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Ross Fulton Analysis: How Jim Knowles' Defense Locked Down Oregon In The Rose Bowl · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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Speaker 1: Welcome to buck Eyes tomorrow morning for Tuesday, January seventh,
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Speaker 1: of your host tom Or. The Cotton Bowl game against
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Speaker 1: Texas is in three days. The game against the Michigan
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Speaker 1: in three hundred and twenty six days. Today we're looking
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Speaker 1: at the Ohio State Defens's performance against the Oregon Ducks
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Speaker 1: and the Rose Bowl. And when we're in a celebratory
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Speaker 1: mood as the defense was, and probably you were on
0:19
Speaker 1: New Year's Day as well. A great place to celebrate
0:21
Speaker 1: is it Jeff Ruby's of Columbus, probably offering nationally acclaimed
0:24
Speaker 1: USDA Prime Stakes, seafood and sushi, and peckuple service, live entertainment,
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Speaker 1: and an attention to detail that it is simply unmatched.
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Speaker 1: Just go to Jeff ruby dot com slash Columbus, check
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Speaker 1: out the menu and make a reservation for today. Joined
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Speaker 1: today by Ross Fulton, our ex's and o's guru at
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Speaker 1: Buckeyehuddle dot com. Ross I asked I mentioned this on
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Speaker 1: the when we recorded the last show. I'm going to
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Speaker 1: ask you which which unit had the more impressive performance
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Speaker 1: during the Rose Bowl, the offense or the defense. You've
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Speaker 1: had some time to think about it. These are two
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Speaker 1: strong contenders which one did you come away more impressed with?
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Speaker 2: I have probably take the defense's performance, honestly, because I
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Speaker 2: think statistically Oregon's offense is the stronger of the two units.
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Speaker 2: It's the strength of their team and the defense stacking
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Speaker 2: three and outs on top of one another, is what
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Speaker 2: allowed the offense like allowed them to really build that lead.
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Speaker 2: You know, I thought that Ohio State would real score points. Obviously,
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Speaker 2: I think that they outperformed what I expected, but in
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Speaker 2: terms of explosives and in terms of like diversity of scheme,
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Speaker 2: but I just think the defense was really on point.
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Speaker 1: All right, Well, so if you enjoyed the last show,
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Speaker 1: you're going to enjoy this show even more. That's the
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Speaker 1: Ross Fulton promise. You heard it right there. All right,
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Speaker 1: We're going to start with one of these with our
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Speaker 1: first play. And I always like to, you know, tell
1:46
Speaker 1: people which play this is that we're talking about, so
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Speaker 1: that if people who are maybe just listening to the
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Speaker 1: podcast and not watching can kind of picture it in
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Speaker 1: their minds. This is going to be a hard one
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Speaker 1: because this is one of many plays where Jordan James
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Speaker 1: took a handoff and went like nowhere. So this is
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Speaker 1: let's start with this one and one of many of
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Speaker 1: any good run defense plays with the buck Hyes.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is like sort of the quintessential
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Speaker 2: three high Ohio State run defense. Now, from that three
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Speaker 2: high Tampa look, you know JP Acosta, Max Tisana, others
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Speaker 2: on social media have sort of detailed this as well.
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Speaker 2: But you know, Oregan's running their base wide zone play here,
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Speaker 2: and you know you're getting this three high right where
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Speaker 2: Kleeb Downs is like ten yards off the ball in
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Speaker 2: that bull runner position. The linebackers are both hipped up
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Speaker 2: outside the defensive ends and so obviously numbers wise, it
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Speaker 2: looks inviting to run, but they're just doing such a
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Speaker 2: great job playing defense. From this, you can see from
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Speaker 2: the tight angle particular, like as we talked about again
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Speaker 2: the defensive end here, Mitchell Melton to that side, he
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Speaker 2: stunts inside into the B gap immediately again, that forces
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Speaker 2: the ball to spill, and you've got Cody Simon being
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Speaker 2: outside leverage and so he's the force player forcing the
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Speaker 2: football on side, and then you have Caleb Downs come.
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Speaker 3: And clean it up.
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Speaker 2: You know, one of the benefits of the three high
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Speaker 2: is just that offenses don't really account for that middle
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Speaker 2: safety and Downs is part of the blocking scheme, and
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Speaker 2: so a lot of times he's just not blocked.
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Speaker 3: I keep waiting for to see teams try to account
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Speaker 3: for it.
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Speaker 2: I think that I saw herd pff say that Ohio
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Speaker 2: State ran has run Cover two or at least variations
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Speaker 2: of Cover two according to them, like twenty five percent
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Speaker 2: of the time the last two games in the playoffs.
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Speaker 2: So definitely increase, particularly in these three high safety schemes.
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Speaker 2: But in some ways it's a you know, to your
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Speaker 2: earlier question, it's a mirror as well of the offense
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Speaker 2: in the sense that just like the offense is now
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Speaker 2: featuring Jeremiah Smith, moving him around, taking advantage of like
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Speaker 2: defenses of attention on him to open up other things,
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Speaker 2: you know, turning to him high leverage situations, you know,
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Speaker 2: as much focused as there is on like the three
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Speaker 2: high schemes, and Jim.
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Speaker 3: Knowle's getting back to what he's doing.
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Speaker 2: There's also like the simple fact of we're going to
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Speaker 2: put our best player in the middle of the field
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Speaker 2: at the second level and let him make a bunch
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Speaker 2: of plays in the run of the pass game. And
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Speaker 2: I'm going to show you a bunch of examples of
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Speaker 2: that today. But it's just like letting him play football.
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Speaker 2: And you know, particularly against Oregon, as we'll see, like
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Speaker 2: between the wide zone game and all the shallow crossers
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Speaker 2: they like to run like. They put a lot of
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Speaker 2: emphasis on Caleb downs right there in the middle. But again,
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Speaker 2: none of this would be possible without the changes we
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Speaker 2: talked about up front of stunting or using heavy techniques
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Speaker 2: to close off the interior gaps. And so the boss
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Speaker 2: is spill and so the you know, when your linebackers
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Speaker 2: out like this, it takes away a lot of those
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Speaker 2: like reliefs and RPO glans for us because they're just
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Speaker 2: sitting already in that overhang position. So you're kind of
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Speaker 2: sitting on the RPOs and you're giving an inviting box
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Speaker 2: to run. But then you're able to force the footballut
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Speaker 2: side and give those guys time to rally because the
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Speaker 2: defensive line is plugging the interior gaps. Sorry for my
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Speaker 2: voice in advance, we're all you know, we're playing playing
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Speaker 2: through the injuries here.
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Speaker 1: All right. So now continuing the theme of great run defense,
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Speaker 1: this next one is you probably will remember this one.
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Speaker 1: This was a little distinctive. This is the one where
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Speaker 1: Laythan Ransom crashes down and absolutely meets the back and
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Speaker 1: just stops him absolutely dead in the hole.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, So another example of playing with the light
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Speaker 2: box here right, So here Oregan's in twelve personnel. I
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Speaker 2: think it's notable that Ohio State, at least the last
5:30
Speaker 2: two playoff games, unlike most of the regular season, has
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Speaker 2: not automatically matched two tight ends by bringing in a
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Speaker 2: third linebacker. Instead, they stuck with their base nickel personnel.
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Speaker 2: I think Jordan Hancock played like sixty nine snaps, so
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Speaker 2: not automatically responding because if they did, they couldn't do
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Speaker 2: a lot of this three high stuff, right, And so
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Speaker 2: in some ways this is but this is like really
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Speaker 2: not a three high I mean, it's a variation on it,
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Speaker 2: but instead what they're but you still get the linebackers
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Speaker 2: hipped up, right, and this is actually they're playing three
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Speaker 2: buzz here.
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Speaker 3: So we saw more cover three from Ohio State.
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Speaker 2: Interesting in lee enough against Oregon then I've probably seen
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Speaker 2: them play all year. Was not expecting that going into
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Speaker 2: the game, but it allowed them to get one safety
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Speaker 2: down at all times, as we'll see here, and while
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Speaker 2: simultaneously taking away some of those deep throws that hurt
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Speaker 2: him in the first game, and so here you know again,
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Speaker 2: so like you're giving the invitation to run right with
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Speaker 2: like both linebackers outside the box, Hancocks even outside the linebackers.
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Speaker 2: But again like as you can see from the tight angle,
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Speaker 2: like to that left side on this inside zone right
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Speaker 2: the defensive end again like spikes inside the tackle. Right,
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Speaker 2: So now you're spike inside the tackle. Same thing again,
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Speaker 2: Cody Simon's taking on the tight end with his inside
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Speaker 2: shoulder to force the ball, and then Lathan Ranson obviously
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Speaker 2: comes and fills the sea gap and does it with authority,
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Speaker 2: and so yeah, very memorable play. But again it's just
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Speaker 2: like a very different way to defend the run that
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Speaker 2: what they were doing in the first game, where they
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Speaker 2: would have guys in conflicts because they had to be
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Speaker 2: responsible both for like a B gap and an RPO.
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Speaker 2: And so now you're you're forcing again forcing the football
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Speaker 2: out wider. So it's really just another variation of what
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Speaker 2: we saw the first play. But they're able to do
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Speaker 2: it now from different looks. It's not just that three
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Speaker 2: high Tampa, it's also from cover three they're doing it
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Speaker 2: as well.
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Speaker 1: Well. Earlier you mentioned the benefit that the twists and
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Speaker 1: the different stuff they're doing on the defensive line is
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Speaker 1: having in terms of spilling stuff out, and this is
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Speaker 1: one where it had an even more direct result. And
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Speaker 1: this was one of the players where Tyler Williams ran
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Speaker 1: a little stunt up front and Tyler Williams gets into
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Speaker 1: the backfield and just completely blows this running play up.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Cody Alexander on Blue Sky pointed out that I say
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Speaker 2: was running in quite a few of what he calls
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Speaker 2: these tam stunts, which is just his term for your
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Speaker 2: taking the three technique tackle whose you know, iracle Here
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Speaker 2: Tyler Williams who's lined up between the guard and the tackle,
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Speaker 2: and you're studying him inside towards this between the guard
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Speaker 2: and the center, right and so again, and then you
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Speaker 2: see here too the JT twomloa also spikes inside. So
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Speaker 2: again we're just doing variations of this like pinching the
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Speaker 2: defensive line inside to force the football out. But Tyler
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Speaker 2: Williams made a ton of plays with this technique. You know,
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Speaker 2: he was basically unblockable when they sort of freed him
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Speaker 2: to attack this gap.
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Speaker 3: The irony beam.
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Speaker 2: You know, when we talked about this back before the
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Speaker 2: first organ game, and where people were talking about, well,
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Speaker 2: you know, like taking away you know what the defensive
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Speaker 2: line can do. I was like moving them around gives
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Speaker 2: them more opportunities to make plays individually, because when you
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Speaker 2: win the offensive line and the opposing coordinator doesn't know
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Speaker 2: exactly where they're going to be, that creates opportunities for
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Speaker 2: negative plays. And so this is again like this is
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Speaker 2: also I know it's the tight angle, but another three
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Speaker 2: high Tampa look. But this is just another way that
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Speaker 2: they played with that with that depth and sort of
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Speaker 2: the width to take away the RPOs but still stop
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Speaker 2: the running game inside using a lot of these like
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Speaker 2: three technique scents inside which both as I said, spilled
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Speaker 2: the football but also just allowed that defensive line to
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Speaker 2: make plays against the run as well.
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Speaker 1: All Right, and on the offensive shows over the years,
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Speaker 1: we've talked a bunch about MESH. That's a concept we've
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Speaker 1: seen in the Ohio State offense for years. Now, we're
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Speaker 1: gonna be talking about how the Buckeyes defended against MESH.
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Speaker 1: And this is one of the plays where Cody Simon
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Speaker 1: made a real impact play. You saw him make a
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Speaker 1: bunch of plays in the run game and having a
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Speaker 1: lot of a couple of sacks and tackles for loss.
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Speaker 1: This is the one where he it looked like for
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Speaker 1: just a split second he might have a pick six,
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Speaker 1: got his hands on it, couldn't quite bring it in,
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Speaker 1: but ended up breaking up what was a third down pass.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so those are some examples of how Ohio State
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Speaker 2: used that three high look to defend the run. And
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Speaker 2: now we're we're seeing against the pass. So this is
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Speaker 2: a fourth down play Oregon called Mesh. I mean this,
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Speaker 2: as you said, like, this is a route you tend
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Speaker 2: to want to run against man coverage. You're trying to
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Speaker 2: pick defenders who are chasing shallow crosses high State.
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Speaker 3: It's obviously not man here. So that's one victory.
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Speaker 2: But also like again, this is kind of like shows
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Speaker 2: Caleb downs at sort of this second level or even
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Speaker 2: a third level if you want to, and like a
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Speaker 2: four layer defense. So Mesh, you like run the two
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Speaker 2: shallow crossers and then you have that sit route behind it, right,
10:27
Speaker 2: and so he picks that one up, and then you
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Speaker 2: know those linebackers again who are already wider to begin with,
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Speaker 2: are able to sit on those Mesh routes. And as
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Speaker 2: you said, Cody Simon did a nice job driving on
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Speaker 2: the ball and making a play, but like as you
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Speaker 2: see here and as we'll discuss further, like much better
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Speaker 2: job matching routes as well and zone coverage. But again
10:47
Speaker 2: just another example of how this this three high look is,
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Speaker 2: you know, giving them more depth and layers to the
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Speaker 2: defense and allowing them to defend both the run in
10:56
Speaker 2: the past.
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Speaker 1: All right, and next up this is another another three
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Speaker 1: uh cover three sort of look for the buck Eyes.
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Speaker 1: But this is the one where JT Tuye Molowail I
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Speaker 1: remember him coming to coming off the edge, he hits
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Speaker 1: Dylan Gabriel's arm, right, it's about he's about to release it.
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Speaker 1: That's this play.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, there were there was a few of those as well,
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Speaker 2: but this is so this is a it's just three
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Speaker 2: buzz mabel, which mabel is just a Nick Saban term
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Speaker 2: for how you match a cover three to trips. So
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Speaker 2: Oregon has, you know, three wide receivers to the wide
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Speaker 2: side of the field, and you're basically just pushing the
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Speaker 2: coverage to the trips and then manning up the backside.
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Speaker 2: So like Davis and Iigbunosen, here is the boundary corner
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Speaker 2: is playing man on that backside tight end. But you know,
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Speaker 2: I think this is just to me, it's just another
11:49
Speaker 2: example how Ohio State's defense has changed compared to the
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Speaker 2: first organ game. And it's not just using like those
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Speaker 2: three high looks, right, So, like we had an example
11:57
Speaker 2: in our video from that first game of how like
12:00
Speaker 2: Oregon late in that game hit like a deep dig
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Speaker 2: route because Ohigh State wasn't carrying routes or matching them.
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Speaker 2: And by that I just mean like even within zone,
12:08
Speaker 2: you know, sticking with wide receivers, and it just was
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Speaker 2: leaving these early easy throws in here. Like you'll see,
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Speaker 2: like Oregon runs basically like a double post in a corner,
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Speaker 2: and you'll notice how like you know, Jordan Hancock then
12:22
Speaker 2: picks up that corner route Cody Simon and as the
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Speaker 2: mabel like picks up that deep post and he runs
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Speaker 2: with it. And you have Caleb Downs obviously in that
12:31
Speaker 2: like underneath area again sort of cleaning anything up. And
12:35
Speaker 2: so again just like an example of the growth of
12:38
Speaker 2: the defense, but like how much more they give an
12:41
Speaker 2: offense to worry about than they did earlier this season
12:43
Speaker 2: because it's against not just the three high stuff. It's
12:45
Speaker 2: they still play man they still they they're matching in zone.
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Speaker 2: So there's a lot of multiplicity there, and.
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Speaker 1: We're going to get into some of that multiplicity now
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Speaker 1: with a couple of cover one plays and one of
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Speaker 1: my favorite terms, there's lots of fun here. This is
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Speaker 1: a cover one rat play. We've talked about rats before,
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Speaker 1: but this is one. This is if you're trying to
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Speaker 1: figure in your head which one this is. This is
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Speaker 1: the one where Caleb Downs and Jordan Hancott kind of collide.
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Speaker 1: It looks like Caleb Downs might have an interception on
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Speaker 1: this one and they kind of bang into each other
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Speaker 1: and no one can bring it in.
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Speaker 3: Yeah one rat.
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Speaker 2: It just means again like so you have a deep
13:20
Speaker 2: safety and cover one right, everyone's a man. You have
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Speaker 2: a deep safety, and then the rats sort of like
13:24
Speaker 2: you're underneath robber defender and so here they kind of
13:27
Speaker 2: from a two high look right, Caleb Downs rolls down
13:30
Speaker 2: and so he's kind of in that same position he
13:32
Speaker 2: was in like the Tampa too, right where he's like
13:35
Speaker 2: ten yards off the ball and just eyes on the quarterback.
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Speaker 2: And again, the it just shows like Oregon wants to
13:42
Speaker 2: run so many like shallow crosses like here they use
13:44
Speaker 2: like a frankly, like a nifty little man beater with
13:47
Speaker 2: this like sort of fake the receiver like fakes outside
13:51
Speaker 2: and tries to come back inside, and it's a nice call.
13:53
Speaker 2: It like downs is right there, And there's just so many,
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Speaker 2: so many examples in that game of or Oregon try
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Speaker 2: to attack that like intermediate second level of the field,
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Speaker 2: and dal just was making plays on the football and
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Speaker 2: it just made it really difficult for Oregon, particularly early,
14:10
Speaker 2: to like consistently throw the football because he was just
14:13
Speaker 2: such a force in that like sort of middle intermediate zones.
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Speaker 1: All right, and next up, this is another one, very
14:20
Speaker 1: similar kind of coverage here, but this is one where
14:23
Speaker 1: the coverage is good enough and the pass rush is
14:25
Speaker 1: good enough that it ends up with one of Jack
14:27
Speaker 1: Sawyer's I think two sacks on the game.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, And that was the other thing.
14:31
Speaker 2: You know, It's like, oh, I say it at eight sacks,
14:34
Speaker 2: but in some ways it was like that that number
14:36
Speaker 2: seems high, but partially it was just because the coverage
14:42
Speaker 2: helped the pass rush, right, because there was just nowhere
14:44
Speaker 2: to immediately go with the ball. So again, like con
14:46
Speaker 2: trast that to the first organ game. Whereas like oh,
14:49
Speaker 2: I say created pressure, but Gabriel was able to get
14:51
Speaker 2: the ball out right away because the coverage was predictable
14:54
Speaker 2: and what they were doing, whereas here he was like
14:57
Speaker 2: really having to hold the ball a lot more because
14:59
Speaker 2: of the multiple splicity of the matching.
15:01
Speaker 3: You know.
15:01
Speaker 2: Here again it's it's this cover one rat concept again, right,
15:04
Speaker 2: So like there's this in Ohaiose's playing for depth here,
15:07
Speaker 2: so like you know, because Organ's got this like stack
15:10
Speaker 2: bunch to the bottom, but Denzel Burke gives himself enough depth.
15:15
Speaker 2: So like on that Shallon crosser, he's able to drive
15:18
Speaker 2: on it without getting picked by this wheel route from
15:21
Speaker 2: the inside receiver. And then just both Cody Simon and
15:25
Speaker 2: Caleb Downs are in the middle of the field, so
15:26
Speaker 2: Caleb Downs about to try on so again like creating
15:29
Speaker 2: much more levels to the defense. And so like obviously
15:32
Speaker 2: Jack Sawyer here has a really good rep. He rips
15:34
Speaker 2: through red knocks hands down. But again, like the pass rushes,
15:38
Speaker 2: it was helped in this game. You know, like they
15:39
Speaker 2: didn't blitz very much. They use a little bit of
15:42
Speaker 2: that like boundary b gap. Lathan Ransom blitz a few
15:46
Speaker 2: times successfully against the run of the pass, but for
15:49
Speaker 2: the most part, it was just like marrying the covers
15:52
Speaker 2: together like this, or like using that three down look
15:55
Speaker 2: where Cody Simon kind of acted like a spy and
15:57
Speaker 2: then he was able to clean up. And so a
16:01
Speaker 2: lot of it was like a coverage first, you know,
16:03
Speaker 2: particularly as the game got out of hand too, like
16:06
Speaker 2: we're not going to the one thing that's going to
16:07
Speaker 2: let Oregon get back in this game is if we
16:10
Speaker 2: give up a big play, So like we're not going
16:11
Speaker 2: to do that, and that you know this that goes
16:13
Speaker 2: to this next clip I'm going to talk about. But
16:14
Speaker 2: it was a lot of like we're going to keep
16:17
Speaker 2: things underneath force the football of the middle and Caleb
16:20
Speaker 2: Downs is there to take care of that for us.
16:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so then this last one was a little
16:24
Speaker 1: later on the game when it wasn't quite a prevent,
16:27
Speaker 1: but it was just kind of, as you said, just
16:29
Speaker 1: sort of keep things in front of you. This one
16:31
Speaker 1: was kind of interesting to me having watched a couple
16:33
Speaker 1: of Texas games with Tony Gerdaman for the Buckeye Weekly
16:36
Speaker 1: podcast feed where we're kind of looking at their last
16:38
Speaker 1: couple of games. Texas uses Gunner Helm their tight end
16:42
Speaker 1: quite a bit in the passing game. This last one
16:45
Speaker 1: is sunny styles in coverage against Terrence Ferguson. And again
16:48
Speaker 1: this is later in the game and they're sort of
16:50
Speaker 1: backed out a little bit, but this is a you know,
16:52
Speaker 1: this is just a little tight end drag route to
16:54
Speaker 1: Terrence Ferguson. So it's something you could see some variation
16:57
Speaker 1: of it coming up in the Cotton Bowl against Texas.
17:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
17:01
Speaker 2: I mean, as I'm going through that game, you know,
17:03
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to think to myself, like the more
17:05
Speaker 2: this is out there, you know, like how our team's
17:07
Speaker 2: going to attack, like the three high in particular, and
17:11
Speaker 2: like Oregon, you know, and they had some successman in
17:13
Speaker 2: the ball, like a lot of that was just like
17:15
Speaker 2: Dylan Gabriel making plays out of structure. I mean we
17:17
Speaker 2: saw that in the first game too, like he's you know,
17:20
Speaker 2: some scrambled drill plays. But also like they did some
17:24
Speaker 2: of this too where like again, I particularly when the
17:29
Speaker 2: game you know, got out of hand or I stated
17:31
Speaker 2: a big lead, it's somewhat hard to disentangle, right, like
17:34
Speaker 2: how much would Ohio State have done this if they
17:37
Speaker 2: didn't have as big of a lead, But playing really
17:40
Speaker 2: like really soft three high again, like I'm sure the
17:43
Speaker 2: thought process was, like the one thing that gets them
17:45
Speaker 2: back in this game quickly is like a sixty yard
17:47
Speaker 2: touchdown like they had in the first game, right Like
17:50
Speaker 2: if it takes them twelve plays to drive it and
17:53
Speaker 2: it eats up five to seven minutes, like we'll take
17:56
Speaker 2: that because we have three scores to play with still.
18:00
Speaker 2: But you did see some of this from organ like
18:02
Speaker 2: as the game went on, trying and to attack it
18:03
Speaker 2: like this is kind of like you know, they motion
18:06
Speaker 2: to this trips and I think O High State's basically
18:09
Speaker 2: in a Cover four box against the Trips. It's like
18:11
Speaker 2: four over three and they're basically just trying to run
18:14
Speaker 2: off the coverage and then bring the the tight end
18:18
Speaker 2: drag route underneath. And because the coverage pushes so much
18:21
Speaker 2: like sunny styalas is left in Man.
18:23
Speaker 3: You saw that some too against like Cover two. The
18:25
Speaker 3: way Jim Knowles like a lot of.
18:28
Speaker 2: People play it is the corners in Cover two, even
18:31
Speaker 2: though they're responsible for the flats, they continue to sink
18:34
Speaker 2: unless they see like an immediate flat threat, and so
18:37
Speaker 2: they could try they kind of try to get the
18:38
Speaker 2: corners to sink back and then try to hit underneath
18:41
Speaker 2: and so you know there's trade offs and everything, right,
18:43
Speaker 2: so like you're you are giving up some underneath stuff. Again,
18:46
Speaker 2: this was became more prevalent as the game progressed, you know,
18:50
Speaker 2: like whereas earlier, as I said, Ohio State was playing
18:52
Speaker 2: more like Cover three buzz mixing and matching things. So
18:55
Speaker 2: I do think there were some game situation involved. But
18:57
Speaker 2: I do think, you know, like anything else, the more
19:00
Speaker 2: tape you get out there, like you'll look, teams will
19:03
Speaker 2: probably try to, you know, run off the coverage some
19:05
Speaker 2: and then target the flats in particular underneath.
19:10
Speaker 1: So we're going to, I'm sure, try and have another
19:12
Speaker 1: show later on in the week when we're a little
19:15
Speaker 1: closer to the game. Your voice is a little stronger.
19:17
Speaker 1: But I do want to kind of just put a
19:19
Speaker 1: little bow on this show with just some broad strokes
19:23
Speaker 1: on the Texas offense and how similar Steve Sarkisian's offense
19:28
Speaker 1: is to what will Stein was running for Oregon. Is
19:32
Speaker 1: is it a very similar offense. Is it something where
19:35
Speaker 1: you kind of start your game plan for Texas by
19:39
Speaker 1: kind of copy pasting what you did for Oregon and
19:41
Speaker 1: then you're sort of tweaking from there, or is this
19:43
Speaker 1: one where Jim Knowles is probably going to kind of
19:45
Speaker 1: go back to the drawing board and start from scratch.
19:49
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of similarities in the sense
19:51
Speaker 2: that Texas is a wide zone heavy run team just
19:54
Speaker 2: like Oregon, and obviously a relief and screen heavy team.
20:00
Speaker 2: One difference is you don't have to worry about Quinn
20:02
Speaker 2: Universe as a runner like in the Zone Red game,
20:05
Speaker 2: like a lot of the run games from Pistol, you'll
20:07
Speaker 2: get a lot of variety of screens. But I think
20:09
Speaker 2: it's really like, you know, honestly, it's having the fortunate
20:13
Speaker 2: like all three teams are playing here really like to
20:16
Speaker 2: attack with RPOs, particularly in those sort of clant those
20:20
Speaker 2: glance routes in particular like the skinny slants or skinny
20:22
Speaker 2: posts we've talked about before, and so like again, this
20:26
Speaker 2: like three high is very good for that because those
20:28
Speaker 2: linebackers are basically already just sitting in those throwing lanes.
20:32
Speaker 2: So I think it's really it's going to be a continuation,
20:35
Speaker 2: I would think, game plan wise of what we've seen here.
20:38
Speaker 2: But you know, I think it's really like again, Max Desano,
20:41
Speaker 2: I highly recommend has a long thread on X Breaking
20:46
Speaker 2: down Quinn viewers and Texas and talking about in the
20:48
Speaker 2: context of State's defense, like giving Quinn ewers, like a
20:52
Speaker 2: multiplicity of looks in the back end as well, Like
20:55
Speaker 2: I think they'll continue to mix in you know, coverages
20:57
Speaker 2: here as well, but definitely not back to the drawing board.
21:00
Speaker 2: I think you're going to see a lot of the
21:02
Speaker 2: same force the football to spill, sit on the RPOs
21:06
Speaker 2: and then have killed downs clean up.
21:10
Speaker 1: Well, if you want to see that thread, we have
21:12
Speaker 1: a whole post about it on our board, the huddle
21:14
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21:17
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21:19
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21:22
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21:24
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21:26
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21:29
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21:32
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21:36
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21:38
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21:41
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21:44
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22:06
Speaker 1: That will do it for today. Thank you guys all
22:08
Speaker 1: for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to
22:10
Speaker 1: you tomorrow.