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Ross Fulton Analysis: Why The Buckeye Defense Shines In Short Yardage · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Friday, November third. I'm your host tom
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  Or. The Rutgers game is tomorrow, the game against Michigan in twenty two
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  days. It is Friday, which means it is a Ross Fulton Day.
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  Here on Buckeyes tomorrow morning. And when it is Ross Fulton Day, we
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  are sponsored by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse in Columbus, probably offering nationally acclaimed USDA Prime
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  Stakes, seafood and sushi, impeccable service, life, entertainment, and an
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  attention to detail. It is simply unmatched. Jeff Ruby dot com slash Columbus.
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  And you know when we have Ross on here, his attention to detail
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  also simply unmatched. Today we're talking about the defense, the number one We
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  mentioned this on last yesterday show, the number one ranked in FBI Ohio state
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  defense. What a time to be alive, Ross, And this is a
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  defense that has not been using a ton of blitzing. You haven't seen a
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  ton of blitzing from Jim Knowles earlier in the season. It feels like he's
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  starting to ratchet that up a little bit. First play, we're talking about
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  Jordan Hancock coming off that corner, and making a big play. Yeah,
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  and so I mean I would agree with that. It's both in terms of
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  like he didn't show a ton early in the season, and it's been ramping
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  up both in frequency but also variety. And you know, this game,
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  like we talked about with versus Penn State, like they ended up playing a
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  lot of single high coverages, this game was definitely more mixed. Like you
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  saw quite a bit a quarter quarter a half from them, and you know
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  which is cover four to the field and cover to the boundary, with which
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  like Knowles is increasingly really liking with this group, particularly when denzil Burke is
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  the cover two corner and also some cover four. But here you get a
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  hot pressure, which he saw a couple of those. So you're bringing you're
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  bringing six guys and then playing a three deep two under zone behind it,
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  similar to and like, so they brought both. Hancock is the Nickel,
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  which like interestingly he played the entire game at Nickel, and so like you
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  know, but he's we've talked about, like he's physical enough, likes and
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  as you can see here, like he can do it like sometimes he lines
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  up as Sam and is like over a tight end and is fine in that
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  role and the mic, and so you're like bringing the nickel and the sea
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  gap and the mic and the b gap and then what Noles likes to do,
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  like to that discussion quarter quarter a half, like when he brings us,
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  he does a hot pressure, but he cloud covers it. So like
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  again like Denzil Burkes squats in the flat, so you're really playing like you
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  have like two under defenders, but one of them is a corner and then
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  you're just like keeping eyes on the on the quarterback, which is why it's
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  called hot but like you know, they nicely, you know, pick up
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  the crossing receiver and you know, so again you're just seeing some more variety,
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  like he brought Lathan Ranson a couple of times on the boundary safety blitz
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  and like fire zone with a three deep three under behind it, so you're
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  like getting more man pressures, you're getting more zone pressures, and just you
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  know, again he's still picking and choosing the spots. Like you know,
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  there's times will come out in first intent on a rundown and like play a
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  three high Tampa two. So like sometimes it's like I'm not sure how much
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  that call made sense there, but like he is keeping the variety up and
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  like keeping off opponents off balance. One thing that they have done very consistently
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  this year is they have been so good in short yardage. However frustrated Ohio
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  State fans are with the offense and short yardage, the defense has just been
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  so consistently good. There next up third and one for Wisconsin and they do
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  not get a first down. Yeah, and as like as we're going to
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  talk about the next clip, like really good on the goal line too.
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  Like I feel like, you know, when in doubt, like they can
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  always stop the run by playing Cover one and bringing Josh Broker down as a
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  Sam linebacker and gapping it out. But like this one was kind of unique,
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  which is why I grabbed it. And again, like we're talking about
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  like increasing the variety, Like here they're actually playing what's called Cover four Meg.
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  We've talked about that in the past, and so Meg that just means
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  man. Meg stands for man everywhere he goes. So basically like the corners
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  are manned up on the receivers, but you're that allows the safeties, Like,
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  so you're playing Cover four, so they're splitting in the field, but
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  they can trigger aggressively against the run. So it's an aggressive form of cover
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  four. You know, there's different types of cover four. You can play
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  it sort of safer, which they do. But this allowed both their their
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  safeties. You know, so Ransom and Proctor to trigger downhill and you know
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  Hancock again as the nickel sort of sam he handles like this is an RPO
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  slide concept, so he's he takes that slide route in the flat and man
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  and then you know Ransom comes down and fills the sea gap. And so
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  again different ways of getting the safeties involved in the run game. And like
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  you know, to the cover one point, like when they get the safety,
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  like their safeties can be aggressive and physical and they are happy to trigger
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  down and so I do think some of the times we've talked about like he's
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  conservative because like he knows that's their strength. So in the back pocket,
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  like you know you can do that, so you want to protect against like,
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  hey, we'll be more conservative because we can always know we can trigger
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  downhill when we need to. It's funny when we talk about the offense and
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  frequently opposing coaches like Luke Fickle talked about this after the game, talked about
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  the fact that, well, you know, when you have a Treyvon Henderson,
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  when you have a Marvin Harrison, like sometimes they just do stuff that
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  other people can't like. It's that that's a real luxury to have that.
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  I feel like we need to start having that conversation about j T. Twey
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  Molowell because I think Penn State and Penn State fans talk about him that way.
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  I don't know that you hear that as much from other fan bases and
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  other coaching staffs, but man, there are certain situations where you know,
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  you mentioned that goal line stand. We're gonna be talking about that next.
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  He is just unstoppable at times in those really really big moments. How did
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  he help blow up that Wisconsin the first you know, first and goal first
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  and goal second goal with the one whatever it was. Yeah, I mean
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  I think friend of the pod Space Coyote mentioned this during the game. But
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  you know, I think there's this temptation to try to split block him,
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  which you know, have the tight end block back across the formation because he
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  comes so aggressively downhill. Maybe there's this hope that like he'll take himself out
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  of the play essentially and you just have to get a piece of him.
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  But like I've seen too many times now where like opponents have tried to do
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  that and he just blows things up in the backfield like split block or like
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  they'll you know, pull the tackle on counter and he just he just you
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  know, chases that guy and makes him play in the backfield. So again
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  you get that here, like Wisconsin tries to split block him and he just
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  goes right past it. Like the Titans not there. He obviously did that
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  against Penn State two against the pass, as we discussed the previous week.
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  But like so that's definitely playing with fire. I mean, the more you
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  know Noel's again like likes to have his his particularly he's playing the run,
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  you know, have his defensive ends crash down and spill the football outside.
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  So you see that again here from both JT and Sawyer. And then again
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  like as we talked about, like Ohio State is really tough with the goal
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  line because you know they can cover one. They put Proctor up as a
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  Sam linebacker and it's just they have every gap covered and those guys trigger downhill
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  really well. So the last one, We're going to do this a little
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  like yesterday show where you got You've gotten a lot of good news. We
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  got to talk a little bit about Okay, well, where can you get
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  better? Where where can you improve? There were some weird stuff going on
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  with the secondary during that game. There were some personnel choices. They were
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  going a dime it sometimes and you know, there were there were points when
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  it worked and there were points when it didn't work. So let's take a
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  look at that, at that secondary personnel shifting around and the different stuff they
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  were trying to do in the secondary. What what was the thinking there and
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  why did it work or why did it not work? Yeah, I'm curious
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  too, And you know, we'll have to see what Jim Knowles has said
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  about it, or we'll say about it. But you know, as I
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  said, they played Hancock the entire game at Nickel, and so obviously that
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  takes away the role. And I don't know whether maybe that's just a one
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  week thing because of Wisconsin and their personnel, or maybe they think Hancock's too
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  valuable on the field after you know, how he's grown this year and what
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  he did against Penn State. But that obviously, then you know that doesn't
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  mean that if you did that and didn't change anything, else and Sunny Styles
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  wouldn't be in the game, and so it seemed like they had him play
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  some for Josh Procter sporadically. You know, I couldn't quite figure out a
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  pattern to it, and then you kind of ended up though with some weird
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  situations where like they've done a dime package before, which was like a three
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  three six basically, and they had both the Styles, Proctor, Ransom and
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  Hancock all in together. But here you get more of like a like you
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  know, they bring in Cam Martinez instead as the dime and I guess you
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  know, it's like, well, if you're facing four wide receivers, you
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  want two corners and two nickels essentially that are more like you know, can
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  play man coverage, which is what they do here. They play a cover
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  one. I just think that, like, you know, and they bring
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  a six man pressure and then Styles as the deep safety and Proctors on the
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  game, and you know, it's just kind of it's kind of pushing it,
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  like Cam Martinez hasn't been playing. I mean, you know, it
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  didn't hurt him here. This this was kind of like a high leverage situation
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  where they if they would have gone off the field here like this drive eventually,
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  like wisconsinle the ball for the last five minutes of the second half.
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  They obviously held them to a field goal, but like it would have been
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  nice to get the ball back here and have another chance to score before the
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  half. You know, you also have Jermaine Matthews. You could theoretically try
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  to play in this role, or you could just play both. You know,
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  I know, styles and Procter and Ransom aren't quite the same in man
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  coverage, but like you know, it gives you a little bit more variety,
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  So it'd be interesting to see if they continue to do this going forward.
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  It sort of again raises the question of obviously this is a kind of
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  a specialty dime package, but like you know what, whether there's been sort
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  of a change in thinking of how they want to handle certain personnel grouping going
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  forward to the back back then and you know, we'll see when hopefully Lathan
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  Ranson comes back sooner rather than later, so it may may negate some of
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  that, you know, at least for the next week or so with styles,
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  like they playing boundary safety in his place, but it'll it'll still be
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  something worth monitoring. It doesn't feel like they're going to see if this is
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  something they we're looking at in terms of facing a four wide receiver set.
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  That doesn't seem like something they're going to see a ton of, at least
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  for the rest of the regular season though, right, Yeah, no,
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  I agree, Like even you know, like Michigan, even when they spread
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  out, they usually keep one, if not two tight ends on the field.
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  I mean their tight ends are both pretty effective receiving threats. So yeah,
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  it could be something specific to this situation and maybe just as a nothing,
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  but I think it's emblematic of again, like you know, for instance,
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  like Michigan's a good example, like would they keep Jordan Hancock on the
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  field the whole time for that game against twelve personnel at Nickel Or is this
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  just like again, it's specific situation where like based on what Wisconsin dead and
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  like you know, Phil Longo in the airra like they had to sort of
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  adjust to make sure guys got it on the field for their snaps. And
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  maybe it doesn't matter going forward, but certainly something I'm monitoring. All right,
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  Well, you can talk you want to talk football with Ross, get
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  a little more detail on any of these questions. Ask some follow up questions.
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  You can do that at Buckey Huddle dot com. Our members have access
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  get to talk to all of our other smart scheme football folks. You
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  can talk to them. You can talk to Tony and Kevin and I about
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  the team. You can talk to Mark about recruiting. All happening at Buckeye
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  Huddle dot com. And of course, thanks again to our friends a Jeff
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  one of the top fifty steakhouses in America by Food Network. That sounds pretty
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  com slash Columbus. That will do it for today. Thank you guys all
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  for joining us. Have a great day. Dot you tomorrow.