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Ross Fulton Analysis: Lessons From Ohio State's Defense Against Michigan · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Saturday, December ninth. I'm your host,
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  tom Or the Cotton Bowl game against Missouri in twenty days, the game against
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  Michigan in three hundred and fifty seven days. Today, we're going to be
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  taking a look back at the previous game against Michigan more sort of using it
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  in terms of some big picture stuff with the Ohio State defense. We're doing
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  that with our good buddy Ross Fulton, the ex's and o's guru at buckey
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  Huddle dot com. And of course every time Ross is on the show,
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  we are proudly presented by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse, probably offering a nationally acclaimed USDA
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  attention to detail that is simply unmatched. Just go to Jeff Ruby dot com
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  slash Columbus, just check out the menu and make a reservation today. All
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  right, Ross, we got to talk about the Ohio State defense and what
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  they were doing, and we were talking before the show, and you said
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  they really were doing kind of like one of two things that were kind of
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  very different on defense. One was very aggressive, one was pretty not aggressive.
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  So let's start with the aggressive half of the Ohio State defense. What
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  were they doing? And you know, it seems like, at least to
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  this example, it works, So why didn't they do it more? Yeah,
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  So it was an interesting like in the first quarter they played a bunch
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  of soft cover four. Then the second quarter, like we're going to show
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  here, they played a pretty aggressive cover one where you're like playing Cover one
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  over like corners or fall and receivers or chasing motion. And then they went
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  back to the soft cover four And so it was one of two things.
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  So as you said, like this is an example of like the more aggressive
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  posture, right, So, like you're you got motion here to the flat,
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  you have Denzel Burke chasing the motion, so you know you have everyone
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  up on theirmand Michigan does run mesh here, which is a Cover one beater,
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  but no one gets open and my call makes a sack, which is
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  essentially like maybe the one negative play Ohio State created during this game. And
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  so I think in theory and Michigan obviously expected a lot of man coverage from
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  Ohio State. You could see in like some of their concepts early and they
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  weren't getting it, I think in theory or to argue that this was probably
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  how a High State was most effective against Michigan with this more aggressive cover one
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  gap everything out. The problem was, like I do understand, and it
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  makes total sense. Why you can't do this every play, like we saw
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  the problems when Carrie comes this hair. Why you can't do this every play,
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  like teams started motioning you to death, Like this is sort of a
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  light version of this. You saw one play like where Michigan Yo yo Jordan
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  Hancock with Donovan Edwards and he was like chasing him back and forth and back
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  and forth. It like was reminded me of the Alabama touchdown on the National
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  Championship game, or like Michigan in response to this kind of cover one brought
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  in their backup quarterback to run wildcat. You know, they ran the countertrait
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  bash and they sent a guy in motion and so High State followed and they
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  had no force defender. So it makes sense why Ohio State and Jim Knowles
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  was mixing Cover one with something. The interesting thing just is, like we
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  can get into here is like the fact that they were playing Cover four at
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  all because it was just for I would say the first two months of the
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  year, like they really have ever played cover four, and then starting with
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  Rutgers it really became more and more part of their system and like not an
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  aggressive cover four like Country or really soft cover four. And whether that was
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  it's hard to you know cause and effect here, whether it was starting with
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  Rutgers they started playing some teams in Michigan falls in this category of a quarterback
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  who could run replays in theory or designed runs and hurt you, and you
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  want to have the safeties available to help against the run, or it was
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  because of the loss of Lathan Ranson and having to move sunny styles to boundary
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  safety and whether you want to keep things more simple because of the loss of
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  that experience, or you know, Sunny Styles is two hundred and thirty hounds.
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  You know, it limits what you can do coverage wise. I just
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  don't know the answer to that. Probably maybe some combination there of but like
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  you know, as we can see in these next two plays, then the
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  problem was, like the way they're running cover for remain gave Michigan some openings.
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  All right, Well, then let's let's go straight to that because we're
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  talking about that sort of soft cover for coverage. Why why does this why
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  how does this leave openings for Michigan to do what they want to do.
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  Yeah, and so this is like gets into some of my frustration going on
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  multiple years now with the Ohio State defense and just the kind of overly simplistic
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  schemes that they continued to run. And so you know, when Ohio State
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  was playing this cover for they were just basically lining up to the field and
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  no matter how Michigan aligned, they didn't adjust. And so like, so
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  first, so you know, we'll start that hurt Ohio State two ways.
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  It hurt them the passing game to the field with the tight end, and
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  then the run game to the boundary. So we start with the passing game,
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  right, and so we have because you're not adjusting like particularly you have
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  here only three underneath defenders, right, you're playing cover four like a soft
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  cover four, so you have a lot of room to cover underneath. And
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  then Michigan motions and so they have trips to the field. They know that
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  Ohio State's non cover one. By the way, as we discussed, like
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  they weren't chasing the motion. Jordan Hancock stays away. So now instead of
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  like flipping your scheme or shifting your coverage. You now have Jordan Hancock here
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  to the backside with no one to cover. Right, I guess a theory
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  of back out of the backfield could come to that side. And now you
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  have your two linebackers who are now pushed out of the box and responsible for
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  these underneath routes here to the passing strength and you know, Michigan runs just
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  a little sticker oute. Obviously it's exacerbated by Eikenberg missing the tackle, But
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  like, there's ways to deal with this, Like if you want to run
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  Cover four, you can sort of spin your Cover four to the field.
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  You can run poach coverage with the backside safety. There's I mean there's Cover
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  four is designed to deal with trips and changes of formations. It's just like,
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  again, they just were sort of very conservative and how they did this
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  to the point that it was pretty easy to exploit, and the Michigan was
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  able to exploit it not just in the past game, but also in the
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  run game. This next one is, uh, this is I believe this
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  is the Blake Korum touchdown. Right, the next one we're gonna be talking
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  about, Yeah, yeah, the long Blake corm touchdown. Yeah, I
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  mean this is this is one where Michigan it felt like all day Michigan was
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  just kind of like three yards, four yards, two yards, and all
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  of a sudden, like boom, they pop a long one right after the
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  Zach Center injury too for a touchdown. So what what ronfer Ohios did on
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  this one? Yeah, And this is sort of like the weird dynamic of
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  this game is you can argue it both ways, right, I mean,
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  Ohio State did with its strategy largely limit Michigan to sort of dink and dunking
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  down the field and force them to string drives together. And Michigan's explosive plays
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  generally came out of like they ran a couple of trick plays or mistackles which
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  didn't happen all that often. So it's a perfectly reasonable to argue that like
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  this strategy was enough for Ohio State to win this game. And you know,
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  but for again like the early interception that put them on the eight ball,
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  but on the flip side, Like I just from a scheme perspective,
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  I just I find it frustrating, just like making things harder on yourself than
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  you need too. So like yeah, you get to this play again.
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  So Michigan comes out and they have twelve personnel or actually twenty one. They
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  have a full back, and so like Ohio State responded to this a lot
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  with a four to three with Cody Simon. Again, like this might have
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  been an artifact of Lathan Ransom's injury because you have to play Siles as a
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  deep safety. But like whenever Michigan got Simon in the game, they would
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  just do this, which is like, Okay, we know you want to
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  put your four three to the field, and so we're going to put like
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  twins or trips to the field and a nub tight end or a run strength
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  to the boundary, And all that would do is just pull Simon out of
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  the flat. So now he basically has to play way out in space,
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  and now you have a cornerback to the boundary responsible for the backside sea gap
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  taking on an offensive tackle. And so again you're just like, those are
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  not the matchups you want. So like they exploit it by throwing some at
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  Simon or running it away from him, and again so like here they run
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  this isolation play and so Chambers has to fill to that side because you're creating
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  an extra gap, so he has to fill to the field, and again
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  you have Davis and Iguanos and taking on an offensive tackle to play the sea
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  gap. You know, it's not the cause of this play being a big
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  but it certainly doesn't help. And like it was fortunate that its corners were
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  pretty physical and could do this kind of stuff. But you have Styles filling
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  from depth. You know, he hadn't played a ton back there. He
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  had some struggles doing this. He misses the tackles, so that exacerbates the
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  issue. But like, again, there's just easier ways to do this right.
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  So like you could bump JT. Twomlo out inside instead of having them
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  super wide outside the tight end and at least get Igan Nosen out of playing
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  it into your run gap. You could spin your coverage to the field,
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  such like if you want to still run cover four, you basically bump everyone
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  over. So like you know, Proctor gets over the slot, Styles pushes
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  to where Procter is, Igman Nosen now becomes essentially like a deep quarters player
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  to that side, and now you can bump your linebackers back or like you
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  run to steel like Michigan did. Is another example of like Essentially, all
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  they're doing with that where we talked about is like bumping the coverage to the
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  field where you're the passing strength, so you have more run defenders of the
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  boundary. So again, like this didn't kill them throughout the game, but
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  it's sort of frustrating because it's just not a it's not best practices, right,
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  And so I think this just again gets to like we did not see
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  Jim Knowles do this at Oklahoma State, and it's just still like sort of
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  just pretty simplistic. So like whether this is just a result of like the
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  clash between Jim Knowles and Larry Johnson in terms of like Larry Johnson wanting to
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  play four down and have every defensive lineman have one gap and so now you
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  got to fill gaps with dbs and it just limits what you can do.
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  I don't know the answer, but I just still think that it's holding them
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  back on defense. Well, you mentioned how they were broadly successful in forcing
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  Michigan dink and dunk down the field with that kind of more conservative approach.
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  The problem is that Michigan was able to dink and dunk down the field,
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  then they didn't force any punts in the second half. The Michigan scored on
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  every drive in the second half other than the kneel down at the end of
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  the game. So you know, I think there were a lot of people
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  wondering when are they going to get more aggressive? And they did get more
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  aggressive eventually, but this play comes at the two oh seven mark of the
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  fourth quarter, which was pretty darn late in the football game where they finally
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  do get aggressive and get some good results. So how did they get more
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  aggressive here? And you know, was it too late at that point?
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  He asked leadingly. Yeah. I mean that's partially why I've included this to
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  show that, a, like, there are things they could have done and
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  be I think even with their strategy, even if you want to argue that
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  their strategy was the right one, because it limited Michigan to getting big plays.
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  Again, like, I even question that because Michigan has not been an
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  explosive offense this year. I'm not quite sure what they were co so concerned
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  about. And my opinion, especially even after watching JJ McCarthy against Iowa as
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  well, is like he's pretty good if you just like give him those easy
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  like flat completions or like tight end stick routes. If you force him to
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  like go through his reads downfield, that's where he can make mistakes. And
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  we saw that as well when Ohio State ransom Cover one. So again,
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  like you can't just run cover one every play. I'm not sure why their
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  only option was like to run this cover for but like even putting that aside
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  the last drive, like you just can't sit back, and they finally like
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  they finally here stepped up and brought like a sea gap Cody Simon blitz and
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  slanted their off their defensive line and made a stop. It's just unfortunate that
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  it took that long because now Michigan was in field goal range. You've had
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  five minutes run off the clock. So I think if a strategy that even
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  so would have probably even made more sense of obviously ever got a lead,
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  you know, it just it's a little too little, too late, And
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  I just still think it makes you wondering, like what does Jim Knowles want
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  to do? On defense? Again, we saw like quite a change this
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  year from like playing a bunch of Cover one with some Cover two mixed in
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  and then there's no cover twuogas Michigan all a Suddeny're playing a bunch of cover
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  four and it was just kind of an interesting path they took while playing very
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  good defense throughout the year. But I just still think that, like,
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  again, there's some tools in the toolbox that are still missing that are going
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  to hold them back from being a really you know, first as good as
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  they were like sp plus on defense, they never could really impose themselves right
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  Like. It was more like we'll give up a couple of drives and then
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  we'll like tighten the screws down a little bit, or like the opponent will
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  make a mistake. It was never sort of like we can assert ourselves.
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  And I think these are part of the reasons, Like that's what they still
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  need is more tools to be able to do that and some balance between uber
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  aggressiveness and being passive, you know. And again that goes back to more
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  creepers, more fire zones, like ways to bring some pressure without selling out.
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  Well, if you want to talk more about this and any of this
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  stuff we talked about on today's show, or any of the other stuff Ross
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  has talked about in previous weeks, a great place to do that would be
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  the Huddle Board presented by Jeff Ruby at bucke Huddle dot com. It is
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  a members only board where we have lots of schematic talk. Devin and Mickey
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  and Ross answer lots and Justin answered lots and lots of questions for you.
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  There are whole threads just about we'll put up a thread with this with this
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  video with some of the video clips from the games, you actually see what
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  we're talking about, and then those guys will be answering questions and making you
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  a smarter football fan. All that is exclusive to met Buckeye Huddle members at
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  That will do it for today. Thank you guys all for joining us.
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  Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.