry too much leads.
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  I don't know that that's sustainable. Well seems like Brian Day has figured out
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  it probably is not sustainable. So we'll see what those coaching changes might end
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  up being that could happen as soon as today or tomorrow. You sort of
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  see the ball rolling on that with some more changes. The AFCA American Football
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  Coaches Association Convention ends on the tenth on Wednesday today, so that is sort
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  of one of those mile post days where you might start to see some more
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  movement on the coaching front. There also going to have some NFL Draft announcements
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  coming at Denzel Burke had said that he's going to be announcing on the tenth.
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  We'll see who. There's a few other announcements still to come before the
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  fifteenth. There's still some potential transfer portal targets for the Buckeyes to maybe bring
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  in coaching stuff. You got the NFL Draft declarations and oh yeah, you've
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  got then the starter spring ball and all that stuff. Boy, there's going
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  to be a lot of movement on a lot of these different fronts in the
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  coming days and weeks. And a great place to experience all of that would
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  be a Buckey Huddle Dot Com Ross and our whole team of ex's and those
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  gurus making you a s murder football fan mark. Covering the recruiting beat,
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  there is a lot of news on the recruiting beat. Mark head a post
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  on our huddle board on the Huddlebird presented by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse, which is
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  members only. Lots of very encouraging news for our homestate on the recruiting front,
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  on defense for the class of twenty twenty five, the upcoming class,
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  maybe even a little bit of encouraging news for the class of twenty twenty four
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  on that front. And then of course Tony and Kevin and I covering the
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  team. There's gonna be a lot of stuff to talk about on that front
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  as well. So make sure you get yourself to Buckeye Huddle dot com and
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  YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle, and also make sure you get yourself to
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  Jef Jeff Ruby Steakhouse, raughly offering nationally claimed USDA Prime steak, seafood and
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  sushi and peckuple service, live entertainment, and an attention to detail that is
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  simply unmatched Jeff Ruby dot com slash Columbus to check out the menu and make
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  a reservation today. That will 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.