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Buckeyes Football Insider: Arthur Smith & Ohio State's Offensive Scheme · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Thursday, August twentieth, I'm
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  Speaker 1: your host, tom Or the ball State game in sixteen days,
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  Speaker 1: the game because fishially in exactly one hundred days. Thanks
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  Speaker 1: today to our friends at Jeff Ruby's with Columbus probably
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  Speaker 3: Today.
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  Speaker 1: All right, I'm joined by Marcus Hartman at Buckeye Insiders
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  Speaker 1: dot com. We just got a chance to talk to
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  Speaker 1: running backs, tight ends and some interesting stuff, not necessarily
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  Speaker 1: but those specific positions. A little bit on the a
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  Speaker 1: little bit on the running backs, we'll get you later
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  Speaker 1: in the show. Most interesting stuff was some more big
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  Speaker 1: picture stuff because Isaiah West was we got a chance
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  Speaker 1: to talk to him.
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  Speaker 2: We talked to bo Jackson earlier in the fall.
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  Speaker 1: We got a chance to talk to Isaiah West and
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  Speaker 1: Jacoby Jackson on Wednesday, and he had a very interesting
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  Speaker 1: answer about the offense and maybe what's a little different
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  Speaker 1: this year.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Isaiah who you know he was. He's very confident,
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  Speaker 3: he's got a deep voice. Devers his answer, so it's interesting,
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  Speaker 3: but he used his hands to emphasize. Arthur Smith has
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  Speaker 3: a plan and a structure to the offense, which I
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  Speaker 3: think he can't help but take it like maybe last
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  Speaker 3: year they didn't have that much of a plan in
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  Speaker 3: a structure. He said, you know, they're not running a
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  Speaker 3: thousand different plays, and it's more, you know, a few
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  Speaker 3: basic concepts that they can then kind of branch out of,
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  Speaker 3: which is not a huge surprise. I think from what
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  Speaker 3: we know about Arthur Smith and what we've seen, I
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  Speaker 3: think you can take from what we've seen. You know,
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  Speaker 3: you know, last year they ran a lot of zone,
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  Speaker 3: they ran a lot of power and things off of that,
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  Speaker 3: and I like, I'm a personal fan of power and
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  Speaker 3: doing different things. But I think this year we're going
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  Speaker 3: to see them be back more into leaning into zone
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  Speaker 3: and doing things off of that. I also think that
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  Speaker 3: I mean, bo Jackson I think was much better at
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  Speaker 3: zone than he was at anything else, and he was
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  Speaker 3: better at zone than anybody.
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  Speaker 2: Was at anything else. I think last year, you.
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  Speaker 3: Know, I don't know, and then West kind of you
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  Speaker 3: can see where he would be a one cut type
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  Speaker 3: of a guy, but I think he could be either one.
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  Speaker 3: So so that was kind of the most interesting thing
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  Speaker 3: that he said. And first of all, you know everything
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  Speaker 3: you're he didn't mean to, but it did sound like
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  Speaker 3: he was casting us versions at at Brian Hartline and
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  Speaker 3: for better or for worse, and I think again I
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  Speaker 3: felt all along, Yeah, they hired a guy who used
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  Speaker 3: to be a head coach as an offensive coordinator. But
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  Speaker 3: I really thought if you took what they were doing
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  Speaker 3: last year, and I've thought this many times over the
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  Speaker 3: last twenty years, and you truly just actually hired a
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  Speaker 3: consultant and there was like a real consultant who knew
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  Speaker 3: what they were doing, not someone who's just stealing money,
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  Speaker 3: and they just said, no, cut this out, do this more,
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  Speaker 3: put this here. I think what they were doing last
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  Speaker 3: year was was fine if they just refined it. And
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  Speaker 3: then but then they brought in, you know, a former
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  Speaker 3: head coach and so they're getting that on steroids and
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  Speaker 3: it sounds like, you know, he's making plenty of changes
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  Speaker 3: and it helps that he knows what he's doing well.
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  Speaker 1: And it's kind of interesting that three of the last
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  Speaker 1: four offensive coordinators Ryan Day is hired were former NFL
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  Speaker 1: head coaches Bill O'Brien, who did the basically William Henry
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  Speaker 1: Harrison term at Ohio State before leaving to take the
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  Speaker 1: head coaching job at Boston.
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  Speaker 2: College Chick Kelly.
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  Speaker 1: Then you have Brian Hartline, who's never called before, and
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  Speaker 1: then you know Arthur Smith, and it feels like this
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  Speaker 1: is Brian Day looking and going, well, here's that. Here
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  Speaker 1: are the things that were beneficial because I think during
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  Speaker 1: Bill O'Brien's brief tenure at o High State, he did
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  Speaker 1: kind of do the consulting thing where he looked at
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  Speaker 1: the previous year's film and went, Okay, here's you know,
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  Speaker 1: here's what I'm seeing from the outside. With with having
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  Speaker 1: done this for a while, and yeah, having having Arthur
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  Speaker 1: Smith come in and do that is you know it,
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  Speaker 1: it seems like it seems like that's going to be beneficial.
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  Speaker 1: I do want you to expand a little bit for
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  Speaker 1: people who don't understand what makes someone a better running
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  Speaker 1: back for a zone based offense versus a like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: maybe more of a power scheme or a man block.
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  Speaker 3: Well, the zone I think it's more specialized for guys
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  Speaker 3: who are good at zone, I think than guys who
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  Speaker 3: are power, because I'm with the power a lot of
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  Speaker 3: times you're just supposed to trust the whole is there
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  Speaker 3: and then you run through it. And so anybody can
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  Speaker 3: do that in my estimation, although some guys are better
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  Speaker 3: at it than others.
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  Speaker 2: The zone it's a little more.
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  Speaker 3: There's a real feel to it and you know, being
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  Speaker 3: able to kind of hit the hole at just the
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  Speaker 3: right time. And because the hole is is just sort
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  Speaker 3: of in an area, it's not necessarily you cut off
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  Speaker 3: of this guy's butt and he's always going to be
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  Speaker 3: right here and so again, and honestly, the big thing
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  Speaker 3: was if you just watched last year, they kind of
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  Speaker 3: struggled to run the ball and then Bow would come
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  Speaker 3: in and they would just give him the ball off
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  Speaker 3: the guard and he would like squirt through the hole
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  Speaker 3: and he would have It was kind of a revelation
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  Speaker 3: on the tech of the strength of the opposition wasn't
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  Speaker 3: necessarily the same there at the beginning. But that's why
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  Speaker 3: I think, just from what we've seen with Bo, he's
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  Speaker 3: just sort of a feel runner like that. And you
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  Speaker 3: talk about being a big guy, likes a bigger guy
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  Speaker 3: like West again, you know, maybe he once he kind
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  Speaker 3: of gets all that weight going one way and then
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  Speaker 3: he make one cut and get it going the other way.
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  Speaker 3: I think that works pretty well for him, So I
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  Speaker 3: think that that's why he said it kind of fits
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  Speaker 3: those guys. It makes sense that it would it would
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  Speaker 3: fit with those guys, and it's also up to Lachland
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  Speaker 3: to coach him up on that. But if I remember correctly,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I think his previous stop, I think they
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  Speaker 3: were doing a lot of zone at at Oregon too,
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  Speaker 3: So you know.
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  Speaker 2: I mean it's most teams do both.
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  Speaker 3: And as a matter of what they major in, I'm
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  Speaker 3: sure we haven't seen the last of power, Jim Tressel's
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  Speaker 3: favorite play in the Ohio State offense, even this coming year.
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  Speaker 3: But it looks like, you know, they want to major
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  Speaker 3: in that, and that's from what we've seen and what
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  Speaker 3: the guys have talked about.
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  Speaker 2: That's kind of how it feels, all right.
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  Speaker 1: So maybe they're getting a little way from power, but
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  Speaker 1: they are looking at more under center, so not getting
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  Speaker 1: completely away from the Jim Tressel era just yet. There
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  Speaker 1: were some other interesting stuff that we heard from Bennett
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  Speaker 1: Christian because one of my favorite things is when players
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  Speaker 1: on one side of the ball get asked about the
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  Speaker 1: other side of the ball, and this was sort of
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  Speaker 1: a spin on that. Normally, it's you asking the offense, Hey,
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  Speaker 1: what have you seen out of the defense or this
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  Speaker 1: position group on the defense or whatever if you're going
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  Speaker 1: up against them during practice every day. This was a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of a different thing where he ended up
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  Speaker 1: talking about some feedback that he got from the defensive
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  Speaker 1: side of the ball about this year's offense.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Ben at Christian said, he asked Peyton Pierce kind
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  Speaker 3: of what he's He's the middle linebacker with the number
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  Speaker 3: one defense, you know, what does he see from what
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  Speaker 3: they're doing offensively? And he said basically like, no, I
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  Speaker 3: don't know. I can't tell what you're doing. Given it's
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  Speaker 3: it's going to be super confusing. So other teams that
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  Speaker 3: aren't practicing against it, he feels like it'll be extra confusing.
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  Speaker 3: And if you kind of extrapolate off of what Isaiah
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  Speaker 3: had said, and if you look at the way the
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  Speaker 3: zone schemes typically work, it does a lot of stuff
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  Speaker 3: that looks similar. They're doing a bunch of different plays,
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  Speaker 3: but especially to the layman's eye, a lot of stuff
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  Speaker 3: is pretty similar. You know, then they'll you know, if
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  Speaker 3: you get down into it, they're coaching different techniques and
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  Speaker 3: each guy's job will very a little bit, and it
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  Speaker 3: depends on what the defense is doing. But I mean,
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  Speaker 3: from the average fan, even the average fan who wants
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  Speaker 3: to know more, you can kind of it's gonna look
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  Speaker 3: similar and then it's up to them to kind of
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  Speaker 3: make it work. And obviously, but also from what he
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  Speaker 3: Bennett is saying, that translates to the average middle linebacker
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  Speaker 3: who's trying to interpret what the defense is or what
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  Speaker 3: the offense is doing as well. So that's another reason
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  Speaker 3: that and we could be completely wrong about this, but
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  Speaker 3: to think that maybe they're going to be a little
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  Speaker 3: more focused on a few concepts that they can then
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  Speaker 3: expound off of, and no matter what it sounds like,
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  Speaker 3: for sure they're going to I guess and just having
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  Speaker 3: a better plan even for some of the same things.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes you can't overemphasize how much difference that can make.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you think back through different types of
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  Speaker 1: college football teams, this is not like a unique thing
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  Speaker 1: with oh, this only happens in the run game, Like
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  Speaker 1: the surface academies, their triple option it's generally small iterations
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  Speaker 1: on relatively you know, a small, relatively small number of concepts,
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  Speaker 1: but almost an infinite number of small iterations on that.
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  Speaker 1: Mike Leech with the air raid would run like four plays,
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  Speaker 1: but it was just different iterations of those specific plays.
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  Speaker 1: It reminds me a little bit of pitch tunneling in baseball,
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  Speaker 1: where if you're a pitcher and you've got a fast
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  Speaker 1: you know, a good fastball and a great curveball, that's great.
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  Speaker 1: If those two pitches can look the same for the
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  Speaker 1: first thirty feet on the way to the plate, that
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  Speaker 1: makes it way harder for the defense to pick it
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  Speaker 1: up or for the batter to pick it up. This
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  Speaker 1: might be the same thing where yeah, you're, okay, they're
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  Speaker 1: going to run outside zone here, but they have well,
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  Speaker 1: they're gonna block it slightly differently where they're going to
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  Speaker 1: have you know, they're gonna pick a different target or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: That feels like we always talk about finding ways to
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  Speaker 1: make it simple for you and complicated for the opposing team,
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  Speaker 1: whether that's disguising coverages on defense or in this case,
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  Speaker 1: on offense, that feels like that's really the goal for
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  Speaker 1: what they're trying to do he Yeah, I.
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  Speaker 3: Mean I think it's pretty much exactly the same thing
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  Speaker 3: from the tunneling standpoint when you again, because that also
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  Speaker 3: brings it down to a couple of things that it
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  Speaker 3: could be, but it only has to be more than
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  Speaker 3: one thing, and it becomes a lot more difficult to read.
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  Speaker 3: And it's just changing what their keys are for the
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  Speaker 3: defense or eliminating the keys basically, but not changing.
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  Speaker 2: The basic job that much.
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  Speaker 3: For I mean, like I said, with the triple option again,
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  Speaker 3: like you can be running the same setup where you
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  Speaker 3: fake the dive, but the coaches who are really experts
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  Speaker 3: in it will change the blocking scheme and they'll and
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  Speaker 3: then you would not You won't notice this if you're
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  Speaker 3: just the average person, but they'll change that. Okay, we're
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  Speaker 3: gonna option this guy, we're gonna option this guy, we're
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  Speaker 3: gonna double this guy, and you really it's very hard
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  Speaker 3: to tell what the difference is from one thousand feet away,
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  Speaker 3: but it makes a huge difference, especially if the you know,
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  Speaker 3: to keep the defense off there, off their off balance,
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  Speaker 3: which you know, I think that's another thing you get
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  Speaker 3: down to. Last year, obviously, the number one problem, especially
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  Speaker 3: against Miami was the defense never really looked off balance.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, they were able to kind of play downhill
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  Speaker 3: and attack them from the beginning of the game. And
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  Speaker 3: and maybe that was because some things they saw on
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  Speaker 3: the scouting report. I mean, you know, maybe it had
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  Speaker 3: nothing to do with that, but maybe that you know,
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  Speaker 3: they get some extra time to prepare and they were
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  Speaker 3: able to kind of figure out what Ohio State was
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  Speaker 3: going to do.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe they were tendencies. I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: And maybe again, Ohio State was sort of a jack
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  Speaker 3: of all trades master of none last year, and it
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  Speaker 3: sounds like they're they're probably going to have the opposite.
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  Speaker 2: Approach this year.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm already as we're just talking about this, I'm
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  Speaker 1: already excited to get onto the insiders board at black
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  Speaker 1: Eye insiders dot com and start talking about this stuff
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  Speaker 1: with Ross and Michael, who are our scheme insiders, because
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  Speaker 1: this feels like, you know, this is the stuff where
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  Speaker 1: they're going to excel, where it's like, Okay, what's the
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  Speaker 1: little thing that they're doing differently here? Why did this
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  Speaker 1: one go for forty yards whereas the last three only
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  Speaker 1: went for four. I'm super excited to find that kind
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  Speaker 1: of stuff out this year. I mean to guess Matt
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  Speaker 1: Patricia is going to have some different stuff cooking up
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  Speaker 1: on the defensive side of the ball as well.
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  Speaker 2: We'll be talking about all.
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  Speaker 1: That with our members at Buckeye Insiders dot com. That's
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  Speaker 1: where Tony and I are your team insiders. We've got
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  Speaker 1: Marcus covering basketball. He's our basketball insider, but he said
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  Speaker 1: football obviously as well with us.
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  Speaker 2: Don't you worry.
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  Speaker 1: We've got Jocki's at Recruiting Insider, and we've got Ross
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  Speaker 1: and Michael. There are scheme Insiders, plus a really fun
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  Speaker 1: and active community on the Insiders board. Presented by Jeff
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  Speaker 1: Ruby's Columbus. And speaking of Jeff Ruby's Columbus, thank you
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  Speaker 1: to them for once again sponsoring today's show. They are
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  Speaker 1: the award winning Upscale steakhouse in downtown Columbus, name one
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  Speaker 2: That will do it for today. Thank you guys all
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  Speaker 2: for joining us. Have a great day.
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  Speaker 1: We'll talk to you tomorrow.