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Signs Of Progress For The Ohio State Offense At Wisconsin · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Sunday, October twenty ninth. I'm your host,
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  Tom Moore. The Rutgers game is in six days, the game against
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  Michigan in twenty seven days. Ohio State came to Madison, They saw Madison.
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  They conquered the University of Wisconsin Badgers twenty four to ten Saturday night into
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  Sunday morning. I think a little bit, well, at least the postgame
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  show went into Sunday morning. I'm Tom Moore, joined by Kevin Noon Ofbuckehuddle
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  dot Com. Kevin, I guess part of the story was Ohio State head
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  Travon Henderson, Ohio State head Marvin Harrison Junior. Wisconsin had neither of those
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  guys. That felt like that was actually a pretty big chunk of why the
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  game ended up the way the game ended up. Yeah, exactly. And
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  when you throw into the equation that Wisconsin lost Braylan Allen at the end of
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  the first half, they I don't know if chumry Dka ever came back out.
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  He was listed as questionable, you know, one really one of their
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  best receivers. Ohio State leaned heavily upon Trevion Henderson and you know, Marvin
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  Harrison Junior is Marvin Harrison junior, and he just does what he does.
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  It was not particularly a sharp game overall for Ohio State's offense. Kyle McCord
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  did not have one of his better games, but they were able to do
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  enough, even though Ohio State did exactly what all of us said during the
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  various shows this week that they couldn't do. They'd let Wisconsin hang around and
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  hang around and hang around, and even though Ohio State had I think it
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  was a touchdown lead around the time that everybody decided to jump around. You
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  know, I think that I don't think that there was a lot of concern
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  amongst Ohio State fans that they weren't going to win the game. But I
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  think they're going to be a lot of people who are like, we're you
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  know, we're we're looking at you know, eight out of twelve games right
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  now. You do teams really make improvements down the last third of the season,
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  and you know, I think that can be up for debate. Yeah,
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  you know, I guess on the positive side, they are eight games
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  in and they are eight to o and the four games left in the regular
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  season, the first three are. You know, they don't talk about games
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  not being matchup games, but there are certain weeks they talk about matchup games,
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  and there's lots of weeks when they don't. In the next three weeks
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  are weeks where they're not talking about them as matchup games against Rutgers in Michigan
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  State and Minnesota. The one after that that is a matchup game that's Michigan.
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  We'll get to that one later, maybe on a later show. Probably
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  won't probably not here, but one thing, if you're looking for an area
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  of improvement, it feels like the ground game was improved, and a lot
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  of that may have had to do with Trevan Henderson being back to twenty four
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  carries, one hundred and sixty two yards and a touchdown for him on the
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  ground, four catches forty five yards through the air, and he you know,
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  he averaged six point eight yards per carry over twenty four attempts, and
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  he did that without having a seventy yarder that skewed those numbers. He was
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  just very efficient. If they stayed on schedule. It felt like there was
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  a lot of second in threes and third and ones and not a lot of
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  second and twelve, third nine. It was just they were constantly on schedule,
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  it felt like, for big chunks of the game. And Trevian Henderson
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  had a lot to do with that. Yeah, exactly. And Trevion was
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  asked about his health and whytt you know what led to his absence, and
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  he said he took kind of a cheap shot in the Notre Dame game,
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  but that he's fully healthy right now, and of course, are you ever
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  who's ever truly fully healthy? But you know, he seemed to look as
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  good as he you know where you know where he's at at this point of
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  his career. Made a lot of guys miss out there, a lot of
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  the a lot of the you know, jump around and dancing and everything else.
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  But he was able to get north south instead of having to deal with
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  everything else. So that was the big thing. Probably had a couple of
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  runs that he left on the table a little bit in terms of was like
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  one guy away from being able to turn to turn a nine yard run into
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  a forty nine yard run. But he was pivotal when it mattered and was
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  able to carry this Ohio State offense when not a lot of things were working
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  besides Sam and Marv. Yeah, and Marvin Harrison continues to just sort of
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  work. It just he was targeted ten times, caught six passes for one
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  hundred and twenty three yards, two touchdowns. It's just, you know,
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  they talk about making the routine plays look routine, and that's one of the
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  goals for the team. Marvin Harrison makes the extraordinary plays look routine. Just
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  week to week, it's just, Oh, there's Marv again. Another one
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  hundred and twenty something yards and another two touchdowns, Like that's just kind of
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  what he does, right, And going to his second touchdown, the one
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  where he managed to get his foot down. I was sitting in the press
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  box next to Tony Gerdaman and obviously the rest of the Ohio State beat and
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  you see the official signal touchdown and pretty much everybody's like, nah, he
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  didn't get that. That's gonna be a quick review. And you know,
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  little known secret what we see live compared to what you see on TV,
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  there's there can be up to twenty second delay depending on how you get it.
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  If you consume it via satellite, there gonna be a big delay.
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  So we had kind of wait a second and then we finally got the replay.
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  We're like, oh my god, he did get that in there,
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  and again, will we view this as like the best Marvin Harrison catch of
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  the year. I mean, I don't know, because there's so many times
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  that we see him do just the fantast to just do things that other receivers
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  don't do that. I mean, I don't know. I don't want to
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  say that I'd become numb to it or naestetized. But in a lot of
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  ways, it's like, yeah, yeah, that's that's smart, that's what
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  he does. You just sort of assume he's going to do it. It's
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  you know, you still kind of go you have those wow moments, but
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  you sort of assume like, oh, well, he's going to do something
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  that you kind of go whoa. And he did that on Saturday night in
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  a game where they had talked about a Mecca Abuka coming back and then Ameca
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  Abuka didn't play and Julian Fleming got banged up a couple different times and kind
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  of left and came back and left and came back. Cade Stover, who
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  was one of the other big receiving targets, had zero targets on the night,
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  no catches, no targets, and it was just sort of Marvin Harrison
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  and a couple other guys did a little bit of something, but it was
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  really Marvin Harrison and Trevian Henderson a lot on the offensive side of the ball
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  and on the defensive side of the ball. This was another really good performance
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  from the Ohio State defense. They held Wisconsin to six of sixteen on third
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  down, zero for two on fourth down, four yards per play on average
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  for the Badgers first five drives of the game. A high states offense get
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  came out of the gate a little bit slow. First five drives of the
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  game for Wisconsin a total of forty two yards. This defense, I know
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  a lot of Ohio State fans are kind of wondering, you know, is
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  this really? You know, is this defense real? Is you know,
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  is this just a function of playing bad offenses all season or for long stretches
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  of the season. It is starting to feel pretty darn real it is there.
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  I think if I had to pick out one negative, it would be
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  Ohio State in the dime. And there was a play of where they were
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  in the dime and Jim Knowles sent more than four and and it ended up
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  being a twenty nine yard game for Wisconsin, and I said, that may
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  be the first play I can remember in recent weeks of where people are going
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  to be like, I know, Jim, why why did you do that?
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  But overall, the defense has played very well. I think Jordan Hancock
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  had a really good game. He was very active. He was a player
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  we got to speak to after the game, and generally of the players that
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  we get to speak to, that's a big indication of who the coaches felt
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  played pretty well or not. You had a bad game, We're probably not
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  going to get to talk to you. He had a good game, still
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  probably not going to get to talk to you, because oh we got a
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  playing to catch. We got to get out of here. But you know,
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  with this type of win, we did get to talk to five six
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  players. A scary moment, j T Tumolowau got hit by Jack Sawyer when
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  there was kind of just a collision that happened. You know, JT was
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  on the ground for a little bit. You could tell that he was still
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  sore. You know, everything hopefully will be okay there. But you know,
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  the defense is just very consistent and at the time that we're recording this,
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  the n C two A site has I don't think is updated numbers yet
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  because of whatever's going on out in Hawaii. I think there's a Hawaii San
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  Jose State game that's still ongoing at this point. But you know, Ohio
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  State's numbers are real. And as we are on the eve, the eve
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  of the eve of the first CFP rankings, I don't think anybody's denying that
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  Ohio State by far has the toughest schedule, face has the best resume.
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  Now how the voters are going to view that, you know, remains to
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  be seen. But Ohio State's defense has been able to perform against a very
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  high caliber schedule to this point. And you know, if Ohio State's number
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  one when those rankings do come out Tuesday evening at seven, you know,
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  it doesn't really matter. But also if they do drop one at some point
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  between now and the official selection Sunday, you want to have you want to
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  be as high up on those numbers as you can if you drop one,
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  and you know, the Notre Dame win again looks pretty good. Penn State
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  did not look great, but they ended up beating Indiana. And you know,
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  if Penn State ends up eleven to one or ten and two and Notre
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  Dame ends up at ten and two. Those are two wins that are going
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  to be, you know, right up there with just about anyone else.
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  And Oklahoma lost on Saturday. North Carolina lost its second one on Saturday.
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  I mean, the field will sort of sort itself out, Buck, I
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  seem like they're in relatively good spot right now. The one thing that was
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  a little bit of a concern on Saturday. Not a great game for Kyle
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  Accord, not a great especially first half for Kyle Accord. Had yet another
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  stripsack, lost to fumble, had a couple interceptions, one a little more
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  understandable than the other. His top line numbers look fine. Seventeen of twenty
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  six for two hundred and twenty six yards, two touchdowns, two picks,
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  completing sixty five percent of his passes through four thirteen point three yards per completion
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  five point oh, I can't do that, you know, a little under
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  ten per attempt. Those numbers are fine if not for the mistakes. And
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  you know, to your point, you're eight games into the season. Now,
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  how much better is it going to get? And how much of that
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  you know, how much better will it get? If Amica Obucan is back
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  out there. Well, I'll answer your question with another question. If Kyle
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  McCord comes out and is pretty sharp in his next three games, is that
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  because he's turned the corner or is that because of who Ohio State's playing in
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  the next three games. So I think it's a little bit of an unknown
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  of you know, whether or not he can get better, because everything is
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  going to be judged November twenty fifth, when Ohio State travels to ann Arbor
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  and takes on Michigan. You know, he could come out and be you
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  know, me for the next three weeks. And if he goes out and
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  just has this herculean effort against Michigan, all is forgiven at that point.
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  Nope. I mean people will sit there and be like, well I was
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  wrong and so on and so well, not not today, It's not in
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  today's society. But you know, people will at least think it and just
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  won't won't verbalize it. But you know, I don't, I don't know.
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  I mean, I think having a mecca out there is a big deal.
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  I mean, let's remember Ohio State tonight tonight, last night, I
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  guess it is last night. At this point didn't have a mecca for large
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  stretches didn't have Julian, so you had Marv, you had Xavier Johnson,
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  you had Carnel Tait, and we saw a lot of run out of g
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  Scott Junior. And you know, Ohio State ran a out of twelve.
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  But this was not necessarily Ohio State's usual, you know, Ohio State's usual
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  starting eleven there was, it was not. So I think there will be
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  a little bit of an uptick when a Mecca does return, whether it be
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  against Rutgers or they hold him out another week. But I'm sure sounds like
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  he's going to go against Rutgers unless he has a setback. But I think
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  all of that will help Kyle. And you know, it has sounded like
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  he was going to go against the Badgers, and it sounded like he might
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  have gone last week against Penn State, and oh for two there. We
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  will see if he is back on the field next Saturday at Rutgers. We
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  will be there, of course, covering that for you, and we'll be
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  covering all of the stuff, all the news and happenings this week. Sure
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  there will be a lot of Ohio State Rutgers talk, but oh boy,
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  there's the other news sort of swirling around the Big ten world right now,
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  will be covering that as well. Whatever developments come out this week, we
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  will be all over those for you. There should be be heading into November,
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  which means the early signing day is just over a month away now.
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  So we have plenty of recruiting coverage from Mark, plenty of axes, nose
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  and scheme stuff from Ross and the rest of our team of x's and nosguruz
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  all at Buckeyehuddle dot com. So sign up today, become a member.
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  Boy. We always talk about how fun and active that message board. It
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  has been a real active week or so on that message board with all of
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  the happenings around the college football world. Sometimes we can share a little bit
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  of stuff there that we don't necessarily feel comfortable sharing to a broader audience,
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  so you can get a little bit more insight, a little bit more analysis
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  from us there at Buckeye Huddle dot com. That will do it for today.
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  Thank you guys all for joining us. Have a great day. We'll
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  talk to you tomorrow.