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4 Storylines To Know For Ohio State vs. Wisconsin · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to buck Eyes tomorrow morning for Saturday, October twenty eighth. I'm your
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  host, Tom Moore. The Wisconsin game is today, the game against Michigan
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  in twenty eight days. For once, we're actually be talking about the Wisconsin
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  game and not anything to do with Michigan. It was not a ton of
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  news on Friday on that front, so we're gonna actually talk a little Ohio
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  State football. We're doing that with our buddy Kevin Noon. If you're wondering,
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  why are these guys just sitting on a couch in a weirdly lit room,
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  we are on the road. We are actually in Wisconsin right now,
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  ready to cover that game on Saturday night. We were up in Madison just
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  a little bit ago. Just headed back to our hotel after getting a chance
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  to Number one make sure yes, the buck Eyes are in fact in Wisconsin
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  as well as we are as well. Got a chance also to talk to
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  Ryan Day a little bit, and it sounds like there is good news on
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  the injury front for Trevan Henderson, a Mecica Abuca, and Denzelberg. Seeing
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  all of them get off the bus is good news. It doesn't necessarily mean
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  we're going to see all of them potentially in the game, but I think
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  they're all far enough along because remember, you can only travel so many players,
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  and it is Big ten football in you are a couple months into the
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  season at this point and guys are banged up, and you don't want to
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  bring somebody on the trip just for the hell of it. Hey, why
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  don't you just come aboard hang out. You want everybody you bring you have
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  to be ready largely to play them. So I think it is good news
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  as Ohio State gets ready to take on a badger team at Camp Randall,
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  a place where strange things do happen from time to time. Yeah, this
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  is another one of those Big Ten West venues where you have seen Ohio State
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  lose every once in a while, but they they've not lost Wisconsin in a
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  hot minute in twenty ten. The last time they lost, and that was
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  a number one Ohio State team coming up here and give up an opening kickoff
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  return for a touchdown. They were down fourteen to nothing like five minutes under
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  that game. Yeah, so that was a weird one Saturday night. It
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  feels like it would probably take something a little weird for Wisconsin to beat Ohio
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  State. Buckets favored by what two touchdowns given what I saw on Friday afternoon.
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  Yeah, so a little bit over two touchdown favorites. This is not
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  a vintage Wisconsin team, and that's true in a couple different ways. Number
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  One, this is not a team that's gonna go twelve and one and you
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  know, go go to the Rose Bowl or something like that. They've already
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  got a couple losses. It also is going to if you if you have
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  not watched Wisconsin this year, this is a very different offense. This is
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  no longer the run the two and forty pounds running back between the tackles forty
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  times and then maybe throw it fifteen or eighteen times. This is a It's
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  not a great Wisconsin offense, but it's a different Wisconsin offense. And the
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  thing is is that I think Luke Fickle is having to make the adjustment as
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  he tries to modernize what it is that Wisconson does. But he's trying to
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  modernize it with the weapons that Paul christ had. And then when quarterback Tanner
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  Mordecai was hurt broke in hand out for the year, they have to bring
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  in Brandon Locke, who had his first career start against Illinois led a comeback
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  win where he was largely in effective. Early in the game, Jerison Newton,
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  the talented defensive end for Illinois, got tossed for targeting and was able
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  to heat up at that point. It's still going to be a team that
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  is going to run the ball with Braylan Allen. But even talking about the
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  running game, remember Wisconsin lost chessman Lucy early in the year, so there
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  is not much depth behind him at this point. The Malusi was the number
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  two rusher, Tanner Mordecai was the number three rusher, so now they're down
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  even further. So we don't see a lot of games where back is getting
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  thirty plus carries. Could we see that in this case, I don't know.
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  I guess it depends on how the game goes. I guess it depends
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  on what type of success that Allen has against the Buckeye's Ohio State faced.
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  Allen last year really picked up most of his yardage late in the game on
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  a bad angle by an Ohio State safety that sprung him for a huge gain.
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  And oh well, I had you know, eighty yards in the game,
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  Well, you had most of them, and you know, at that
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  one point. So I don't know what we're gonna make out of it,
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  but yeah, to your point, it is an offense that is very much
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  in transition. This isn't what you should should expect next year or the year
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  after, but you're kind of in that situation where you have one foot in
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  the pool and one foot not in the pool. Yeah, it's a little
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  like the teams that are going, you know, into the air raid the
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  first year that Mike Leach got to Washington State and it was like, well,
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  we don't have the personnel to run this yet, and you sort of
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  have that weird like, well, we're gonna run it anyway, and it's
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  just gonna look like crap. And that's just kind of how it is.
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  This is a talented enough team that it doesn't look like crap, and they're
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  five and two, so it's okay, but it's not. It's not what
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  it's ultimately going to be. And one of the reasons is they want to
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  throw the ball. Phil long Ago, the offensive coordinator, wants to throw
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  the ball. He has run up tempo air raid style. That's what he
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  ran at North Carolina. He does not have Drake May on this team.
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  He doesn't even have the North Carolina talented. He doesn't even have market members.
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  Yeah, he doesn't even have Mark May. He doesn't necessarily have the
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  North Carolina level receivers even this year. This is this is a little bit
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  when you look at this team, the offensive lines solid good, the quarterback
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  is young, the running backs are you know, running back at least good.
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  The wide receivers are maybe just kind of okay. This is all sounding
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  very much like a team that Ohio State just played last weekend, right exactly.
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  There are some comparisons when you look at what the construction of the offensive
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  side of the ball looks like with Penn State. Now, I think much
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  higher Duller than I do Brydon Locke. I think that Braylen Allen as a
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  as a running back is much more established than Caitron Allen or Nick Singleton or
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  I think that maybe I would give a little bit of an edge or to
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  Penn State's receivers. Really right now, the most productive of all the receivers
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  for Wisconsin is a Cincinnati transfer that came over with Luke in Will Pauling.
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  They do have and I knew the name was going to Jamry Dkay. They
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  saw Jimry Dkay who has not necessarily had a big year this point, so
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  it'll be interesting. And I think one spot too of where we got used
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  to seeing out of older Wisconsin teams is they're always going to have a tight
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  end. I think Penn State had a better tight end with forty four than
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  what I've seen out of Wisconsin so far this year. Looking at Wisconsin's offense,
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  it feels like, I think all of us predicted Wisconsin to score like
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  thirteen or fourteen, almost like we ended up independently all on almost exactly the
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  same number. And it feels like if Wisconsin's going to get this into the
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  low twenties, mid twenties, even of the twenty eight, that probably involves
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  turnovers, forcing turnovers from Ohio State and you get a scoop and score,
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  you get a pick six, you just get it. You hand your offense
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  a you know, seventeen yard drive, whatever it is. It feels like
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  if Wisconsin's going to get into the twenties, the defense is probably going to
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  have to play a pretty direct role in that. Yeah, I'm really not
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  sure how Wisconsin gets into the twenties without some help from Ohio State. Obviously,
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  special teams can can play a role there. I mean, we just
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  talked about twenty ten and what happened in that game. But this is not
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  an explosive Wisconsin offense, certainly not in terms of going against Ohio State's defense.
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  And you can look at some numbers and say, well, you know,
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  you look at the rankings, and Wisconsin's done this and this. Wisconsin
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  plays on the lesser half of the Big Ten. Yes, everybody does have
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  their three crossover games, but we're not to that point of the season.
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  Obviously, Wisconsin played Washington State, which I think was a little bit of
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  a step up in competition compared to certainly what it's facing in the West right
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  now. But I think that this is going to be a major increase in
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  terms of level of competition for Wisconsin than what it has been used to playing.
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  So if both these teams kind of play straight up, and let's just
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  even sit there and say they both play B games, it's probably not going
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  to be close. I think that Wisconsin needs to play a much higher game
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  and hope that Ohio State is a little flat and maybe spending a little much
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  too much time paying attention to what's happening in ann Arbor. Yeah, and
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  I think that's a reasonable question about the black Eyes coming off the big win
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  over Penn State. What has the focus been on this week inside the walls
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  of what you know? Ryan A got off the bus in in Arbor or
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  sorry in Madison, say I'm doing it too, got off the bus in
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  Madison and said, you know, a good week of practice and all that.
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  We have seen the post Penn State hangover before, and I know that
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  we have all spent a lot more time thinking about the Michigan scandal this week
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  and talking about the Mission scandal this week than we have about the Wisconsin Badgers.
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  And we have seen the post Penn State road trip out to a big
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  ten West school not go great for Ohio State in the past. How big
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  of a concern is the focus for you? I think it's always a concern
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  when you're dealing with eighteen to twenty two year olds. I mean, obviously
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  you have like a forty eight year old and Jesse Murco, but you know,
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  you're dealing with a lot of kids at this point, and it's maybe
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  not that they're necessarily going out and searching for it, but their family,
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  their friends, everybody else is looking about it's like, can you believe what's
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  going on up there in a situation that we have a lot more speculation than
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  we have facts known at this point. But it does look like not to
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  turn this into a Michigan talk show, but it does look pretty ugly about
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  what might go down up there. So there is going to be that concern.
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  I think the fact that Ohio State never really was challenged by Penn State.
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  This isn't going to be a situation of where Ohio State had to come
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  back and beat Penn State on an exciting fourth quarter drive or anything like that
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  and you're all up, up, up and up. I think that they
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  were able to go about their business win the game, and we'll learn a
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  lot basically of how they come out. And again, this is a team
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  that has started pretty slow in almost all of its games, so they're not
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  going to watch it be like ceec I told you they came out by crap
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  because they were not focused. But if it prolongs and I heard you and
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  Tony talk about it in another show, I don't know if it's six'
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  three at halftime or whatever, then you know, okay, the focus wasn't
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  where it needed to be. This feels like a game where O house it
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  can probably out talent Wisconsin to a certain degree. And it really to me
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  is about don't make the big mistake. Don't have the strip sack that goes
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  back for six points, don't throw the pick six when you're in the red
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  zone. Make sure you're getting points, and make sure you're getting sevens more
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  than threes. You can kick field goals, because I don't you know,
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  this is not a Wisconsin team that's gonna win a shootout. You can kick
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  field goals, but you got to convert some sevens. To you just you
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  don't want a bunch of empty possessions. You don't want to missed field goals.
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  You don't want a bunch of a bunch of missed fourth downs in the
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  red zone. If you don't make the big mistake, if you don't have
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  multiple empty red zone possessions, if you don't have multiple turnovers or a turnover
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  that goes back for a score, I don't know that I see a real
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  plausible path. You know, you don't make the big mistake on special teams.
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  I guess is the other thing without one of those. I don't know
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  that your real plausible path to Wisconsin winning this game unless Ohio State really comes
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  out and it's just just missing even the basic throws, even the basic runs.
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  Illinois was up a couple of scores on Wisconsin and fell apart. Ohio
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  States certainly can't do that. And that game, I believe it was in
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  Champagne. This game is obviously in Madison. You can't let the fans hang
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  around and hang around and hang around and jump around at the start of the
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  fourth quarter is meaningful because it is a tide game, or Wisconsin's only down
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  a possession or something, or even worse scenario, Wisconsin is up, because
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  at that point then everybody starts to press and that's where upsets happen. At
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  that point. You need to be able to impose your will. You need
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  to be able to go out and play your brand of football, play your
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  style of football, have the success and be able to kind of accelerate in.
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  It's a lot better as the road team to be the ones doing the
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  jumping around at the start the fourth quarter as opposed to the Badgers doing it
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  saying that you know we we since blood in the water. Yeah, you
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  have seen the Ohio State teams doing the jump around and you know, I
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  remember Malcolm Jenkins looking like he was doing like an Irish jig on the sideline.
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  If you're up two touchdowns, like that's a real fun like, hey,
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  what a fun whimsical college football thing. If Wisconsin's up, or it's
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  a tie game and it's it is squeaky bum time, as they say in
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  British soccer, then the students are going nuts and you're not having so much
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  fun on your sideline. So you know, if you know, if the
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  Buckeyes get off to a solid start and a nice early lad it feels like
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  this could be a nice, easy early night. If it drags on,
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  you could get a little a little more dramatic. I'm sure our High State
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  fans are not are hoping nothing spooky happens Saturday night in Madison. Halloween weekend
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  should be a fun atmosphere. I'm looking forward to I'm looking forward to it.
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  It should be a loud, loud, raucous atmosphere. Prime time they
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  have we were in Madison, it seems like a head of bar or two
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  in town. So fans always next to a bike shop, Yeah, always
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  next to a bike shop for some reason. But yeah, they should be
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  a should be a loud ROCKUS atmosphere. The fans should be very into it
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  for whatever reason, football related or not. Kick off seven thirty three pm
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  Eastern time. According to our friends at the Ohigo State Sports Information Department,
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  you can watch the game on NBC and you can watch the postgame show at
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  YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle. Make sure you hit the subscribe button.
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  We have a ton of subscribers this week for whatever reason, I don't know.
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  People are interested in something. Who's to say, ring that bell.
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  Make sure that'll get you notified when we post, and you know we do
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  that live postgame show. We will of course have our pregame discussion of the
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  availability report, the injury report coming to you about two hours before kick give
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  or take when that availability report comes out, so you'll want to be paying
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  attention to that as well. So you can find all that at YouTube dot
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  com slash Buckeye Huddle. That will do it for today. Thank you guys
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  all for joining youself a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow