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Ross Fulton Analysis: How Should Ohio State Attack Notre Dame's Defense? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Thursday, September twenty First, I'm your host,
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  tom Or. The Notre Dame game is in two days. It is
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  almost here. I know it has been a long week. I promise it's
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  get We're getting there. We will be in South Bend tomorrow. But before
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  we get to that whole thing, let's get to our good buddy, Ross
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  Fulton, one of the XS and nose gurus at Buckeye Huddle dot com.
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  We always we've started to if you are just listening to this as a podcast,
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  we've started to add a video component to this, so if you want
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  to sort of see what we're talking about, you can find that on our
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  YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle. But of course, if
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  you can follow along on the podcast and you'll just prefer to listen to it,
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  that's totally fine too. Whatever works for you works for us and Ross,
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  I guess let's start with the last week's game. Obviously against Western Kentucky,
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  Buckeyes finally look like the Buckeyes, which is good news for a team
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  that has to go on the road and play a top ten team this weekend.
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  Let's start with how the game started really for the buck Eyes that long
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  touchdown run by t Trevi and Henderson first score of the game for the Buckeyes.
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  Know that, you we talked before the show, this feels like,
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  okay, maybe there's some improvement in something that they view as kind of a
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  really based concept for this offense. Yeah, so you know last week we
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  talked about so obviously the opening week we talked quite a bit about, you
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  know, Ryan Day's propensity for using running stretch to the boundary, and so
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  there's plenty of complaints about that, and I think we said at the time,
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  you know, it's it's not necessarily the concept itself, it's a being
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  able to build off of it and not allow teams to know it's coming,
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  which is true for any concept in football and offense. But so the first
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  thing you see here is they came out after not using it very much against
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  you Sound State a lot of boundaries stretch again against Western Kentucky. But you
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  can see, just like on a technical level, the improvement and the execution.
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  So and that's I think it both from the offensive line and from Henderson
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  himself. So like offensive line did a much better job this game. Staying
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  on their tracks. In particularly, like we talked about against Indiana, they
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  were having troubles with like a squaw corner, like someone someone coming from the
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  secondary to make the play and not blocking them. So here, you know,
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  you repeatedly saw the offensive tackles like if there was no one, if
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  you know, the defensive line was jumping inside of them, staying outside,
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  getting lateral and picking up that corner or safety defender. And so you know,
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  like on Henderson's run here, Josh Simmons gets enough of the corner to
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  allow Henderson to get to the second level. And like you also saw and
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  then on Henderson's second touchdown run was also a stretch and again Josh Friar did
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  a nice job with the same and so and then Henderson just had a lot
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  more patience running the play as well. You know, I think that helped
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  his vision. He seemed to have slowed himself down, maybe getting a little
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  bit more comfortable coming back from the injury the last couple of games, who
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  obviously have been been a big improvement for him. But you know, as
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  as I want to talk about, it wasn't just that they were running stretch
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  though it said also they were building off of it and marrying plays together that
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  that constrained defense from focusing too much on stretch. Well, I am a
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  professional podcaster, and that sounded like a transition. So let's move to the
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  next one. And the next one is the chip trainum touchdown run. I
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  think it was a forty yard or something like that. And one of their
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  one of their one play drives. What was you know, where are we
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  going from here? The transition you set up so neatly there, so again
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  we got you get into you know pistol pistol Arners Center with the High State
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  and you know, into the boundary you're thinking stretches a defense, and so
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  you start to see you know, Western Kentucky increasingly moving laterally to try to
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  stop stretch. You know, stop stretch, so their defensive tack will start
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  running. And so Why State comes back and does and is run mid split
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  zone and you know they were having a lot of success. You saw a
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  split zone block all game on both their types of zone place because Western Kentucky
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  was basically following the tight end when he blocks back across the formation. So
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  you're getting basically two for one because you had to someone chasing in the tight
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  end plus his block and then so but when you were in mid zone again,
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  now you're getting more vertical. The amy point changes to basically the outside
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  leg of the guard, and you see those defensive tackles just run themselves right
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  out of the play. Chip Tram is able to cut upfield, and so
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  again that's the key is stretches a great play, but you gotta build off
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  of it. So you saw then run this mid you know, mid split
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  zone several times. You saw multiple bootlegs off of stretch from the pistol and
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  you know, lots of throws back into the flat to the tight end.
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  You know, you could see them setting up some other things. It looks
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  like, you know, potentially at least the threat of a off of that
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  bootleg a throwback screen to Trav Henderson. And so again you're you're building plays
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  together and you know, I thought Ryan Day did a nice job in this
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  game and Brian hard Line of of doing that, and so you know,
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  that is something that obviously needs to continue giving forward. I think that was
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  one of the better games they've had in recent memory on that front. And
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  when you're playing a game like this against Western Kentucky where you know, you're
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  gonna win by a million points, or you have a good sense you're gonna
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  win by a million points. How much of what you're doing is sort of
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  setting up what you might be doing next week when you might not win by
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  a million points, probably won't at South at South Bend facing Notre Dame.
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  How much how much of the offensive game plan last week was kind of done
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  with one eye looking forward to this week? Yeah, I mean, I
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  think it's a balance, right, and you know it's it's uh, I
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  guess I'd say it's easy to say in hindsight that they're going to win by
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  a million points, but they hadn't looked that effishing yet, and so I
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  mean, I think for them, a big part of it was also just
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  running their offense and getting themselves, you know, so how they want to
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  to go forward with Kyle quarter as their starting quarterback. But certainly, I
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  mean, I think you know, you saw them use quite a few constraints
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  in this game, and I think that's somewhat to protect their base run plays
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  against there Dame and others going forward, and again also to put put things
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  on film that you know, Notre Dame is going to have to think about
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  and so hopefully if two purposes. One, you know, freeze up boundary
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  stretch against Entre Dame. But also you know, if they continue to overplay
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  it, you have evidence on film of successful ways to counter that. Yeah,
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  and I say they knew they were going to win by a million,
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  as if I didn't pick Western Kentucky to cover. So yeah, so we're
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  all experts in hindsight, aren't we. Let's look back at one of the
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  most memorable plays of the game, the long touchdown pass to Marvin Harrison.
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  Other than the really obvious, what was interesting this to you about this from
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  a schematic perspective. Yeah, so, you know, we've talked the last
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  couple of weeks about, you know how Ohio State's increasingly using run pass options
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  and pass pass options and Kyle McCord is comfortable, you know, making those
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  reads getting the balls out quickly, and that was again evident in this game,
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  as we can discuss a little bit. But that doesn't change the fact
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  that Ryan Day loves taking shot plays, heavy play action two man routes.
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  The sack and fumble by Colin McCord was such a play, you know,
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  as Day said, I think that he could have thrown that one to Harrison,
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  but he did bounce back and this one he hits. So this is
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  an example. It's called X read and it's basically, again your two man
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  route. You're using that fake reverse to Ameca Buca to kind of hold that
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  corner cover two corner, and then that basically puts Harrison one on one on
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  a safety and that backside kid still over running a backside deep hook to hold
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  the backside safety. And so you know, you don't generally like your chances
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  with Harrison one on one on a safety. And obviously, you know,
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  great ball by Colin McCord. I mean, that's a very long throw that
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  he put on the money. So you know, to those who were worried
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  about the explosiveness of the High State offense, obviously, I think you know
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  that the pieces are still there to generate big plays. Yeah, and big
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  plays or not, they were very explosive throughout the second quarter. Thirty five
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  points during that fifteen minute span, including twenty eight in the front final eight
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  minutes or so of the quarter, and the last two of those touchdowns were
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  both scored by Ameca Abuca. We're going to take a look here at the
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  first one this was with like what two minutes left something like that in the
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  first half. As all, how State goes goes down the field and scores
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  to make it what thirty five to seven at that point, you're thirty five
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  ten run us through this one. Yeah, and so again, as I
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  was just referencing, you know, you're still seeing lots of RPOs and PPOs
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  like they're with RPOs. I mean to me, it's encouraging they're attaching them.
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  You know, we saw early they use that fast question in Kate Sober
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  they had them attached to zone plays at an attached to counter tray. But
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  also you know, as we've talked about pps, which are a past pass
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  option, and so they used a few in this game, and this one
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  they used twice. So again this is kind of this is a staple for
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  them. They it's like the half back swing screen to one side and doubles
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  slants to the other and Tom McCord is just reading the mic linebacker to see
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  which side he goes. So earlier in the game, on a third short
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  the mic linebacker blitzed. He threw it to Travion Henderson and it was like
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  a twenty plus yard explosive gain. And so this one you can see that
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  the mic follows Henderson to the flat, and so McCord uses his eyes,
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  manipulates him, gets the mic running the one way, comes back and has
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  the easy pitch and catch to a Buka. So again, this seems to
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  be to me a bigger part of the offense this year than it was was
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  CJ. Stroud in terms of using these run pass options and pass pass options
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  and you know, getting the letting McCord make these reads and getting the balled
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  up quickly. All right, So the first four plays have all been touchdown,
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  so okay, you know they've got a point a touchdown, so I'm
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  sure everyone's thinking, okay, so it's gonna be the next touchdown, right,
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  or maybe the touchdown later to Carneal take Not so fast, my friends,
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  This is the last one. We're actually going back in time. We're
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  going earlier in the second quarter, early second quarter, third and ten,
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  and this is just a throw to Marvin Harrison. But Ross, you were
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  telling me beforehand, you feel like this is a good indication of Kyle McCord's
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  growth and progress so far this season. Yeah, I mean, I think
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  there's obviously a lot of concern committee in this game about a High State's third
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  down conversion rate, you know, both in short yardage and you know passing
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  downs. Now, I will just to back up, like, I think
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  the short yardage was better as well. You saw High States several times and
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  like third and one or third and two just wedge block which kind of looks
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  like inside zone, except you're basically like everyone's stepping inside to both sides.
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  It's a quick hand up right up the gut. And so I think that
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  is a promising sign for their short yardage capabilities. But this one was I
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  just I think a key conversion, a really nice read by McCord as well
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  as play design. So I think again you're increasingly seeing Day and Heartline get
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  comfortable with the pieces they have. They go here with a three by one
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  or trips and with Harrison as the single wide receiver. And this is a
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  dagger concept, which is just a fancy way of saying essentially, you're going
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  to get a couple of runoff routes or deep posts to clear the coverage with
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  Harrison on the shallow cross underneath. And I just think you know, if
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  you watch McCord go through the progressions, he quickly works through them and finds
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  Harrison. So you know, I think for a young quarterback, he does
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  a nice job of working through his reads. Like you don't see him just
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  get locked onto his first read, Like you'll see it with his footwork and
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  with his eyes. He's going through his reads and so again, like these
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  are just the kind of plays that they're going to need. Like again,
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  the variety was promising and the reads were promising, so you know the more
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  obviously they're working at ways to get Harrison in a book of the ball like
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  he saw you know, reverses, fake reverses. So we talked about getting
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  them out on smoke screens, uh, you know, pushing in addition to
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  just put these shorter routes in addition to just pushing the ball downfield. So
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  I think there has been quite a bit of growth, you know, putting
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  a side opponent like right like every you know, whether Western Kentucky might beat
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  Indian, I mean, you know, one has a good defense, one
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  has a good offense. But the point being is that they you can just
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  see the improvements both just from the coaching staff in terms of what they're calling
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  as well as like the technical issues we were talking about with stretch blocking with
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  the first clip, and so obviously that's going to be you know, a
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  lot more pressure is going to be turned up on Saturday when you're playing on
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  the road in terms of how you need to execute. But you know,
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  I certainly, just based on what you've seen, regardless of Western Kentucky's skill
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  level, I think that like the field much better this week about how I
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  state going into Notre Day and then whether the week before both in terms of
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  scheme and execution. All right, and I'm let's go on this one.
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  You are tasked with designing the scheme for this weekend. What you know,
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  the offensive line is better, but maybe still a work in progress. The
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  quarterback is better, but maybe still a work in progress. What are you
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  doing offensively if you're looking to attack the Notre Dame defense this weekend? Yeah,
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  I mean, I think the way that Notre Dame plays or defensive ends
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  like stretches so is going to be a big component of it. Like you
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  want to get outside those like heavy five techniques, and so you know,
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  I what I would like to see is why I stay continue then build upon
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  what they were doing this week, which is like you know, you stretch,
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  but then you know, create plays off of it, constraint plays that
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  you know, can play action bootlegs that keep the defense from overreacting. And
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  then you know, like last year, Notre Dame made a big point of
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  trying to stop Ohio States inside crossing rounds. You know, so I think
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  again, take advantage of the easy access throws that come back routes against soft
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  soft for corner coverage, and you know, continue to rely on some tempo
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  and the rps and pps. So again, like you know, not to
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  be too pollyanish, but I think that, like the game plan against Western
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  Kentucky, gives you a lot of building blocks to continue to use for this
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  week. All right, Well, that covers the offense. On tomorrow show,
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  Ross and I will be talking about the defense whole another at another area.
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  High State feels like they're probably a little bit improved, especially over last
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  year. We'll be talking about that on tomorrow show. But until then,
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  you can find much more of Ross and much more of Buckeye coverage of team
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  and recruiting and the XS and os and all the good stuff all at Buckeye
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  huddle dot com or got a very very It's been a busy week. Not
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  gonna lie to you, it has been a busy and exciting week on that
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  lots of conversation there, and you can find us also at YouTube dot com
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  all of our great shows, subscribe there, leave us at five star rating,
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  and review all that good stuff, all the stuff you already know.
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  That'll do it for today. Thank you guys all for joining us. Ever
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  a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.