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Ohio State Playoff Preview: The Best Potential Matchups For The Buckeyes · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to buck Has tomorrow morning for Sunday, December fourteenth,
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  Speaker 1: I'm your host, tom Or the Cotton Bowl Game in
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  Speaker 1: seventeen days. The game gets Michigan in three hundred and
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  Speaker 1: forty nine days. If you're planning your next event, make
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  Speaker 1: it unforgettable with Grateful Griddle, Columbus's favorite food truck serving
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  Speaker 1: up Smashburger's gourmet sandwiches and good vibes. Book your catering
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  Speaker 1: today at gratefulgriddleh dot com. All right, on today's show,
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  Speaker 1: we're doing something a little different. We're going to be
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  Speaker 1: looking at all eleven other teams in the College Football
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  Speaker 1: Playoff this year and ranking them by the amount of
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  Speaker 1: danger or how difficult they might be for Ohio State
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  Speaker 1: to beat in the College Football Playoff on their way
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  Speaker 1: to potentially winning a second consecutive national championship. So we're
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  Speaker 1: going to sort of preface this with a couple different things.
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  Speaker 1: Number One, this is an Ohio State specific thing. This
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  Speaker 1: is not a order of likelihood of these teams winning
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  Speaker 1: the national championship. This is not a power ranking of
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  Speaker 1: these teams. And the team that is seventh is going
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  Speaker 1: to be beat predicted to beat the.
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  Speaker 2: Team that's ninth.
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  Speaker 1: This is a matchup dependent thing, so let's just get
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  Speaker 1: it out of that out of the way. First number two,
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  Speaker 1: all right, what is what makes a team present a
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  Speaker 1: danger to Ohio State in the playoff this year? Well,
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  Speaker 1: you just saw what Indiana did in the Big Ten
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  Speaker 1: championship game. Fuels like a team with a really good defense.
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  Speaker 1: That's a good start if you're going to try and
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  Speaker 1: beat Ohio State. A strong pass rush that's going to help.
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  Speaker 1: If you want to beat Ohio State. You don't want
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  Speaker 1: to have any glaring weaknesses across the board. You don't
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  Speaker 1: want to have you know, you got a great defense,
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  Speaker 1: but your offense is ranked sixtieth in the nation. That
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  Speaker 1: probably is not going to get.
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  Speaker 2: The job done either.
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  Speaker 1: And then really no obvious specific week points either on offense.
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  Speaker 1: You don't want to be just terrible at running the
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  Speaker 1: ball or terrible at throwing the ball on offense. But
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  Speaker 1: we're really going to start with kind of the defense overall.
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  Speaker 1: But that's sort of the general stuff we're going to
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  Speaker 1: be looking at in this show. Now, how are we
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  Speaker 1: going to be measuring that? Well, I'm so glad you asked.
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  Speaker 2: The first thing.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to be using is sp plus. That's something
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  Speaker 1: you've probably heard me talk about a bunch over the years.
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  Speaker 1: It is an opponent adjusted ranking of teams. It is
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  Speaker 1: tempo free, so it is if you you know, some
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  Speaker 1: some sort of general stats like total total yards, total
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  Speaker 1: rushing yards, that kind of stuff that can really be
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  Speaker 1: skewed if you play terrible opponents. That can be skewed
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  Speaker 1: if you play really really slow tempo or really really
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  Speaker 1: fast tempo. Sp plus sort of smooths a lot of
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  Speaker 1: that stuff out it sort of, and it also adjusts
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  Speaker 1: for whether you're playing a really good or really bad opponent.
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  Speaker 1: So in some of these graphics you're going to see
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  Speaker 1: nonpower teams with absolute incredible numbers on a yards per play,
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  Speaker 1: your yards per rush, your yards per pass basis, but
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  Speaker 1: then just okay numbers in sp plus. That's why, because
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  Speaker 1: they're not playing James Madison has better numbers overall than say,
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  Speaker 1: Georgia does in a lot of cases and yards per rush,
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  Speaker 1: yards per pass, but George is playing much better competition.
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  Speaker 1: So sp plus sort of adjusts for that and ends
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  Speaker 1: up giving, you know, reflecting that that George's offense or
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  Speaker 1: defense is probably better than James Madison's overall.
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  Speaker 2: So okay, there you go.
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  Speaker 1: That is your overall look at how we're going to
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  Speaker 1: do this on today's show. We're going to kind of
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  Speaker 1: do the first half of the field teams eleven through
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  Speaker 1: six in terms of the difficulty they might present to
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  Speaker 1: Ohio State, and we're going to start with number eleven,
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  Speaker 1: Tulane Green Wave. They are twenty eighth in offensive sp plus.
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  Speaker 1: Here's why they're the last team in the field though,
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  Speaker 1: sixty eighth in defensive sp plus. They can get got
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  Speaker 1: and if you want to skim down to how they
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  Speaker 1: get got, well, yards per pass allowed. If you're eighty
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  Speaker 1: eighth in the country in yards per pass allowed and
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  Speaker 1: you don't have an otherworldly pass rush, they're only twenty
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  Speaker 1: fifth in sacks nationally.
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  Speaker 2: There you go.
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  Speaker 1: That's probably not a real hard one to figure out Tulane. Honestly,
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  Speaker 1: on a neutral field, that would probably pick them over
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  Speaker 1: James Madison. But just their overall as a whole, their team.
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  Speaker 1: I look at the defense, and I look specifically at
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  Speaker 1: the pass defense, and think on a neutral field in fast,
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  Speaker 1: dry conditions, that is a team that is going to
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  Speaker 1: get lit up like a firecracker by the Ohio State
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  Speaker 1: offense and the offense for two lane just okay, not incredible.
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  Speaker 1: They're going to struggle to score points. That feels like
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  Speaker 1: a game that ends up fifty two to three if
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  Speaker 1: Ohio State plays them. So there you go. They are
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  Speaker 1: number eleven, number ten on the list. It is the
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  Speaker 1: other group of five team James Madison. They are a
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  Speaker 1: little bit better overall in sp plus, but they also
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  Speaker 1: don't have like a real glaring weakness here, twenty second
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  Speaker 1: in the nation in sp plus on offense, twenty seventh
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  Speaker 1: in the nation on SPPLUS on defense. So if you
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  Speaker 1: look at their yards per play, yards per rush, twelfth
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  Speaker 1: in the nation, yards per pass, they're only forty third,
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  Speaker 1: but on defense allowing just they're just third in yards
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  Speaker 1: per rush allowed, eighth in yards per pass allowed. That
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  Speaker 1: works out to twenty seventh in the nation overall in SPPLUS.
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  Speaker 1: Once you sort of opponent adjust it, they're not a
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  Speaker 1: bad defense. They just haven't played great opposition. They haven't
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  Speaker 1: even played good opposition in a lot of cases this year.
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  Speaker 1: So that's why they are tenth here. You look at
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  Speaker 1: some of those numbers and they look really impressive, and
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  Speaker 1: then you oppose adjust for opponents, and it's obviously not
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  Speaker 1: going to be. They are not going to get confused
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  Speaker 1: with the Indiana defense or offense anytime soon. All right,
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  Speaker 1: next up, number nine, here's where you might go. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: this is a little earlier than I expected to see
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  Speaker 1: these folks. How about the Alabama Crimson Tide. Outside of
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  Speaker 1: the group of five teams, this is the team that
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  Speaker 1: I would be most confident in saying, Ohio State not
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  Speaker 1: only beats, but beats somewhat comfortably. Here's why spplus offense
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  Speaker 1: twenty sixth they're okay, but they're not great. Defense. Eighth again,
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  Speaker 1: they're fine, but they're not great. Special teams really a
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  Speaker 1: disaster for them. One hundred and thirteenth. You're not going
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  Speaker 1: to find any real marginal marginal gains there. Yards per
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  Speaker 1: rush one hundred and twentieth in the nation. Alabama has
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  Speaker 1: just not been able to run the ball. The offensive
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  Speaker 1: line is just okay, The running backs have been a
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  Speaker 1: little bit banged up. They haven't been able to run
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  Speaker 1: the ball against any kind of good competition. Really this year.
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  Speaker 1: Yards per pass forty seventh. You haven't heard and Ty
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  Speaker 1: Simpson's name in that Heisman conversation the last few weeks,
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  Speaker 1: have you. So it's all kind of adding up to
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  Speaker 1: an offense that is really not going to be able
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  Speaker 1: to score against the Ohio State defense. And then the
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  Speaker 1: defense again eighth and spplus on defense they're not bad,
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  Speaker 1: but yards per rush allowed forty six, the yards per
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  Speaker 1: pass allowed nineteenth. Here's the thing that really puts them
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  Speaker 1: farther down on this list than you might expect. Just
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  Speaker 1: seventy seventh in the nation in sacks for their defense.
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  Speaker 1: And this is sacks per game, so it's adjusted for
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  Speaker 1: the fact that they have an extra game. Some teams
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  Speaker 1: have played twelve, some teams have played thirteen at this point.
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  Speaker 1: So he did it on a per game basis, seventy
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  Speaker 1: seventh in the nation. If the pass rush isn't getting home,
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  Speaker 1: and the pass defense is good but not amazing, and
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  Speaker 1: they can't run the ball and the run defense isn't good,
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  Speaker 1: that just feels like a team that Ohio State might
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  Speaker 1: beat by three touchdowns. They would not face Alabama until
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  Speaker 1: the National Championship game. I think it is probably extraordinarily
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  Speaker 1: unlikely for a number of the reasons you see on
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  Speaker 1: the screen here that Alabama actually would reach that point.
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  Speaker 2: But if they.
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  Speaker 1: If they do, I would expect Ohio State to have
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  Speaker 1: a not particularly difficult time beating Alabama this year. Number eight,
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  Speaker 1: the Oklahoma Sooners. This is a team that is taking
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  Speaker 1: on Alabama in the first round and again Oklahoma. This
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  Speaker 1: is a team where this is like a real good
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  Speaker 1: half of a team. The defense third overall in sp plus,
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  Speaker 1: second in the nation in yards per rush allowed, nineteenth
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  Speaker 1: in the nation, and yards per pass allowed, first in
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  Speaker 1: the nation in sacks, And honestly, I really thought about
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  Speaker 1: moving this team even up another spot, ended up deciding
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  Speaker 1: against it, because man, this offense is real bad.
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  Speaker 2: It is real, real bad.
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  Speaker 1: They're forty ninth in the nation in offensive sp plus one,
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and eighth in yards per rush, seventy second
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  Speaker 1: in yards per pass. This is a team that you
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  Speaker 1: could could see this team beating in Ohio State if
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  Speaker 1: they know if they can make it a I think
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  Speaker 1: they beat Florida State something like thirteen to two or
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  Speaker 1: ten to two in the two thousand notional Championship game.
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  Speaker 1: It would kind of have to be that kind of
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  Speaker 1: game for Oklahoma. It just doesn't feel like an Oklahoma
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  Speaker 1: team that's going to put up any kind of meaningful
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  Speaker 1: points against an Ohio State defense and might get themselves
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  Speaker 1: in some trouble against the Ohio State defense. So they
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  Speaker 1: are number eight on this list. Now we're going to
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  Speaker 1: move on to number seven. Boy, there are sure are
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  Speaker 1: a lot of mid SCC teams in this field, aren't there, folks,
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  Speaker 1: Crazy Ole miss number seven. I did not adjust this
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  Speaker 1: for the fact that Lane Kiffin is no longer there
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  Speaker 1: and they've kind of had to shift their coaching staff
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  Speaker 1: around a little bit. If I made that adjustment, they
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  Speaker 1: would probably fall below Oklahoma on this list, But we're
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  Speaker 1: going to leave them where they are right now.
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  Speaker 2: Pretty good overall.
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  Speaker 1: Eighth in s and PSP plus on offense, seventeenth in
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  Speaker 1: sp plus on defense, fifth in spplus on special teams.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing absolutely otherworldly there, but pretty solid all around. Fiftieth
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  Speaker 1: in yards per rush, eighth in yards per pass. Here's
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  Speaker 1: where they get into a little bit of treme. Seventy
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  Speaker 1: fifth in yards per rush allowed, twenty fourth in yards
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  Speaker 1: per pass allowed, sixty second in sacks.
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  Speaker 2: You kind of look at those.
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  Speaker 1: Numbers and it yeah, you're playing inn SEC competition, so
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  Speaker 1: that bumps you up. Because of the opponent adjustment and
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  Speaker 1: sp plus but man seventy fifth in yards per rush allowed.
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  Speaker 1: That's a team that Ohio Date can run the ball on.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty fourth in yards per pass allowed. That's a team
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  Speaker 1: Ohios Day can probably throw the ball a little bit
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  Speaker 1: on sixty second in sacks. If you're not getting to
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  Speaker 1: the quarterback, then Julian Insane has time in the pocket.
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  Speaker 1: That is a team that Ohios Da can run on.
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  Speaker 1: That is a team Ohios Dak can throw on. And
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  Speaker 1: the offense is good but not incredible. So boy oh boy,
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  Speaker 1: that sure feels like a thirty four to ten game
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  Speaker 1: to me if Ohios Date is going to face the
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  Speaker 1: Rebels in the playoffs. So they are number seven on
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  Speaker 1: this list. Now the last team we're going to get
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  Speaker 1: to on this show. We'll do another one with the
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  Speaker 1: teams five through one in another day. Or to number six.
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  Speaker 1: How about them fighting Texas A and m Aggie's Now
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  Speaker 1: they are Actually they're right in line here with where
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  Speaker 1: their ranking would have them because they are the seventh
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  Speaker 1: seeded team whoever they are, so there are in terms
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  Speaker 1: of the other teams in the field, they are the
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  Speaker 1: sixth in terms of most you know, in terms of
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  Speaker 1: ranking when you remove Ohio State, and they're sixth here
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  Speaker 1: as well, solid overall, but seventh in sp plus on offense,
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  Speaker 1: which so far no one has scored seventeen points against
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  Speaker 1: Ohio State on offense this season, And if you know,
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  Speaker 1: seventh on offense doesn't suggest that they're about to score
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  Speaker 1: in the high twenties or low thirties, so it's probably
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  Speaker 1: a relatively low scoring game. Twenty first in sp plus
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  Speaker 1: on defense, eighty first in sp plus on special teams,
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  Speaker 1: so the special teams certainly not cand of help them.
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  Speaker 1: In terms of yards per rush twenty eighth, yards past twentieth,
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  Speaker 1: yards per rush allowed, fifty seventh, yards per pass allowed nineteenth.
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  Speaker 1: All of that is extremely mid It's fine. They're not bad,
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  Speaker 1: but they're not great anywhere other than first tied for
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  Speaker 1: first in the nation in sacks per game. That is
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  Speaker 1: really the only thing that you look at on this
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  Speaker 1: whole sheet and think, boy, if the offense can be
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  Speaker 1: okay and they can really really dominate with the pass rush,
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  Speaker 1: that's how the Texas A and M would beat Ohio State.
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  Speaker 2: It's possible.
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  Speaker 1: And we've watched one of Texas A and M's games
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  Speaker 1: already on the Buckeye Weekly podcast feed.
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  Speaker 2: You can find Tony Gurdaman and me reviewing that, but you.
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  Speaker 1: Can, and then we'll try and watch a little bit
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  Speaker 1: more once the Cotton Bowl gets a little closer to
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  Speaker 1: kind of get a more well rounded look at personnel
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  Speaker 1: and that kind of stuff. But Texas A and M
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  Speaker 1: sixth respectable, very much in line with where they ended
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  Speaker 1: up in the bracket, but not one of the teams
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  Speaker 1: that probably feels like the best matchup for an opponent
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  Speaker 1: against Ohio State. So there you go, teams eleven through six.
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  Speaker 1: We'll get to five through one, including one of the
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  Speaker 1: teams that Ohio State might potentially face in that Cotton
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  Speaker 1: Bowl game. You may notice I haven't said the Miami
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  Speaker 1: Hurricane name yet. They might present some unique matchup challenges.
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  Speaker 1: We'll be talking about that a little bit later on.
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  Speaker 2: Also, make sure you.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Check out the Buckeye Weekly podcast feed. Check out us
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  Speaker 1: out at YouTube dot com slash Bucky Huddle. Got a
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  Speaker 1: ton of stuff going on right now. Is the Buckeys
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  Speaker 1: sort of head into their prep for the Cotton Bowl.
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  Speaker 1: That'll kind of get things fired back up after a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of a slower week last week, to like
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  Speaker 1: guys sort of rest up and all that they're going
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  Speaker 1: to start getting in a little bit more into the
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  Speaker 1: fundamentals this week in practice, and then next Saturday they
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  Speaker 1: will know who they're playing, whether there's those fight in
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  Speaker 1: Texas A and m Aggie's or the Miami Hurricanes.
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  Speaker 2: That game is Saturday, December twentieth at noon.
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  Speaker 1: We'll have a bunch of conversations about that game this
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  Speaker 1: week as well, trying to give you a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of a preview of that because obviously that'll be a big,
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  Speaker 1: big game to watch for Ohio State fans all week long.
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  Speaker 2: And then as we.
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  Speaker 1: Head into the Cotton Bowl getting ready to turn the
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  Speaker 1: page to what should be a fantastic college football playoff quarterfinal.
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  Speaker 2: Game New Year's Eve in.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Arlington State, in Arlington, Texas, in Jerry World, we will
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  Speaker 1: be there covering it all for you at buckehuddle dot com.
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  Speaker 1: That'll do it for today. Thank you guys all for
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  Speaker 1: joining us.
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  Speaker 2: Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.