Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Ross Fulton Analysis: Ohio State Offense vs. Indiana

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Ross Fulton Analysis: Ohio State Offense vs. Indiana · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Hey guys, a quick note before we get started on today's episode as well
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  as tomorrow, you're gonna hear me reference the fact that this is Ross Fulton,
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  and Ross Fulton is always breaking down different plays that happened during the course
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  of the Ohio State game. Now we're going to be starting to do that
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  on YouTube with actual clips of those plays. So we're going to put the
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  link to the YouTube video that accompanies this episode in the description on your podcast
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  app. So if you want to watch the plays and see what Ross is
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  talking about now, you can do that on our YouTube channel. You can,
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  of course still listen to what Ross is talking about. This is the
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  way we've kind of done it for years with Ross. But if you want
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  to have the extra bonus of getting to watch the plays and you go back
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  and forth and maybe watch a couple of times to really understand what he's talking
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  about, you can do that on our YouTube channel. YouTube dot com slash
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  Buckeye Huddle. Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Thursday, September seventh. I'm
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  your host, Tom Or The Youngstown State game in two days. The game
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  it gets Michigan in seventy nine days. Let's just be real honest. There's
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  been some real, not intelligent talk about Ohio State football on the internet this
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  week. That's a new thing, but we are going to try and class
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  things up a little bit, bring the level of intellect around that conversation up
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  a little bit. We are welcoming in everybody's smart football friend, Ross Fulton,
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  Bucca, Huddles X's and nose Guru. We're trying something a little new
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  today. By the time you watch this, you will probably eventually figure out
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  whether I have figured out how to make it work or not. But we're
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  going to try and have a little bit of video from place who can illustrate
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  what we're talking about rather than doing this is a little bit more of an
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  academic exercise. But Ross, before we get to that, and hopefully we
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  do get to that, but before we get to that, I wanted to
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  just throw the floor open to you. There has been plenty of discourse online
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  about the Ohio State quarterback position this week. Whether the world is in fact
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  about to end or not? Your thoughts on just overall, how Week one
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  of the twenty twenty three season went for the Ohio State quarterback position and offense.
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  I think it was okay, And I say that in the sense of,
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  like I don't think the sky is falling. I didn't think it was
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  all that different than TJ. Stroud was in his first start. I probably,
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  you know, I think we talked about before the game that like,
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  you know, Big ten Road game is not the same as playing a mac
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  or certainly you have sound state at home, and you know Indiana has some
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  some good players on defense. So I thought that, you know, I
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  guess overall, I would say that it does tell me something that when they
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  were in a close game that Ryan Day, I think he's the word his
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  gut and his press conference on Tuesday, and like, you know, that
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  tells you something that like he just felt more comfortable with Colin McCord in the
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  game, you know, in terms of accord. I think again, like
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  you know, we could sit here and I could pull five clips where I
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  thought he did a really nice job, Like he goes through progressions, he
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  gets the ball in the right spot. It's you can and also find clips
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  where he you know, too quickly rushes through his reads or checks down,
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  or you know, his footwork breaks down a little bit, and you know
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  he airmailed a ball to Marvin Harrison on a deep out route that he should
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  have was an easy completion. So there is something for everyone who wants to
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  have a frequency of position. But I do think coming out of it,
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  because we'll talk about like, to me, like McCord looks most comfortable,
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  you know, shotgun three step drop RPOs. He makes quick decisions, he
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  makes the sisive reads, he's pretty accurate in those situations. And so it
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  reminds me a little bit of maybe some of Dwayne Haskin's strengths as well.
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  And you know, assuming that mccore is going to be the quarterback, I
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  think that they need to tailor the offense to reflect those strengths. Not that
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  they can't throw still throw you know Ryan Day's favorite four verticals or Yankee concepts,
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  but you know, maybe not five times each a game, and maybe
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  you know, lean more into mash in RPOs. All right, And one
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  thing that they have leaned into a bunch over the years is stretch. We
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  see them run stretch a whole bunch. That was they ranted on the first
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  play of the game. That was the first play you wanted to talk about.
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  So all right, let's get right into it. We're not gonna it's
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  a run. So we don't get to talk about quarterbacks right away, but
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  you got a little you got a little bit of quarterback talk. Now we're
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  gonna eat our vegetables. We're gonna talk a little about run game, all
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  right, go ahead, first play the game. So we talked about last
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  week, right matc Giarra had been with Jim Knowles, he'd seen plenty of
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  Ryan Day. I mean, although I don't even know if you need to
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  need to be on Ohio State staff to know that running boundary to run stretch
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  the boundary is, you know, Ryan Day's based run play. But Indiana
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  definitely had a plan for it, as you saw on the very first play.
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  So Ohio's Day kept sending like faking fly sweep with the wide receiver.
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  I'm not quite sure what they thought they were going to get with that.
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  I'm not sure it really added much in hindsight, But they do that here
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  right away with Harrison. They send him in motion and Indiana runs a game
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  and the first of many what's called three cloud. So what that means is
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  you're running cover three, but the corner to the boundary is one of the
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  underneath defenders, and so that provides force support to the short side of the
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  field. So you have a corner squatting sitting there, and then a lot
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  of what Indiana day is exactly what you see on this play, which is
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  they would then slant their defensive ends inside and so they're and trying to create
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  or have lineburgers run through. Basically, they're just trying to spill the ball
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  the force defender. So right away you see, you know, Josh Fryer,
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  he probably should have let that defensive end go, stayed on his own
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  track and got out. But instead you have a corner and a safety just
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  sitting there unblocked on this play, and it's it's no gain. And so
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  I you know how they did do better as the game went on, preparing
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  to handle that squat corner or the strategy Indiana was doing in terms of staying
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  on their own step, but it was always an issue. And then Indiana
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  kept doing more things to make it more difficult turn of the boundary, like
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  they started putting their three technique to the boundary and trying to make person hints
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  men reach him, which is a really difficult block for a center. Now,
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  Chip Train, I'm handled that later in the game by immediately bending back
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  and got a big game by basically cutting behind everything. And again I think
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  he sort of flashed what a lot of people saw in terms of his vision
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  on Saturday. But Indiana, you know, definitely had a plan to limit
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  Ohio State's boundary stretcher and game. All right, So now we get to
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  talk a little bit, a little bit quarterback, a little bit of passing
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  game. And this is one where I think there was a lot of criticism
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  maybe bright Kyla McCourt did not throw the ball downfield enough, and this is
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  one where you can't always see on TV what's happening downfield and why is he
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  not throwing it downfield? Well, sometimes the guys downfield are covered and sometimes
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  the short pass is the right play. So run us through this next one,
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  yep. Okay, So this is a good example. Again you get
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  to see Indiana's coverage scheme and again we're getting a three cloud here, and
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  what Indiana is gonna do is there essentially finding a way through cover three to
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  bracket both Harrison and at Bucca. So High State's running another Ryanda staple all
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  curls, So you get three curl routes and you get two guys in the
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  flat, which is a good you know, it's stretches cover three. It's
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  that's it is a Cover three beater concept. But what Indiana does is they
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  get a ton of depth from their three D defenders, so they have someone
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  remain over the top of Harrison and a Bucca, and then their linebackers are
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  also getting a ton of death. Their linebackers are even i'd say, less
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  playing their zone and more like they were obviously instructed to like turn around,
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  find eighteen in two and basically make a bee line for them. So you
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  kept seeing this a lot of what essentially was yes, Cover three, but
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  turn into like they would find ways to bracket and have a defender underneath Harrison
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  and a defender underneath a Bucca. So I mean, it's it's funny because
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  you know, there was a lot of complaints about not getting the ball more
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  to Harrison and Ameca Duca, and you know, I mean Harrison was targeted
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  eight times. But on the flip side, I don't think you want a
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  brand new quarterback trying to force the ball into double coverage. So again,
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  I think this was the right read. This is why Stover had eight catches
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  because they would leave him single it up on a linebacker. I think that's
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  what we can talk about further, Like I think Oh High State missed opportunities
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  to target like these underneath and mid range passes that I think we're both open
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  and again sort of take advantage of McCord. But you know, you don't
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  want to conversely have him trying to force the ball into Harrison and throwing three
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  three interceptions as a result, because you know, and they're gonna have to
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  deal with this because Indiana again like other teams, know that they you know,
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  they're only chances to try to limit eighteen and two. Man. Oh
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  man, I know we've had a running bit on Buckeye Weekly for like five
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  years that it's the ear tight end. I'm starting to get the vibe that
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  it could really be the year of the tight end. If everyone is going
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  to try and double up Marvin and No Mecca on every play. Oh man,
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  could be the year of the tight end for real. I've ever done
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  this. People complain about the tight end not getting the ball enough and then
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  he has like five catches for a hundred yards and no one's happy about that.
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  So well, unprecedented into college football. They won by three three touchdowns.
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  Almost yeah, but but not not the way I wanted them too.
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  So yes, well we'll continue to monitor that situation. Another thing that actually
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  is worth monitoring. Short yardage not always great. On Saturday, there was
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  felt it felt like they were in third and two a lot and converted maybe
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  less than half of them. I'm not that is not an official statistic.
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  I'm going off vibes there, but the vibes were not great in short yardage.
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  So what were the issues that they were experiencing? Yeah, And I
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  mean I think this is where the film's help for again, because you know,
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  I think a common complaint when teams are stopped in short yardages it must
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  not be the offensive line firing off the ball enough or like holding their blocks.
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  And you know, I think Ryan Day said the same thing on Tuesday.
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  It wasn't that anyone was getting beat. What was happening is they were
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  miss misidentifying blocks and not handling it. So like you know, if you
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  look at this third and two run, High State clearly had a plan for
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  short yardage and it's get super heavy packages, get ship training at fullback,
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  mind Williams a tailback and run power, which you know everyone front side blocks
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  down the backside guard polls as you see here. The problem is what Indiana
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  didn't response to power is they wanted to run through their linebacker. So you
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  can see on this play, forty four comes behind the polling guard and shoots
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  the gap unblocked on this one. Unfortunately, you know, you have a
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  jumbo package here with Luke Montgomery as the play side tight end, and he
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  just blocks the wrong guy like that, he blocks the play side linebacker.
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  Who's Donovan Jackson's responsibility pulling around Now, I guess you could probably maybe argue
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  that, like Donovan Jackson pulling needs to keep his eyes up and take the
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  first thing that flashes and sort of try to rectify the situation. But this
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  is just an example. I think every tackle indianimated short yardage was from an
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  unblocked defender. So I guess the bad news is that that was happening.
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  The good news is, to me, that's just like purely a coaching tape
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  issue that can be resolved. So, you know, I think they need
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  to get better at coming on the combination blocks, keeping their eyes up and
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  then leaving to get a better pulling keeping their eyes up. But it's it's
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  not an issue of to me, like lack of talent or lack of determination.
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  Now. Ryan Day on Tuesday talked about the play of Carson Hinzman,
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  and you know, it was solid, but there was some I think he
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  said, use the word funky with some of the line calls. Or is
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  that like a line call issue or is that a the play is going and
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  you know, in this case, it's a true freshman in his first college
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  game not blocking the right guy, which is you know, a totally understandable
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  because it's a true freshman in his first college game, but also be probably
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  fairly correctable in the film room. Yeah, I mean, obviously if there's
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  a line call issue, you know, it's it's that can be a little
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  difficult to tell even without knowing the play hear. To me, it looks
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  like more of like a true freshman mistake because if you see the play at
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  the start, he starts on the correct path to the backside linebacker, where
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  then he just like he sees the guy coming, he just bails and goes
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  to the play side linebacker. And so, you know, I mean,
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  I think at the time of the game, I was like, oh,
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  I wish they would have ran that the play they then run on fourth down
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  was you know, fake this, trying to throw it to train him in
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  the flats he gets tripped up. I wish they would have ran that on
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  third down. You know, I think there's again a bigger question they need
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  to ask themselves in terms of, like strategically, is this our best options
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  in third in short yardage to get like super heavy jumbo packages and trying to
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  smash smash mouth. I know Dave was asked that on Tuesday, and maybe
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  some of that makes sense. Again, I think they need to vary it
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  up, like can't just run power and short yardage. I gotta have some
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  other options, and you know, maybe your full back should be your tailback.
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  But I think but there is like you know, people people playing for
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  the first time, maybe first time mistakes, and like, you know,
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  I guess it's it's always one of these, Like you know, I kind
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  of think of Bill Connley asked people plus like Indiana is not a great team,
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  but again it's like they're better than playing you know, a Max school
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  at home. So it's like it's all relative, right, And so they
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  did have guys on defense that could take advantage of mistakes like this all right,
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  So you mentioned the fullback who maybe you should be playing tailback. That
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  guy's name is Chip train him. If I have read the room correctly,
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  and I'm pretty sure that I have. Let's talk about Chip training them a
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  little bit. Let's we're going to run a big, big run play for
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  him on the counter. What's a welcomes through this one? Yeah, And
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  so the first thing is I don't want to leave people with the impression that,
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  like Ryan Day and justin Fry Partland, we're just banging their heads against
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  the wall running stretch over and over and over again. Like, yes,
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  they ran plenty of boundary stretch, but they also actually would probably a more
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  diversified run game than I've seen, including running counter tray multiple times. And
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  so this is one of them. And so I think, you know,
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  personally, again, I would like to see them continue to lean into this,
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  but like I think Would train them has a great culmination of like he's
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  decisive, he reads things well, and then he cuts so multiple times like
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  on this play. You know. Again, the reason that I should say
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  that this was counter was working so well is again you can see Indiana's like
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  strategy of crashing everything inside and trying to spill the ball out. But so
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  you could basically just kind of take like stretch, whereas they work against stretch
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  because it's it's slower moving and you know, stretch is really predicated on like
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  eventually cutting the football upfield. It's easier to bounce gap runs like this,
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  and so he was able to do it. But as I said, it
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  wasn't even just the bounce, and then he's pretty fast to the sideline in
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  a straight line. But it was also like you know, as I said,
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  a great counter example is when they did run stretch and I, you
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  flowed with the ball, he cut it up field. So I you know,
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  I thought it was his vision was pretty impressive. And so you know,
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  I'm not saying that that Henderson and Williams shouldn't play. I just think
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  that that they're going to have to keep featuring train them, and you know,
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  he should be on the field a lot, like if they are going
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  to keep rottaining a lot of tailback, he should play fullback and deep an
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  amount, and they should do some things for some two back looks because you
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  know, I think he's one of their you know, top offensive players.
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  So but they do need to continue to as well work this diversification of the
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  run game, the year of the tight end, the year of the fullback.
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  Man, I am am feeling like I'm back in back in my college
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  days in the nineteen nineties, Matt Keller, where are you gotta be?
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  Jamar Martin gona be gonna be coming around that corner any day now. One
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  last thing that is not so much from the nineteen nineties, those three magical
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  letters that always work in football no matter what in offense, these das rpo.
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  Everyone loves them. A good run pass option. I don't know that
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  everyone completely understands the run pass option. We're gonna talk a little bit about
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  one right here. This is one that really worked pretty well for the Buckeyes.
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  Yeah, and again I think that this, to me, this is
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  not just a twenty twenty three high state thing. I mean, I've I've
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  said this before, but I feel like we know Ohio State gets this kind
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  of look which Indiana was doing a lot. Again, you're gonna play super
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  soft corner to the field and playing a softcover three. You're basically trying to
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  They're trying to have their cake and eat it too, right by again,
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  like being able to mess around inside up front and gets the run, but
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  protect themselves against just getting deep and so you know, this is just an
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  easy throwing catch. They did. They ran this twice on Saturday. There
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  was a third time where I'm not sure if it wasn't a call at RPL,
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  but it was Harrison sitting there with like a fifteen year cushion. And
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  again, I think this is sort of where McCord's at his best. He
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  had another nice throw to Stover on a little option route over the middle of
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  the field where he read the single coverage correctly and got it out and it
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  was pretty accurate, and you know, so I think this can give a
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  clear picture, you know. And again if if the concern is getting Harrison
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  in a book of the ball, like you can do this until they until
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  they get within ten yards of the line of scrimmage on the corner side.
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  Things like this, things like mesh, you know, I do I agree
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  with the general premise that like they can't have another game go by where Harrison
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  and a Bucca you know, are don't have the production. Now again,
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  I think people would have felt a lot better if, like the Harrison touchdown
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  that was called back from stepping out of bounce occurred, and I think that
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  could have maybe flipped the entire hot the game ended, because that was a
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  nice throw by McCord. But I do think they need to but the easiest
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  way to get them the ball is not trying to force it down field necessarily
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  if teams are trying to take that away. It's just to take advantage of
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  these easy, easy throws. And again, you know they don't need to
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  get in heavy packages to do it either. You can keep your wide receivers
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  on the field. If you want to go twelve personnel, you know they've
• 18:22
  got again, they've got this one package with a hitch to the field,
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  with a wide receiver screen, you can see to the boundaries, so you
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  have multiple options there on the split zone. And I just think that they
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  again need to sort of lean into the getting the ball quickly if teams are
• 18:40
  going to give you that, and let let the receivers make the yards after
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  catch. All right, Well, hopefully you guys enjoyed that, And boy,
• 18:48
  hopefully all the editing magic that I'm hoping to work is in fact going
• 18:51
  to work, and this is all going to be great. Otherwise it'll just
• 18:52
  be like a normal show. And that'll be fine too. But yeah,
• 18:56
  hopefully you guys enjoyed that one. We're gonna be trying to do more more
• 19:00
  of this stuff. And I can tell already people are why are they only
• 19:03
  talking about the offense? Oh? Friends, guess what. We're gonna do
• 19:06
  another morning show tomorrow. That's how this works. We do it every day.
• 19:08
  We're gonna be talking defense tomorrow. We'll probably be taking a little bit
• 19:11
  of look ahead at Youngstown State as well, and just sort of what if
• 19:14
  sort of the markers for improvement that you should be looking for during that game.
• 19:18
  So we'll talk a bunch about that on tomorrow show. But for now,
• 19:22
  make sure you are subscribed to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
• 19:26
  Buckeye Huddle. Make sure you're subscribed to our site at Buckeyehuddle dot com.
• 19:29
  Ross and Justin Whitlatch and Mikey Pettitt, all those guys covering x's and o's
• 19:34
  making you a smarter football fan. Lots of real deep dive on this stuff,
• 19:38
  and they're on the board answering your question. So you have a question
• 19:41
  about why why did they do this? This that doesn't make any sense?
• 19:45
  There's usually a reason for that, so they can make you a smarter football
• 19:48
  fan. You can just wow people at your tailgate with fun new football terminology
• 19:53
  and a little bit of insight into the why behind the stuff that you see
• 19:57
  during the game. So that will do it for today. Thank you guys
• 20:00
  all for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.