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Why Emeka Egbuka Could Be A Key To The Ohio State Offense In 2024 · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Thursday, April eighteenth. I'm your host,
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  Tom Moore, the actor in game in one hundred and thirty five days,
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  the game against Michigan in two hundred and twenty six days. We're continuing our
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  wrap up of the Ohio State spring football season today. We're going to do
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  that by letting you here directly from new Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly.
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  Kelly got a little bit of a late start this spring. He was not
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  the first new Ohio State offensive coordinator of twenty twenty four. That would be
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  Bill O'Brien, who had a brief but about two weeks didn't before leaving to
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  take the head coaching job at Boston College. So exit Bill O'Brien entered Chip
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  Kelly. He got to go through the full fifteen practices at Ohio State this
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  spring. So what were his impressions of the offense coming out of the spring
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  practice season. We'll look at all fifteen. So I think, you know,
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  this day is a big part of it, you know, because it
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  was the first time they ever got to play, some of those guys ever
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  got to play in front of a crowd, and that was an amazing crowd
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  and you know, you get eighty thousand first spring game. Now you could
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  see some of the young guys kind of looking around like, wow, this
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  is different than the door, but that's what they have to get ready to
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  play it. So we got better from practice one, practice fifty. You
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  know, it's still an evaluation through the whole process, but it's not something
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  in the players though, too that we're not making a decision walking off the
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  field today saying hey, this is the direction that we're going in. Well,
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  we'll be very authentic and look through everything and make sure that we get
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  a really good feel for what it all looks like, and then who will
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  best move this offense? That's that's what our decision is going to be based
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  on. The buck guys have five very talented scholarship quarterbacks on the roster.
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  What does Chip Kelly think, just broadly speaking about the quarterback situation for the
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  buck Eyes right now. I do. I think we got a lot of
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  guys there. That part's tough, I think, because you got it.
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  There's guys that deserve reps, you know, and they're all competing for it.
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  So you know, sometimes you'd like to be sometimes when you had a
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  guy who's an initial starter, well he's going to get the bulk of the
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  reps to get them better. But they capitalized on it and we really rolled
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  them. You know, if you were at some of our swring practice,
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  you're watching all those guys rotating and rotting out, and as we talk about
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  all the time, you know the old that which is don't cut your reps,
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  make your reps count, you know, and we'll put it all together
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  and really come up with, you know, which guy do we really feel
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  is gonna gonna help us move this offensively. Kelly has said in the past
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  that success on offense is going to hinge on the coaching staff figuring out what
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  their guys do best and then putting them in position to do that thing.
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  So where are they in that process and then what do they have to do
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  now moving forward to make it happen before the season? Really good question.
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  It's it's interesting because the one thing that I think sometimes makes it tough and
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  an evaluation is what a good front we went against. You know, so
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  for fifteen practices, those guys on the other side of the ball were paining
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  you know, Jack and JT and ty Leek and those guys. But I
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  know come fall, there's not gonna be anybody more happy that we have those
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  guys on the defensive side of the ball because of what they can do.
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  So I still think we'll have to really evaluate that what we're good at,
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  what we're not, what we got to get better at, what we got
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  to work on. But I think the work we got against such a quality
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  defense was was really key for us this time last year, the offensive line
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  was by far the biggest concern surrounding the program. Trip Kelly obviously was not
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  there at that point, but how was he seeing the offensive line progress over
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  the course of those fifteen practices this spring? Yeah, I mean I've been
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  here a short amount of time, so I didn't know. I really don't
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  have anything to compare it to. So I kind of tabiola RASA, come
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  in with a blank slate and just observe it. I think we're really athletic.
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  I think Donnie and Seth and those guys inside are really smart and really
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  intelligent. They allow you to be able to make adjustment tem game. Just
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  talking football with some of those guys, it's like, Wow, these guys
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  are wired the right way, and a lot of those guys that played a
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  lot of football, so they can bank on their experience there. You know,
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  I think we we've got about four guys that have played significant amount of
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  snaps and we got to make sure we can find out who the fifth guy
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  is. But that's similar to where the quarterback spot is, I think,
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  and I also think of the offensive line. You're not going to play a
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  sixteen seventeen game season and just play with five guys. You know, you
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  really have to develop up your depth there. There's going to be a number
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  two center that's going to play a lot of football. It's gonna be a
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  number two guard, whether it's on either side of the ball, there's gonna
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  be a third tackle. I think you're going to get tested, especially with
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  this new in this new playoff format, you really have to think that way.
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  So you know, you're not looking for five starters, You're really looking
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  for ten starters because you're gonna have to You're gonna have to probably play ten
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  guys to get when you get through a sixteen seventeen game season. Chip Kelly
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  has no previous ties to Ohio State, but obviously has some pretty significant respect
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  for the history of the program based on this answer he was talking asked about
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  the first play of the spring game. The Buckeyes came out in the tee
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  formation, not something you've seen a whole heck of a lot of in Columbus
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  over the last few decades. So what was the inspiration for that? Mister
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  Hayes has a there's a looming figure around this whole program. You know,
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  we get to go to work every day in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
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  So it was good enough for wood We're gonna stale, We're gonna do it.
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  We ran some last year. I think we took twenty one snaps at
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  UCLA and T. It's been a short yardage formation for us, and we've
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  done some different things with it. But also I think our players had a
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  lot of fun, you know, practicing that and doing some different things.
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  So it's a small part of our offense. You know, we will not
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  be in the T twenty one times in one game, but you know we
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  may get in in some shortyardge situations. And I think it's come back.
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  There's a lot of schools right now that are starting to do that. You
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  know, it's really just you're trying to you know, you've got a half
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  a yard to get. You know, you're trying to get your big guys
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  in the game, and I think we use three tight ends and two running
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  backs in our formation today with Packard being the fullback in that situation. So
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  there's a lot of different things you can do in short yardage. But a
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  little bit of a tribute to coach Coach Hays and what he means to this
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  program. Kelly has a lot of very shiny toys to work with on the
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  offensive side of the ball in pretty much every room in that in meeting room
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  in that building. So what is the most impressive thing to him so far
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  in his time at Ohio State. I think the most impressive thing since I
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  been he is how close close to this football team is. You know,
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  some programs talk about a brotherhood, This is really a brotherhood. Our practices.
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  As we talked about how good our defense is, it's they're highly competitive,
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  but they're not combative. And those guys really work very very well together,
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  both the old line and the D line and seconder and the receivers.
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  The competition is the best, it's got to be the best there is in
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  the country, you know, and that makes you better. But I think
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  sometimes competition, you know, guys can lash out and it gets really combative,
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  and then all of a sudden the fight breaks out and fight brinks out,
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  and we're trying to accomplish and get football none. But I think the
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  way these guys cooperate and work together as a group as a special bond,
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  and I think you're going to need the closest team, and the most connected
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  teams are the ones that win. There's been a lot of talk about Jeremiah
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  Smith also known as j J Smith over the course of the spring, so
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  you might be forgiven for forgetting that. Oh yes, a Mecca Abuka is
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  also in that wide receiver room. And in case you did forget about Amica
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  Abuka for any point during the spring, he had a real remember me kind
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  of play with a one handed catch during that spring game. So how important
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  is someone like a Megabuka going to be for this team this fall? Good
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  point, and a Mecca has reminded me and the other fourteen practice sessions of
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  what he can do. Special player, you know, And and JJ's a
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  really talented player also. But you know, I think I think all of
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  the whole group Carnell Tape did some really good things watching him this spring and
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  for all of them. You know, I mentioned it with the offensive line,
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  I came in with a blank slate, you know, I had no
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  opinions formed, not that really just wide eyed, didn't just observe them.
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  But you know that I think that wide receiver is really special and I think
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  there's a bunch of guys in there. And again, when you have to
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  play multiple, multiple games after the regular season is over, you're gonna make
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  sure you're gonna need depth like that. And the fact that it's you feel
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  a little bit comfortable right now that we got some guys there that can make
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  some plays on the perimeter, and that really dictates how people are going to
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  defend you. You know. So you got a couple of really good running
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  backs, you know, so are they going to the box? Are you're
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  really going to load the box and leave those guys in one on one coverage?
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  Well, then it's the quarterbacks responsibility to decipher that and get the ball
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  of those guys. So or do they listed double coverage? They listed double
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  coverage, and now it's a little bit lighter box and you can run the
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  ball. So having too many weapons is a good problem to have. So
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  you heard Chip Kelly talk about the five scholarship quarterbacks earlier. Now you're gonna
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  get his impressions on the young quarterback. You're gonna hear him talk about three
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  guys. Actually Julian saying Aaron Nolan and then he's gonna say JJ Letter He's
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  later he's actually talking about Jeremiah Smith wide receiver, but he's kind of lumping
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  them in with these other young guys. I always am so impressed with young
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  guys that enroll early and watching how they get acclimated and what they do.
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  You know, when you look at Julian and Air and JJ, you know
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  they should be in the hot lunch line of their high school and they're out
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  here playing in front of eighty thousand people, and they've really progressed when you
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  watch them in meetings and listen to them and they interpret, you know.
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  So basically the whole tours, we throw them in the deep end and see
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  if they can swim. You know, we didn't baby anything. We don't
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  put the install in with Hey, you guys are install We're in install this
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  with the older players. And then you guys, you know, go sit
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  at the kiddie table and We're just going to do the really simple things with
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  you. You know, they get it all and the more they can digest
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  the more when you're in a room, when when you're checking for understanding and
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  asking questions and they can spit back to you, the more confidence you have
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  when they get in there with the plays that you can call for them.
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  So those guys that have been impressive, they're still learning. You know,
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  they were the guys today that we're kind of looking around and saying, wow,
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  there's like eighty thousand people here, along with the offensive coordinator of the
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  quarterback coach, because I was kind of looking around because I had actually never
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  been in the stadium until yesterday when we had our fourteenth practice in there.
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  So I played Ohio State once when I was at Oregon, but that was
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  in the Rose Bulls. I had never been actually in the stadium until yesterday.
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  So I caught myself when I went into the stadium today looking around and
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  saying, eighty thousand for a spring game. That's impressive, Julian saying is
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  definitely one of the players who raised his stock the most during the course of
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  spring practices. So what has Chip Kelly been most impressed with about Julian,
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  saying during his time in Columbus, Julian is a very fast processor. You
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  know, he really thinks very very quickly on his feet, like he he
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  makes really quick decisions. He doesn't stick on and reads. He can progress
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  and and he sees things really well for a young player, you know,
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  and not having been exposed to a lot of college defenses, and especially what
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  Jim does. You know, Jim, Jim can make Jim can make a
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  young freshman quarterback cry with some of the stuff he does. But you know,
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  I never saw that with Jules, and that's been impressive his ability to
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  retain and you know him and Jj. The compliment I would say to them
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  is if you got here and you didn't know what class they were, and
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  you wouldn't say that those guys were freshmen in terms of how they've picked things
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  up. And you know, sometimes freshmen act like freshmen. But the guys
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  who are special, they don't act like freshmen, you know, they act
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  like their football players. And those are two guys that are are examples of
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  that. Well, we still have a little bit more spring ball wrap up
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  to go, and there's probably more transfer portal news coming. We got all
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  sorts of stuff coming for you this week, recruiting news potentially as well for
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  the Buckeyes, all at bucke Huddle dot com. We hope you can join
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  us there. That's where Tony, Kevin and Ike over the team mark covers
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  recruiting. We got our whole team of ex's and those gurus making you a
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  smarter football fan. Plus a really fun, lively and active board, the
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  Huddle Board, presented by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse. That's all at bucket Huddle dot
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  bit. That'll do it for today. Thank you guys all for joining us
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  have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.