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Ross Fulton Analysis: What Ohio State's Transfer Additions Mean For The 2026 Buckeye Defense · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Saturday, January seventeenth time
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  Speaker 1: your host Tom or the ball State game in two
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  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty one days, the game against Michigan in
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  Speaker 1: three hundred and fifteen days. On today's show, we're welcoming
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  Speaker 1: in our ex's and o's guru, Ross Fulton to take
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  Speaker 1: a look at some of the Ohigh States Transfer Portal
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  Speaker 1: additions on defense and what it might mean for the
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  Speaker 1: Buckeye defense in twenty twenty six. I'm of Rosses on
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  Speaker 1: the show. We're sponsored by Jeff Rubies of Columbus, probably
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  Speaker 1: Just go to jeffruby dot com slash Columbus to check
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  Speaker 1: out the menu and make a reservation today. All right,
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  Speaker 1: So the way we're going to structure this thing is
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  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the front seven on the defense,
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  Speaker 1: and then we'll talk about the secondary, and then we'll
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  Speaker 1: kind of take maybe a little bit more of a
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  Speaker 1: big picture look on everything. But Ross the additions for
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  Speaker 1: the Buckeyes in that front seven right now, defensive tackles
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  Speaker 1: James Smith and John Walker, Quay Rusau out of Alabama,
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  Speaker 1: Christian Legro out of Wisconsin. And you know, there is
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  Speaker 1: not a you know, true traditional defensive end necessarily listed here,
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  Speaker 1: you know, at least not in the Ohio State traditional
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  Speaker 1: four to three kind of defensive line alignment. So you know,
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  Speaker 1: what are your takeaways from who they're bringing in and
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  Speaker 1: maybe what it might mean for what they might try
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  Speaker 1: and run more or less of on the front this
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  Speaker 1: upcoming season.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it shows the Matt Patricia influence because
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  Speaker 2: it when you try to slot people in, it fits
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  Speaker 2: much better when you think of it as the odd
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  Speaker 2: front or the penny front, and you can really see
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  Speaker 2: like the positional versatility they're looking for within that look. Right,
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  Speaker 2: So let's just use the penny front. I think that's
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  Speaker 2: maybe the easiest, right.
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  Speaker 3: So that's like.
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  Speaker 2: A five to one when you're playing a nickel. And
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  Speaker 2: so when you last year in twenty twenty five, when
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  Speaker 2: Ohio State was playing that penny front, right, you had
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  Speaker 2: it's basically a five up look. But the way I
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  Speaker 2: High State did it, you'd have Kate McDonald's the nose guard.
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  Speaker 2: You had your base like two four techniques right, like
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  Speaker 2: defensive tackle defensive end hybrids and ken Yata Jackson and
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  Speaker 2: either Malone or Houston, and then Kate and Curry was
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  Speaker 2: one of the outside linebackers if you will, and rvil
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  Speaker 2: Reese was out there with Sunny sALS in the middle right,
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  Speaker 2: So you're really kind of impeding a four down grouping
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  Speaker 2: into the penny. This would the transferred changes they've made
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  Speaker 2: much more fit naturally into the odd front and gives
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  Speaker 2: them some flexibility. So like you could, there's a couple
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  Speaker 2: of ways they can do it. And by flexibility, I
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  Speaker 2: mean they can go heavier or they can go later,
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  Speaker 2: even within that base package, which is sort of you know,
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  Speaker 2: something that Matt Patricia and Bill Belichick always liked to
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  Speaker 2: do with New England. So you could play it, for instance,
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  Speaker 2: where you are now you're five up, you have you know,
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  Speaker 2: Walker at nose. You could have Smith as one of
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  Speaker 2: those defensive tackle defensive ends.
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  Speaker 3: You could again have KENYAA.
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  Speaker 2: Jackson as the other, and then you have two actual
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  Speaker 2: outside linebackers right and Russaul and Ale Grow or Alier
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  Speaker 2: Grow excuse me, and then Peyton Pierce like when he
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  Speaker 2: came in as the third linebacker. He usually played as
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  Speaker 2: that mic anyways, and so that kind of is where
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  Speaker 2: I would probably see him fitting. And then but you
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  Speaker 2: could also go heavier right, or you could you could
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  Speaker 2: put you know, Edward Houston as one of those other
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  Speaker 2: defensive tackle defensive ends and you bump Kenyatta Jackson out
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  Speaker 2: and let him play sort of the role that kid
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  Speaker 2: and Curry got to do last year, sort of more
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  Speaker 2: of a defensive end outside linebacker hybrid. You could go
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  Speaker 2: even lighter, you could bump Smith to nose, and so
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  Speaker 2: you can see you start having like a lot of
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  Speaker 2: variations of how you could use the personnel, even within
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  Speaker 2: the same formational alignment, look to change things up. And obviously,
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  Speaker 2: like you know, I would assume they could also there
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  Speaker 2: will be times where they play three linebackers and then
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  Speaker 2: maybe Riley Petti John's the third linebacker, and you know,
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  Speaker 2: they use Rousseau as kind of like a hybrid defensive
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  Speaker 2: end outside linebacker. You know, maybe they stand him up,
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  Speaker 2: but he's like in that you know, Jackson Curry what
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  Speaker 2: you consider an edge spot. So I think that they've
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  Speaker 2: you know, you're obviously gonna miss Kate McDonald, Like it's
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  Speaker 2: hard to replace that guy. You know, walkers obviously like
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  Speaker 2: that noseguard body tape. And you know, the individual guys
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  Speaker 2: who are going to be first round picks are hard
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  Speaker 2: to replace generally, but they've given themselves within like the
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  Speaker 2: odd front structure, a lot more pieces to move around
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  Speaker 2: and people that sort of fit those odd front roles.
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  Speaker 3: All right.
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  Speaker 1: And then on the back end of the defense, it
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  Speaker 1: feels like we're seeing between the front and the back,
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  Speaker 1: we're seeing two kind of themes developed. One is veterans
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  Speaker 1: and two is guys who offer them some flexibility because
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  Speaker 1: here in the back end they added one corner at
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  Speaker 1: least so far as of the time we're recording this,
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  Speaker 1: and that's Cam Calhoun, who feels like he's going to
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  Speaker 1: be sort of a depth and maybe rotational piece at
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  Speaker 1: the most at those outside corner positions. And then the
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  Speaker 1: safeties Earl Little and Terry Moore a little out of
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  Speaker 1: Florida State. Terrry Moore out of Duke. He's someone who
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  Speaker 1: missed all of last year but was, you know, very impressive.
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  Speaker 1: It felt like the year before that. Where do you
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  Speaker 1: see the safeties, how do you feel to see those
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  Speaker 1: pieces sort of fitting together with the safeties. With those
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  Speaker 1: two new guys plus Jail and McLean, who fits in
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  Speaker 1: where who's playing the Caleb Downs role or and who's
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  Speaker 1: you know, who's playing the nickel spot or is that
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  Speaker 1: just kind of you've got guys and you're gonna the
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  Speaker 1: answer is going to be it depends from play to play.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean one kind of thing I've been trying to
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  Speaker 2: emphasize on Buck Ahead all and elsewhere is you know,
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  Speaker 2: that nickel role is a safety role. Like people are
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  Speaker 2: very focused on getting certain people following along. I've been
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  Speaker 2: very focused on getting a third corner. And my point
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  Speaker 2: is you don't really need a third corner other than
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  Speaker 2: a backup, you know, or depth player, Like it seems
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  Speaker 2: like Calhoun's going to be. You have Jermaine Matthews and
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  Speaker 2: you have Devin Sanchez who are penciled into play there,
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  Speaker 2: and the the nickel is like Lorenzo styles more as
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  Speaker 2: a safety, and you really saw that the limitations and
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  Speaker 2: why it's important for that person to be a safety
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  Speaker 2: type once he was out against Miami, because it just
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  Speaker 2: really limited what they could do coverage rise they started
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  Speaker 2: having to play a lot more man coverage. It limited
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  Speaker 2: their disguise and flexibility. So again, like you know, you're
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  Speaker 2: never going to replace a Caleb Downs, but the three
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  Speaker 2: safeties they now have are very interchangeable. So it will
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  Speaker 2: allow them again for Patricia to do a lot of
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  Speaker 2: the skies. You know, run a lot of Cover three,
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  Speaker 2: but run it from different ways. You don't you know
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  Speaker 2: which way the rotation's coming. Get in a lot of those,
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  Speaker 2: like you know, sim pressure non traditional Tampa looks that
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  Speaker 2: we've talked about that you know, Indiana and others use
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  Speaker 2: with success against oh Has State this year. So you know,
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  Speaker 2: based on like the reports, I think it seems like
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  Speaker 2: little will probably be the nickel, and I think that
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  Speaker 2: more will be in that Caleb Downs role, uh you know,
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  Speaker 2: more towards the line of scrimmage. But I think that
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  Speaker 2: they're going to have even more so compared to last year,
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  Speaker 2: a lot of flexibility and ability to like rotate guys
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  Speaker 2: depending on what the offense shows.
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  Speaker 1: You.
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  Speaker 2: So, like, obviously you wanted to do things to feature
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  Speaker 2: Caleb Downs in particular near the line of scrimmage last year.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think they'll have as much need to do
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  Speaker 2: that with one of the safeties compared to the others.
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  Speaker 2: But I do think that you will have the ability
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  Speaker 2: to really move and really disguise and you know, respond
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  Speaker 2: to motion and formation shifts for the offense. So I think,
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  Speaker 2: you know, it's sort of like a similar statement to
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  Speaker 2: the upfront like at all three levels, right, they have
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  Speaker 2: at least like an extra person to play with, right,
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  Speaker 2: So like if you want to go three linebackers, as
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  Speaker 2: I said, they certainly have you know, three of those.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I kind of could personally consider Roussel more
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  Speaker 2: of like an edge defensive end type. So we talked
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  Speaker 2: about how they have like, you know, five guys up
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  Speaker 2: front that they can kind of move around. They're actually
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  Speaker 2: like you know, you we didn't even talk about like
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  Speaker 2: Will Smith, but you know you can, you know, so
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  Speaker 2: you have different pieces depending on how you want to
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  Speaker 2: slock guys in. And then similar in the secondary, like
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  Speaker 2: I think you have three pretty interchangeable safeties in those
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  Speaker 2: three roles that allow you to do different things.
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  Speaker 1: And it feels like at this point they've basically checked
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  Speaker 1: off all the major items on their shopping list. Is
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  Speaker 1: there anything else that you're looking at right now that
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  Speaker 1: you think, you know, boy, it would be really nice
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  Speaker 1: if they could find one more guy here, or is
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  Speaker 1: there a role where that you think they might you know,
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  Speaker 1: maybe they should try and find one more piece, you know.
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  Speaker 3: Depth ease.
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  Speaker 1: I assume they're kind of getting towards the end of
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  Speaker 1: their NL budget and towards the end of their shopping
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  Speaker 1: list at this point. Or do you feel like they're
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  Speaker 1: in pretty good shape right now heading into the season
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  Speaker 1: on the defense?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I mean, obviously, you always from a
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  Speaker 2: team perspective, like to have more depth. You know, at
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  Speaker 2: first I thought that they needed to, you know, add
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  Speaker 2: more defensive tackle. It's just body wise. But as Devin
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  Speaker 2: Radcliffe front of the show pointed out to me, they
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  Speaker 2: actually have one more scholarship defensive tackle right now for
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  Speaker 2: next year than they did this year.
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  Speaker 3: And so although they lost you know.
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  Speaker 2: All the freshman to be sophomores like they have, they
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  Speaker 2: had four freshmen last year, the four next year, and
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  Speaker 2: four upper classmen guys, and all four of those upper
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  Speaker 2: classmen guys can all play. You know, you maybe want
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  Speaker 2: to add another defensive end, be nice to have probably
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  Speaker 2: another safety, like another nickel backup, right, But I think
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  Speaker 2: that you know, again as we saw like they got
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  Speaker 2: freshmen coming in like Bradford and others, like, you got
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  Speaker 2: to start playing those guys or they're going to, you know,
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  Speaker 2: quickly move on.
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  Speaker 3: So I think they're in pretty good shape.
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  Speaker 2: I think Calhoun it was a key pickup to get
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  Speaker 2: like some upper classman depth, so you know, I guess
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  Speaker 2: my general answer would be, like it would be nice
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  Speaker 2: to add an upper classman of that kind of like
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  Speaker 2: you know, doesn't necessarily expect to start, but you're just not.
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  Speaker 2: It's not just like the start upper classmen starters because
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  Speaker 2: they've definitely got older at those starting spots and then
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  Speaker 2: freshmen right, like you'd like to have some a little.
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  Speaker 3: Bit of buffer on that. But I agree with you.
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  Speaker 2: I think like in terms of impact players, certainly on
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  Speaker 2: the defense, I think they've probably locked up where they're
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  Speaker 2: going to be.
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  Speaker 3: Well.
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• 10:46
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• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you guys all for joining us.
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  Speaker 3: Have a great day.
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  Speaker 1: We will talk to you tomorrow.