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Is The Ohio State Offense Ready For Penn State? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to buck Eyes Tomorrow Morning for Wednesday, October eighteenth. I'm your host,
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  Tom Moore. The Penn State game is in three days, the game
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  against Michigan in thirty eight days worth the point where I can just do these
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  bikes didn't I didn't even think about it. That's uh, We're getting it.
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  It's about to get real. Tony Gerdaman Bluck guy is about to face
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  one of their biggest challenges, probably the biggest challenge so far this season with
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  the Penn State. Nitney lyons we're inside of what he gays Athletic Center.
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  Just got a chance to talk to Ryan Day and Jim Knowles and Chris Holton,
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  probably mostly going to focus on the first two today. This is it
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  is a pretty significant football game. This is a game where you've got two
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  quarterbacks. You've got Drew Awler, who Ryan Day talked a little bit about
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  recruiting, and you got Tomic Cord, who is Ryan Day's starting quarterback.
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  You got actually a third quarterback because we got to talk about the Devin Brown
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  package too. But this is a game where you got two first year starting
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  quarterbacks in McCord and alur. It just it feels like we are headed for
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  a game that he's gonna be low scoring. And there were four four fair
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  you know, fairly close, and it might very well come down to one
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  of those guys making a play, either a good play or a bad play.
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  Well, we haven't seen Drew ally throw an interception yet this year.
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  They gets twelve touchdowns to no interceptions. So forcing that interception, forcing those
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  turnovers starts with a defensive line and just creating some discomfort there. He's checked
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  down a lot, he's been safe with the ball, and that's that's a
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  tough guy to trap when he's always looking for his outlets. So that's gonna
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  be interesting to watch the penn State quarterback from Ohio. The Ohio State quarterback.
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  Not a lot of people know this. Philadelphia is in Pennsylvania, so
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  it's interesting little sidebar there. Yeah, that is kind of an interesting little
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  spin on spin on things. And Drew Aller was someone who ran date kind
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  of made a run at late in the process from Northeast Ohio. He was
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  someone who sort of came on late in the process and just sort of was
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  rated okay, and then just kind of the more people saw him, the
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  better he was, and the higher he ended up going up the up the
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  ladder. But the Drew Alller story is really kind of a spin off of
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  the Queen Youewers story, Yeah for sure. And the reason Ohio State didn't
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  really recruit Drew Aller is because they had Queen Yours in that same class class
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  of twenty twenty two, and then when quin you Weres reclassified the twenty twenty
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  one, now they needed a quarterback in the twenty twenty two class. So
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  they reached out to Drew Awler, who has already had already been committed to
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  Penn State for a while, and he was like, you know, kind
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  of thanks, but no thanks. I really like it here and I've seen
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  him tell other people that, you know, barring anything unforeseen, he wasn't
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  going to change his mind. And so Ryan Day said, I respected the
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  family, respected the decision, but you had to you had to check.
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  I mean, you don't know unless you ask, and so you shoot your
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  shot and then you get shot down. Yeah, you missed one hundred percent
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  of the quarterback conversations you don't have. And you know, Ohio State ended
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  up coming out of that twenty twenty two class with Devin Brown and Devin Brown
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  is someone who is maybe going to play a bigger role in this game than
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  we would have thought seven days ago, because Devin Brown obviously was involved in
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  that goal line package. And you know, Ryan Day was asked, you
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  know, is that something you're planning on doing this weekend? And shockingly,
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  he did not answer the question directly. That was the one that I was
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  like, boy, I'm not expecting a yes or no answer on this one.
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  But it does sound like that's something they are planning to continue using in
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  the future, whether it's this weekend or after that. Yeah, and not
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  just using what we've seen, but building off of it and doing other things,
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  because that's basically one of the things he talked about. You can't just
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  do that, so you have to do something off of it as well.
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  And so it'll be interesting when do they show the off of it? When
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  do they show the tangent against US is against Penn State. And one of
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  the questions we had was why do it? Why show it against Purdue?
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  And then he talked about a little bit about that just wanting to see it
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  and action you do it, You grab to see it and action against Purdue
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  to know if you should even break it out against Penn State, because if
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  it doesn't work at all against Purdue, you're like, well, I guess
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  the names is our question. Yeah, that reminds me of two thousand and
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  eight when Terrell Pryor, another quarterback from Pennsylvania, came into the game and
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  against Penn State. He was the starter for Ohio State games at home.
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  This was a primetime game, probably about the same time of the year,
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  and Terrell Prior had one mistake, He had a fumble near midfield and boy,
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  that was it. They'd lost the game, I think ten to six.
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  So, yeah, this is a very high stakes game. You want
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  to I kind of got the idea when he was talking about it, just
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  you break it out in a little bit of a lower stake situation, and
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  at Purdue is a little bit more of a there's a little more tolerance for
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  mistakes or you know, if you're concerned about a potential mistake there, then
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  there will be this Saturday against Penn State. Someone else we saw a bunch
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  last week that he was asked, are we going to see more this weekend?
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  Is Delan Hayden, And you know, he went into a little more
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  detail about the why in terms of Whydlan Hayden has not necessarily taken on the
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  role that ink lot of Ohio State fans would like to see him have.
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  But also, you know, he didn't sound like it wasn't. It definitely
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  was not. Yeah, and now he's RB one, no for sure,
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  and they are still going to explore the red shirting situation. They said that's
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  a decision they don't have to make right now. They might have to make
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  it in a couple of weeks, so that'll be something to watch. But
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  you know, it's not been ball control, it's not been fumbling the ball
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  in practice that has kept him off the field. Sounds more like some pass
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  protection issues going on, even though I don't know that rand A specifically,
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  you know said that, But you have to read between the lot of listen
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  between the words hear the notes that the coach doesn't say well, and you
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  can also you can find on the huddle board at Buckey huddle dot com.
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  I've already recorded the two shows with Ross Fulton for this week. Uh,
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  those will be going up on you know in it one day for the offense,
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  in two days for the defense. They're already posted on our huddle board.
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  The offense show, the Defense show go up a little later on today,
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  but I want to I asked Ross about that. I said, you
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  know, I was kind of getting the vibe from Ryan Day's postgame press conference
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  that it was maybe a Blitz pickup pass pro kind of situation, and he
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  said he does. You know, he has seen some of that as a
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  potential issue. Hiden, just not quite. You know, he's not as
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  big as Chip training, so you're you know, if you've got a defensive
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  lineman, you would rather have a chip trainum size running back there. And
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  so then it just becomes a matter of sort of risk tolerance and balancing.
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  Because Ryan Day did say when he's got the ball in his hands, he's
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  doing he's doing great stuff. And you know, he looks best with the
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  football in his hands. So I'm sure there are a lot of people saying,
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  well, then, you know what you should put in his hands more
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  on Saturday. But at that board, yes, that's that is the reason
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  why that may may or may not happen. Uh. Speaking of other things
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  that may or may not happen, let's talk about the status of all of
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  the injured Buck Eyes, Denzel Berg, Trey Bion, Henderson, and Mecca,
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  Abuca, Mia and Williams. Am I missing anyone? Uh No?
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  I think that's those are the ones he got asked directly about. Yeah,
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  and Tony, why don't you fill us in on all of the news that
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  we learned of those guys? According to Ryan Day, he hopes that they'll
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  all be back, so great. I think the bigger news would be if
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  the coach says, well, I hope they're not back. Yeah, yeah,
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  yeah, So very very little information, very little, nuanced, very
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  much coach speak, one oh one. But I don't know that. I
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  mean, I don't think we've heard that any of these things are significant or
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  severe. And he's normally told us if it was. But I don't know
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  that he's ever going to be very open prior to a Penn State game or
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  a Michigan game. Right. This is one of those things where you know,
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  why why did you show the Devin On package the week before? While
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  there's a reason why why would he tell us? Yeah? Where you know,
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  make them, make you know, make Penn State prepare for something else,
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  make Penn State wonder are you gonna have a mecha book? Are you
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  gonna have tre Van Henderson? Are you gonna have Jim train him, or
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  are you're gonna have Miyane Williams, I mean all the Denzel Bert. These
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  are all potentially very consequential players for how this Saturday's game shakes out. So
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  make make Penn State wonder until the last possible mind. Well, yeah,
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  and if you'd say yeah, a Mecca is gonna be back, that means
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  the defensive staff doesn't necessarily have to go look at Brandon Edis And how far
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  back do you have to go to find stuff on Brandon it is? So
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  it's just it's the wasting of time, yeah, situation that coaches love to
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  make other coaches do. For being a fraternity in a brotherhood, the coaching
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  brotherhood, they really like to give each other dog work. No one in
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  a fraternity has ever wasted time before Tony. It's like, it's very much
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  one of these things. I had to do it when I was, you
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  know, kind of up. I had to do it as a coach or
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  paternity brother would, so of course pass it on to anybody else in the
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  same professional college football coaching hazing. Yeah, on the other side of the
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  ball, defensive side of the ball, got Jim Knowles, and you know
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  He was asked first of all about the Penn State offense and the fact that
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  the Penn State offense is very good, but they're not they're not explosive.
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  This is Jim Knowles came into this year talking over and over, but hey,
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  you got a limited explosives and they've done a great job of that.
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  And now you're playing a Penn State team that's in the like one twenties in
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  terms of twenty yard plays and thirty yard plays and forty yard plays that you
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  know, he he was asked about the running backs and the lack of big
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  plays in the grounds. But you know that doesn't sound like something he's just
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  kind of banking on, like, well, they haven't done it before,
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  so I'm sure we'll be fine on Saturday. Yeah, he said, he
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  doesn't look at the stats. He looks at the film and he sees two
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  good running backs, which we've seen, We've seen them be very good running
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  backs. They're still the same running backs, but they're just not running for
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  as many yards this year as they did a year ago. And so he
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  when you examine all of this, you look the potential the players at their
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  best, because you need to prepare to play players at their best. But
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  talking about the big play offense that Penn State does not have, he said,
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  he knows it's there, so you just have to prepare for all of
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  the possibilities you can't prepare for. They haven't done it yet, so I'm
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  sure it'll be fine. One are the odds something goes wrong. Now,
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  you know, this is also a Penn State team that has not played a
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  lot of close games, so they probably have not had to show a lot.
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  You go back to last year and these same running backs were ripping off.
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  I mean, I remember some long runs against Auburton, for example,
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  down down in Jordan Hare, but you know they have hit big plays in
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  the passes, not that they're incapable. This doesn't really happened this year.
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  And that's a little bit weird because this is one of the better, if
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  not the best, Penn State offensive line we've seen out of this team over
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  the past decade or so. For years, that was the thing you just
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  sort of pointed to and went, well, yeah, the skill talent's fine,
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  but with that line, they're never going anywhere, and that has largely
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  borne itself out this year. They have a you know, they have a
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  legit NFL tackle and they've got you know they but they've also had some injuries.
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  So you know, what is Jim Knowles expecting in terms of the Penn
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  State offensive line, Well, he said it's right up there with Notre Dame's
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  offensive line. And we know that was the defensive line took a beating game
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  of beating, but you know it was a physical game. This will be
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  the same. You just prepare for them to be at their best and try
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  to create situations which puts them puts them at their worst. Some conflicts in
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  there, and the way the defensive line is playing right now, I think
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  the expectations are high there for Jim Knowles, but this is gonna be I
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  mean, this is going to be a physical fight for four quarters and field
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  position. It's gonna all every every cliche you've ever talked about with big with
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  big ten, field position, you know, turnovers, all of the stuff
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  that you've grown up with is going to be on display in this one.
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  And you might even get a little big ten weather that was you know last
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  last Saturday, it was kind of fifty degrees or so and cloudy and then
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  raining. You might get something similar to forecast has changed a little bit off
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  and on. But Ryan Day talked about the fact that they you know,
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  they know that's just the reality of life in the Big Ten, speaking of
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  things that have been true in the Big Ten for thirty years, and you
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  know they just kind of have to prepare accordingly. Yeah, global warming has
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  not yet reached the Midwest, but you know, it's one of those things
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  Ryan Day talks about, Well, if everybody has to deal with it,
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  we're all on the same page. But they have practiced outside in the rain
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  a few times this fall, so it's they practiced on grass last week to
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  prepare for Purdue. So they'll they'll try to match the environment of the climate
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  that they'll find and you don't have to work too hard or you know,
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  bring its prey. Clare's to practice in rain in October and Columbus, so
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  they'll be prepared for whatever they face. And they've shown that they could throw
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  the ball in the rain pretty well, so I don't think that concerns them
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  too much. It's always gonna be the wind versus the rain. It is
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  the bigger factor. Yeah, it's not snowing sideways, it's not incredibly windy,
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  so you know it should be. It should be not necessarily an ideal
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  day. We'll see how the forecast shakes out. It's always exactly right three
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  days, so I'm sure we can plan everything around what it says right now.
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  But yeah, it'll be. It should be regardless of the weather,
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  it should be a very very I'm expecting a close, very entertaining, not
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  necessarily high scoring, but very very dramatic football game on Saturday. We will
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  be there. We will have full coverage in the lead up to the game.
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  We'll be back on Wednesday with player interviews as we talk to talk to
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  the bout guys about their expectations going into that game. Then we'll have our
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  usual Bold Predictions episode of Buckeye Weekly. We'll have our game preview show.
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  We'll have all that stuff coming up. And it's a big recruiting weekend as
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  well. Mark Kivler just dropped a skull session column on the huddleboard oftpucke huddle
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  dot Com looking at what the rest of this twenty twenty four cycle might look
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  like for the Buckeyes's gonna be a very very big recruiting weekend. A lot
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  of big names, both current commits and potential targets, for twenty twenty four
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  to twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six, and beyond in the Horseshoe on
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  Saturday. So it's gonna be a lot of stuff to talk about. You
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  can talk about it all at bucke huddle dot com and at YouTube dot com
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  slash Buckeyehuddle. That will do it for today. Thank you guys all for
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  joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.