Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Has Ohio State Finally Found Its Offensive Line?
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes Tomorrow Morning from Monday, December twenty third.
- 0:03Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tom Moore. The Oregon game in the
- 0:06Speaker 1: Rose Bowl is in nine days. The game against Michigan
- 0:09Speaker 1: in three hundred and forty one days. Oh boy, is
- 0:12Speaker 1: there a lot to talk about. This is going to
- 0:14Speaker 1: be one of these weeks where you get some bonus
- 0:16Speaker 1: episodes because only nine days till the Rose Bowl is
- 0:19Speaker 1: normally something we have a whole month to talk about
- 0:21Speaker 1: and set up and preview and break down. You're going
- 0:24Speaker 1: to get a bunch of bonus episodes on both the
- 0:26Speaker 1: Buckeyes Tomorrow Morning Feed and the Buckeye Weekly Feed. We're
- 0:29Speaker 1: going to try and front load these weeks as much
- 0:31Speaker 1: as possible. We know a lot of you guys are
- 0:32Speaker 1: probably traveling for the holidays and we'll probably be running
- 0:36Speaker 1: around quite a bit, and with schedules being what they are,
- 0:40Speaker 1: we are going to try and get you as much
- 0:41Speaker 1: stuff as we can early in the week. You can
- 0:43Speaker 1: then listen to it whenever your schedule permits. So, okay,
- 0:47Speaker 1: that's the plan for this week. Now here's the plan
- 0:49Speaker 1: for today's show. You're going to be hearing directly from
- 0:51Speaker 1: Ohio State head coach Bryan Day. He had a lot
- 0:53Speaker 1: of interesting stuff to talk about following the buckeyes forty
- 0:56Speaker 1: two to seventeen win over Tennessee inside Ohio Stadium on
- 0:59Speaker 1: Saturday night. Let's start with the first question, and this
- 1:02Speaker 1: is one where the reporter was almost a little apologetic,
- 1:05Speaker 1: But yeah, that was an incredibly before dominating performance for
- 1:09Speaker 1: the Buckeyes against the volunteers. Where has that been hiding
- 1:12Speaker 1: for the last month or so?
- 1:14Speaker 2: You know, I'm proud of our seniors for a lot
- 1:17Speaker 2: of reasons. One for the you know, the fact that
- 1:21Speaker 2: they were able to finish their last game at Ohio
- 1:23Speaker 2: Stadium with a win like that. And you know, I'm
- 1:27Speaker 2: also proud of the way that they responded. And you know,
- 1:31Speaker 2: I told them the locker room that you know, in life,
- 1:33Speaker 2: you know, you're gonna be defined by the way you
- 1:37Speaker 2: handle adversity in life, you know, as a person, as
- 1:39Speaker 2: a man, as a dad, and so you know, to
- 1:43Speaker 2: to see the way that they responded in this game,
- 1:45Speaker 2: you can tell from the jump that they had a
- 1:47Speaker 2: look in their eye that they were going to win
- 1:48Speaker 2: this game, and I thought they played that way. So
- 1:51Speaker 2: a lot of football ahead of us. Great win but
- 1:54Speaker 2: we're gonna enjoy this for twenty four hours and then
- 1:56Speaker 2: it's on to Oregon.
- 1:57Speaker 1: From a coaching perspective, what was different about the way
- 2:00Speaker 1: the coaches approached the game or called the game or
- 2:03Speaker 1: whatever against Tennessee as opposed to compared to some of
- 2:06Speaker 1: the last few games.
- 2:08Speaker 2: You know, I think it was a combination of things.
- 2:10Speaker 2: I think that it's a little bit of everything.
- 2:13Speaker 3: I think.
- 2:15Speaker 2: When you go back and look at the season, you know,
- 2:19Speaker 2: we talked about it going into the game.
- 2:20Speaker 3: We were a different team. You know, when we lost Seth.
- 2:23Speaker 2: We played that Indiana game, we got you know, the
- 2:25Speaker 2: punt return. Looking back on it, you know, we got
- 2:28Speaker 2: that turnover down in the red zone. We really didn't
- 2:31Speaker 2: play great on.
- 2:32Speaker 3: Offense in the Indiana game, truth be told.
- 2:34Speaker 2: And then we went into the last game and still
- 2:38Speaker 2: didn't quite know what the ramifications were of everything that
- 2:41Speaker 2: was going on based on who we had up front.
- 2:43Speaker 2: And you know, there was a lot of things that
- 2:45Speaker 2: played into that game, but certainly one of them was
- 2:48Speaker 2: we called this game more aggressively, There's no question about that.
- 2:52Speaker 2: But also I think we did some things in this
- 2:53Speaker 2: game that maximize what we have in terms of our
- 2:57Speaker 2: strengths and minimize our deficiencies. Not that everything was perfect
- 3:00Speaker 2: in this game. It wasn't, but I do think that.
- 3:04Speaker 2: And I also thought Will was was excellent in this game,
- 3:06Speaker 2: played really well, you know, did a really good job
- 3:10Speaker 2: of placing the ball in some big time throws. When
- 3:14Speaker 2: he needed to make plays with his legs he did.
- 3:17Speaker 2: And certainly Jeremiah, you know, was dynamite again, but it
- 3:21Speaker 2: Will was the leader. And but we also had balance
- 3:24Speaker 2: in this game. You know, it wasn't like it was
- 3:26Speaker 2: just throwing it all over the place, you know, we did.
- 3:28Speaker 2: We did have balance. We had some good runs and
- 3:30Speaker 2: those those hit for us, which makes a big difference
- 3:33Speaker 2: when you have that un run pass balance that we're
- 3:35Speaker 2: looking for. So, you know, this has got to continue.
- 3:38Speaker 2: This has got to build momentum, you know, going into
- 3:40Speaker 2: this next game.
- 3:41Speaker 1: The Buckeyes had one of their most dominant performances in
- 3:44Speaker 1: recent memory during the first quarter, going up twenty one
- 3:47Speaker 1: nothing on Tennessee before fifteen minutes of football had even
- 3:50Speaker 1: been played.
- 3:51Speaker 3: And then in the.
- 3:52Speaker 1: Second quarter, a couple of little breaks here and there,
- 3:55Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, it was only twenty one
- 3:58Speaker 1: to ten Buckeyes going into the halftime'me with Tennessee getting
- 4:01Speaker 1: the ball to start the third quarter and a chance
- 4:04Speaker 1: to maybe really steal back some momentum. So what was
- 4:06Speaker 1: the conversation like in the locker room at halftime.
- 4:09Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why we knew coming out in the second
- 4:11Speaker 2: half we had to we had to win the next
- 4:12Speaker 2: four to five minutes and we did and that that
- 4:15Speaker 2: really helped, because you're right, you know, you can feel
- 4:17Speaker 2: that way a little bit. But I say it them
- 4:19Speaker 2: all the time, coming in half time, E're they're gonna
- 4:21Speaker 2: be up down or it's gonna be tied, and so
- 4:22Speaker 2: now we have to go win the next five minutes
- 4:25Speaker 2: of the game. Four minutes of the game, and you know,
- 4:27Speaker 2: they deferred so they got the ball, so we had
- 4:28Speaker 2: to get that stop. We did and we went down
- 4:30Speaker 2: and scored and that made a huge difference. But but yeah,
- 4:33Speaker 2: you know, I tell the guys all the time that
- 4:36Speaker 2: you know, you're in games like this, you got to
- 4:39Speaker 2: have poise because there's ups and downs and you know
- 4:42Speaker 2: you can't get caught up in that. But yeah, I
- 4:44Speaker 2: mean there was a point there We're going we have
- 4:46Speaker 2: a chance to go up twenty eight to nothing, and
- 4:47Speaker 2: we through the interception. Great play, and I like the call.
- 4:51Speaker 2: I like how aggressive we were, because that's that's part
- 4:53Speaker 2: of it. When you're going to call the game aggressively,
- 4:55Speaker 2: something like this happens, you know, you have to be
- 4:57Speaker 2: one to work, you know, live with it. But but yeah, yeah,
- 5:00Speaker 2: I mean, you had a chance to score right there
- 5:01Speaker 2: and go twenty at nothing and the game's you know,
- 5:03Speaker 2: pretty much in hand at that.
- 5:04Speaker 3: Point, but they fought their way back in. But they're
- 5:07Speaker 3: a good team.
- 5:07Speaker 2: I mean, this is a very good SEC team that
- 5:10Speaker 2: came up here, and so we knew it wasn't going
- 5:12Speaker 2: to be easy.
- 5:13Speaker 1: This year's Ohio State team has been notorious for being
- 5:15Speaker 1: a somewhat slow starter. That was definitely not the case
- 5:18Speaker 1: Saturday night in the Horseshoe. They took the opening kickoff,
- 5:21Speaker 1: went right down the field, bing bang boom, touchdown to
- 5:23Speaker 1: Jeremiah Smith, and they were off to the races with
- 5:25Speaker 1: a seven to nothing lead. So, after having several games
- 5:29Speaker 1: with some slow starts, how big was it for the
- 5:31Speaker 1: Buckeyes to get off is such a good start on Saturday.
- 5:35Speaker 3: And just the execution.
- 5:36Speaker 2: We've talked about that the last few weeks and some
- 5:38Speaker 2: of the press conference we've been in that.
- 5:40Speaker 3: I know, you know, you've heard us harp.
- 5:42Speaker 2: On execution, execution, execution, because there's a lot of things
- 5:45Speaker 2: coming out of that last game that you know, we
- 5:48Speaker 2: just looked back on and like, we just didn't execute
- 5:50Speaker 2: very well. We did, you know, and certainly there are
- 5:53Speaker 2: there are things that we needed to do better in
- 5:55Speaker 2: terms of scheme, but we also you know, didn't execute.
- 5:57Speaker 2: I thought we've you know, for the most part, fielded
- 5:59Speaker 2: the kicks better in this game. I thought, you know,
- 6:02Speaker 2: we blocked better in this game. I thought we ran
- 6:04Speaker 2: through contact better in this game. And certainly we threw
- 6:06Speaker 2: and caught better in this game and that that made
- 6:08Speaker 2: a huge difference in it. But you're right, there was
- 6:11Speaker 2: there was a confidence coming out of that first quarter
- 6:14Speaker 2: because you know, we were playing with a lot of energy,
- 6:15Speaker 2: but even coming out of warm ups, you could feel it.
- 6:19Speaker 2: You know, there was these guys wanted to play in
- 6:21Speaker 2: this game, and there was there was a confidence they
- 6:23Speaker 2: got built through practice, and I thought we had a
- 6:26Speaker 2: good game plan going in. I think the guys believed
- 6:28Speaker 2: in it and that went a long way to get
- 6:30Speaker 2: that first drive.
- 6:32Speaker 1: Before Saturday night, the last time the Buckeyes left the
- 6:34Speaker 1: field at Ohio Stadium. It was not quite a celebratory
- 6:38Speaker 1: mood for them and or their fan base. Was they
- 6:40Speaker 1: lost to Michigan, of course, So how did the buck
- 6:43Speaker 1: Eyes get from point A to point B there over
- 6:46Speaker 1: that three week span? Obviously no one was in a
- 6:48Speaker 1: great place mentally or anything else after that Michigan game.
- 6:52Speaker 1: So how did they get to the point where they
- 6:54Speaker 1: were able to turn the page and do what they
- 6:56Speaker 1: did to Tennessee just three weeks later?
- 6:59Speaker 2: The first week was an identification of the issues. You
- 7:03Speaker 2: don't just move on from the game. You have to
- 7:06Speaker 2: identify what the issues are and have real conversation with
- 7:08Speaker 2: the players, allow them to speak because they're invested in this.
- 7:13Speaker 2: And then you know, coaches have there their two cents,
- 7:17Speaker 2: and and you know, you give it about a week
- 7:20Speaker 2: and then you put a plan together and how we're
- 7:23Speaker 2: going to move forward, how we are gonna get these
- 7:24Speaker 2: things fixed, and then you figure out who your opponent is.
- 7:26Speaker 3: We found out it was Tennessee and.
- 7:28Speaker 2: That's where the two weeks of work went. And it
- 7:32Speaker 2: got about Wednesday of this week. You could tell these
- 7:34Speaker 2: guys just wanted to get on the field. It have
- 7:35Speaker 2: been a long lead up for us, you know, weeks.
- 7:38Speaker 3: And it does.
- 7:39Speaker 2: You know, to say it doesn't weigh on you, it does.
- 7:40Speaker 2: We had a lot of pride and who we are,
- 7:42Speaker 2: and these guys have a lot of pride, and you know,
- 7:45Speaker 2: these guys they love each other and they're a great
- 7:48Speaker 2: representation of Ohio State. And you know, I'm glad that
- 7:52Speaker 2: they were able to, you know, for that last game,
- 7:54Speaker 2: for those seniors to finish with a win. But they
- 7:57Speaker 2: are not satisfied at all. I mean, they quickly are
- 8:01Speaker 2: going to get their focus on Oregon, which is going
- 8:03Speaker 2: to be a rematch for USh, which is exciting, and
- 8:06Speaker 2: going into a great opportunity to go play in the
- 8:08Speaker 2: rose Ball again.
- 8:09Speaker 3: And so.
- 8:12Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it says a lot about who our
- 8:15Speaker 2: guys are that we're able to respond like that in
- 8:18Speaker 2: a big way.
- 8:19Speaker 1: One of the things that Ryan Day has been preaching
- 8:21Speaker 1: all season long is leave no doubt. Don't look put
- 8:25Speaker 1: yourself in a position where, hey, one call you don't
- 8:28Speaker 1: agree with with the officials, or one bad bounce or
- 8:30Speaker 1: whatever can turn a win into a loss. I've had
- 8:34Speaker 1: some close losses in previous year's. Day is determined to
- 8:36Speaker 1: not have that happen again. To them in the College
- 8:38Speaker 1: Football Playoff, So how important it was it for them
- 8:41Speaker 1: to really step on Tennessee's neck and leave no doubt.
- 8:45Speaker 3: That's it, you know.
- 8:46Speaker 2: And even there were a couple of points in the
- 8:48Speaker 2: game where you know, there's some couple of calls and
- 8:50Speaker 2: you know, different things where you know in the past,
- 8:52Speaker 2: when you have one of these games it comes down
- 8:54Speaker 2: to the last play, you can look to those as
- 8:56Speaker 2: game altering plays. But when you leave no doubt, you know, no,
- 9:00Speaker 2: you'll talk about those plays because we did, and there
- 9:02Speaker 2: was a few opportunities in this game to do that
- 9:04Speaker 2: very thing fourth down stop. You know, there was again
- 9:10Speaker 2: that those drives right there in the third quarter that
- 9:13Speaker 2: I felt like allowed us an opportunity to pull away
- 9:15Speaker 2: when the defense was getting stops.
- 9:18Speaker 1: One of the big storylines in questions going into the
- 9:20Speaker 1: game for the Buckeyes was the offensive line, and specifically
- 9:22Speaker 1: the two guard positions, where Ryan Day said in the
- 9:25Speaker 1: middle of the last week that, well, they were thinking
- 9:26Speaker 1: about rotating three different players there between those two guard positions,
- 9:30Speaker 1: and everyone kind of looked around the room and went, uh, okay,
- 9:34Speaker 1: if that's the plan, And then the plan seemed like
- 9:37Speaker 1: it worked reasonably well, Luke Montgomery, Austin Sirevel taker Shabola
- 9:41Speaker 1: split the snaps between left guard and right guard. Not
- 9:44Speaker 1: exactly standard operating procedure, but it seemed to work out
- 9:47Speaker 1: just fine.
- 9:48Speaker 3: How did Luke Montgomery.
- 9:49Speaker 1: Do in his first start? And how did Austin Seiravel
- 9:52Speaker 1: do bouncing between left guard and right guard? And after
- 9:55Speaker 1: you hear Day answered, there's gonna be like a little
- 9:57Speaker 1: bit of a silence. That was a quick follow up question.
- 10:00Speaker 1: It's kind of hard to hear. But the gist of
- 10:02Speaker 1: it is basically whether they're going to continue rotating those
- 10:04Speaker 1: guys moving forward When you.
- 10:06Speaker 2: When you don't notice the guards, they're doing pretty well.
- 10:09Speaker 2: I noticed Luke's energy, toughness and edge. I got to
- 10:12Speaker 2: watch the film and see how we did. But you know,
- 10:17Speaker 2: we we blocked them much better in this game, and
- 10:19Speaker 2: they have a good front. I thought we got some
- 10:22Speaker 2: of the gap schemes going, some good double teams. It
- 10:24Speaker 2: wasn't all perfect by any means, but and we'll have
- 10:27Speaker 2: to continue to diversify.
- 10:28Speaker 3: Going into the next game.
- 10:29Speaker 2: But I thought we at least, you know, focused on
- 10:33Speaker 2: the things that these guys could do well, and now
- 10:34Speaker 2: we got to build on it, and and and and
- 10:37Speaker 2: they played with confidence, They played with energy. You could
- 10:39Speaker 2: see after you know, we scored a couple of the touchdowns.
- 10:41Speaker 2: I mean they were they were jacked up and uh
- 10:43Speaker 2: coming off the field with good energy. And the leaders
- 10:46Speaker 2: of that group certainly is Donovan Jackson, Josh Fryar and
- 10:49Speaker 2: and great to see Carson play well. Look like anyways,
- 10:51Speaker 2: from my point of view watching the game on the
- 10:54Speaker 2: tablet that he played well. So you know, that allows
- 10:58Speaker 2: us to have a balance and as you know, that's
- 11:00Speaker 2: a huge part of it. Yeah, we'll have to look
- 11:04Speaker 2: at it and see, but it seems healthy to me
- 11:06Speaker 2: to get those guys, you know, involved in the game.
- 11:09Speaker 1: Well, there were plenty of questions about the Buckeye offense,
- 11:11Speaker 1: there were many fewer questions about the Buckeye defense coming
- 11:14Speaker 1: in and they once again were up to the test
- 11:16Speaker 1: against Tennessee. Another dominant performance out of them. What did
- 11:20Speaker 1: Ryan d see out of the defense and is this
- 11:22Speaker 1: something they can continue to build on moving forward against it?
- 11:26Speaker 2: Well, they're playing with confidence and coming off the last game,
- 11:31Speaker 2: I think they felt like, you know, we have to
- 11:34Speaker 2: go win the game. But when the offense is playing
- 11:37Speaker 2: to their potential, like they were today, then now it's
- 11:40Speaker 2: complimentary and you can end up with a game like
- 11:42Speaker 2: we did tonight. So you just never know. It could
- 11:45Speaker 2: be like the Oregon game. It could be like you know,
- 11:47Speaker 2: the last game of the season. You know, you just
- 11:50Speaker 2: never know how those games are going to shake out,
- 11:52Speaker 2: and we have to do whatever we can to win.
- 11:54Speaker 2: We've talked about that before. Just win the game, and
- 11:58Speaker 2: so we got to win three more.
- 12:00Speaker 1: Will Howard did not play his best game against Michigan.
- 12:02Speaker 1: That might have been his best game however against Tennessee.
- 12:06Speaker 1: Eighty three percent completion, three hundred eleven yards, two touchdowns,
- 12:10Speaker 1: plus thirty seven yards rushing and some of those passes
- 12:13Speaker 1: were absolute dimes. So how did he improve? Where did
- 12:17Speaker 1: he improve so much over the last three weeks.
- 12:19Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought his footwork was good.
- 12:21Speaker 2: I thought that, you know, we worked hard on some
- 12:23Speaker 2: of those throws and he had a few of those
- 12:27Speaker 2: right on the money. Yeah, fade ball and the goal
- 12:29Speaker 2: ball were really well done. I thought the levels ball too,
- 12:32Speaker 2: Carnell was a really really well thrown ball, probably missing
- 12:36Speaker 2: a few others, but yeah, he was. He was accurate today.
- 12:39Speaker 2: And you know a big thing for Will is his footwork.
- 12:42Speaker 2: And when his footwork's on point and when he's seeing things, well,
- 12:47Speaker 2: you know, he's as good as anybody in the country.
- 12:50Speaker 1: And finally, a little bit more of a big picture conversation. Obviously,
- 12:53Speaker 1: anytime the SEC does anything, college football's main character conference
- 12:58Speaker 1: has to have part of that conversation. So we're going
- 13:00Speaker 1: to talk briefly with Ranny Day about the Big Ten.
- 13:03Speaker 1: Good start for the Big Ten. Two first round playoff wins.
- 13:07Speaker 1: Buckeyes and Penn State both had some dominant wins. Indiana
- 13:10Speaker 1: of course lost Oregon Waiting in the quarterfinals, so that
- 13:14Speaker 1: means three Big Ten teams out of eight in the
- 13:16Speaker 1: College Football playoff quarterfinals. What does that performance mean for
- 13:19Speaker 1: the league?
- 13:21Speaker 3: You know, the Big Ten has great football.
- 13:23Speaker 2: I think that you know, we play nine conference games,
- 13:26Speaker 2: so we beat each other up sometimes. But when you
- 13:29Speaker 2: have an opportunity like this against a very good SEC team,
- 13:32Speaker 2: you know, we we know how important it is for
- 13:35Speaker 2: the conference, and you know, great to see some of
- 13:37Speaker 2: the other teams in the league representing well because it
- 13:40Speaker 2: is a great conference and a very difficult conference.
- 13:44Speaker 1: Well, two of those Big Ten teams will be facing
- 13:46Speaker 1: off in the Rose Bowl, Buckeyes and Oregon Ducks New
- 13:48Speaker 1: Year's Day, five pm on ESPN. We will be there,
- 13:53Speaker 1: going to be a great a great game, always a
- 13:56Speaker 1: great event, always a great day out in Pasadena. Said
- 13:59Speaker 1: it before, I will say it again. If you have
- 14:01Speaker 1: the opportunity, go do it, you should do it. It
- 14:04Speaker 1: is a fantastic college football experience. Should be a fantastic
- 14:07Speaker 1: game as well. Buckeyes and Ducks at a one point
- 14:10Speaker 1: game the last time they met. A lot has changed
- 14:13Speaker 1: with the Buckeyes since then, both for good and for bad,
- 14:16Speaker 1: with injuries and an improved defense and some other stuff.
- 14:19Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about all of that stuff
- 14:21Speaker 1: coming up this week at bucke huddle dot com and
- 14:24Speaker 1: at YouTube dot com slash bucke Huddle. We hope to
- 14:26Speaker 1: see it in both of those places. If you are
- 14:28Speaker 1: not subscribed, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel
- 14:31Speaker 1: a YouTube dot com slash bucke Huddle, and they want
- 14:34Speaker 1: to get great insight analysis and in depth reporting. You
- 14:37Speaker 1: can sign up as to become a member of bucke
- 14:39Speaker 1: Huddle dot com as well, just four ninety nine for
- 14:41Speaker 1: your first month, and that first month, well you sign
- 14:44Speaker 1: up now, that'll get you all the way through what
- 14:47Speaker 1: could be a National Championship game appearance for the buck
- 14:49Speaker 1: Eyes less than a month away. Crazy how fast we
- 14:54Speaker 1: are getting to the end of the college football season.
- 14:56Speaker 1: You should make sure you enjoy every day of it
- 14:58Speaker 1: at bucke huddle dot com. We'll do it for today.
- 15:00Speaker 1: Thank you guys all for joining us. Have a great day.
- 15:03Speaker 3: We'll talk to you tomorrow.