Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Ross Fulton Analysis: Why The Ohio State Rushing Attack Is Picking Up Steam
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Friday, November twenty. First
- 0:03Speaker 1: time your host Tom or the Rutgers game in one day,
- 0:06Speaker 1: the game against Michigan in eight days. Today we're talking
- 0:09Speaker 1: about the Ohio State defense and the Ohio State running Game.
- 0:11Speaker 1: We're going to do that with our ex's and nose guru,
- 0:13Speaker 1: Ross Fulton, and when Ross's on the show. We're sponsored
- 0:16Speaker 1: by Jeff Rubies of Columbus probably offering nationally acclaimed USDA
- 0:19Speaker 1: Prime Stakes, suefood and sushi, seafood and sushi, impeccable service,
- 0:24Speaker 1: live and entertainment, and an intention to detail. It is
- 0:26Speaker 1: simply on match. Just go to jeffruby dot com slash
- 0:28Speaker 1: Columbus to check out the menu and make a reservation.
- 0:30Speaker 2: Today.
- 0:31Speaker 1: All right, So on yesterday's show, we talked about the
- 0:33Speaker 1: Ohio State passing game and where it sort of fell
- 0:35Speaker 1: short a little bit against UCLA. Today going to be
- 0:38Speaker 1: broadly a much more optimistic and positive show. We're going
- 0:41Speaker 1: to start with the running game, because where the passing
- 0:44Speaker 1: game maybe took a little bit of a step back,
- 0:45Speaker 1: the running game took a much needed and long overdue
- 0:49Speaker 1: step forward. Ross, We're going to start with the long
- 0:53Speaker 1: run that Bo Jackson had really really an impressive run,
- 0:56Speaker 1: some good agility from him in a little bit of
- 0:58Speaker 1: a burst of speed as well.
- 1:01Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think, you know, obviously caveats apply.
- 1:03Speaker 3: UCLA has not been a good run defense, but you know,
- 1:06Speaker 3: High States still had its first over two hundred yard
- 1:08Speaker 3: rushing game since ou I believe, And so you know,
- 1:13Speaker 3: I mean, one thing you see them doing is like
- 1:15Speaker 3: they continue to use a lot of concepts in volume,
- 1:19Speaker 3: you know, partially searching for what's working, partially you know, uh,
- 1:25Speaker 3: just force the defense to defend a lot of concepts.
- 1:27Speaker 3: And so this was kind of a unique one and
- 1:30Speaker 3: that it's split zone. But the running back. Usually when
- 1:34Speaker 3: you run split zone right, like the zone blocks let's
- 1:37Speaker 3: say like here to the left, the tight end blocks
- 1:39Speaker 3: back to the right, and the running back is going
- 1:41Speaker 3: to the left and then you have the cutback.
- 1:44Speaker 2: But here they.
- 1:44Speaker 3: Actually run the running backs path is to the split side,
- 1:48Speaker 3: so it almost kind of looks like a gap play.
- 1:51Speaker 3: And at the yes, the line zone blocking, but they're
- 1:53Speaker 3: somewhat blocking back for the running back and he's following
- 1:56Speaker 3: the split and so you get this, like you know,
- 2:00Speaker 3: that kind of causes some you know, slows down in
- 2:04Speaker 3: particular zero that uh weak line inside linebacker for U. C.
- 2:09Speaker 1: L A.
- 2:10Speaker 3: And then you get a good double team here between
- 2:13Speaker 3: Carson Hinzman and Gave Van Sickle. You know that holds
- 2:17Speaker 3: the point of attack, creates that running lane for Jackson
- 2:20Speaker 3: and then he hits it. You know, I thought that
- 2:24Speaker 3: Van Sickle had had some good moments, Like I'm not
- 2:27Speaker 3: like to the point where I think that like anyone
- 2:29Speaker 3: at ray Guard is playing necessarily better than Tiger Shabble is. Like,
- 2:34Speaker 3: you know, Tiger always has his moments where like he's
- 2:36Speaker 3: pretty good at the point of attack.
- 2:38Speaker 2: Then you know you get.
- 2:39Speaker 3: Some like you know, he's polls late, you know, things
- 2:42Speaker 3: that sort of make you want to pull your hair out.
- 2:46Speaker 3: But I'm not sure like the consistencies there, you know
- 2:48Speaker 3: from anyone else or like makes up for some of
- 2:50Speaker 3: like the physical attributes. But you know, this is a
- 2:54Speaker 3: very nicely done job here obviously Big Rod. But as
- 2:57Speaker 3: I said, like you know, High State like different different concepts.
- 3:01Speaker 3: So you know they used that Spinner series as well,
- 3:04Speaker 3: which actually both were short gains, like you know where
- 3:06Speaker 3: the first one was handed it behind the quarterback to Brandon.
- 3:10Speaker 3: It is the second one, they fake that then handed
- 3:12Speaker 3: it back to both Jackson or Isaiah West. Neither was
- 3:16Speaker 3: a big game, but like both were like one block
- 3:18Speaker 3: away for being big games. So like definitely more potential
- 3:21Speaker 3: there for explosives out of the run game as they've
- 3:23Speaker 3: been going forward.
- 3:25Speaker 1: Another thing that can help make explosives in the run
- 3:28Speaker 1: game is when someone misses a block, you simply jump
- 3:30Speaker 1: over the defender, which feels like one weird trick to
- 3:33Speaker 1: score touchdowns. James People's applied that with some success at
- 3:37Speaker 1: one point on Saturday night. That is the next play
- 3:39Speaker 1: that we're gonna be looking at.
- 3:41Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think we were talking about Ryan Day
- 3:43Speaker 3: being frustrated about things in the passing game earlier this week.
- 3:46Speaker 2: He was not happy with Quincy Porter on this one.
- 3:49Speaker 3: You could see that on the sideline, and I don't
- 3:51Speaker 3: think Quincy Porter came back in the game until much
- 3:54Speaker 3: later in the fourth quarter. But as you said, James,
- 3:57Speaker 3: People made up for that by making that guy miss
- 4:00Speaker 3: and then hur early in the safety. But more to
- 4:02Speaker 3: the point, like this, I really liked this concept from them.
- 4:05Speaker 3: We've talked about how they've had success sort of stretching
- 4:08Speaker 3: the field both ways. Horizontally with the run game. We
- 4:11Speaker 3: looked at that with like the GT counter with that
- 4:13Speaker 3: slide concept, or like pin and poll with a backside RPO.
- 4:18Speaker 2: And this is the same thing. They ran this multiple times.
- 4:20Speaker 3: So this is just outside zone from the shotgun with
- 4:22Speaker 3: this backside slide route to Max Claire had a lot
- 4:27Speaker 3: of success on it. Obviously, no more so than this one,
- 4:29Speaker 3: but I think it was, you know, gained at least
- 4:32Speaker 3: five or six yards every time they ran it, you know,
- 4:35Speaker 3: three or four times on Saturday. And again you're just
- 4:37Speaker 3: like taking advantage of forcing that defense to hold its
- 4:42Speaker 3: water on the backside, which just reduces the number of
- 4:45Speaker 3: bodies there. You know, so you can see, like on
- 4:48Speaker 3: Claire that holds that backside linebacker. So that's just and
- 4:51Speaker 3: by the time he commits the run, Austin Seaveld is
- 4:55Speaker 3: able to seal him and you know, just let you
- 4:58Speaker 3: get to the second level. So again we talked about
- 4:59Speaker 3: like problems in the Oshu run game with the number
- 5:01Speaker 3: of bodies there. The other thing to note here is
- 5:04Speaker 3: this is eleven personnel. And one thing we've also talked
- 5:07Speaker 3: about is like the number of one high looks they've
- 5:09Speaker 3: had to run into notably like with eleven here UCLA's
- 5:13Speaker 3: and Cover two. They got a lot more Tampa from
- 5:16Speaker 3: UCLA when they had eleven personnel, so obviously you know
- 5:19Speaker 3: your your tendencies there with when they're an eleven, they've
- 5:22Speaker 3: been pretty pass heavy, and so you're just getting much
- 5:25Speaker 3: better numbers. You know, you have a corner as a
- 5:27Speaker 3: forced player, but you know you'd prefer to make corners
- 5:30Speaker 3: tackle over safeties. So you know, despite missing the block,
- 5:34Speaker 3: people is able to make him miss and so I
- 5:37Speaker 3: just again I think, like when push comes to show,
- 5:39Speaker 3: I think this is the way to go with the
- 5:41Speaker 3: run game in terms of you know, always having some
- 5:44Speaker 3: kind of backside constraint like we've talked about, particularly from
- 5:48Speaker 3: the gun and forcing teams you know, to worry about
- 5:50Speaker 3: the past, worry about the RPOs, and that magically makes
- 5:54Speaker 3: the High State run game look better.
- 5:57Speaker 1: And one of the reasons you want to make corner
- 6:00Speaker 1: tackle instead of safeties is because Caleb Downs plays safety,
- 6:03Speaker 1: so you generally do not want him to be the
- 6:04Speaker 1: one who is trying to tackle you because he is
- 6:06Speaker 1: generally pretty effective at that. This next one, this was
- 6:08Speaker 1: I think maybe the absolute first play of the game,
- 6:11Speaker 1: or certainly one of the first few plays of the
- 6:12Speaker 1: game where Caleb Downs picks up a tackle for loss.
- 6:15Speaker 1: And what's so interesting about this one is, yeah, he
- 6:17Speaker 1: makes the play and that's great, but it just he
- 6:20Speaker 1: what he can do just opens up so much other
- 6:22Speaker 1: stuff that they can do on defense exactly.
- 6:25Speaker 3: And so I you know, I actually liked UCLA's offensive
- 6:28Speaker 3: game planing against Ohia State. They don't really have the
- 6:30Speaker 3: players to pull it off, but like using a lot
- 6:33Speaker 3: of like trips and like for strong to really you know,
- 6:37Speaker 3: force Ohigh State out of like its comfort zone. Because
- 6:40Speaker 3: again we've talked about like Ohigh State like loves using
- 6:42Speaker 3: that penny front, loves playing cover three. Those are like
- 6:44Speaker 3: very balanced looks where you get the same number of
- 6:46Speaker 3: players to each side of the center, and so the
- 6:48Speaker 3: offense is trying to use numbers to one side to
- 6:51Speaker 3: either force o High State out of that or force
- 6:53Speaker 3: them to adjust. But like Caleb Downs sort of lets
- 6:56Speaker 3: them have their cake and eat it too a lot
- 6:58Speaker 3: of times, right, particularly on these like reliefs. Right, So
- 7:01Speaker 3: this is a dart with this bubble RPO. So dart
- 7:04Speaker 3: is just a gap play where the tackle polls and
- 7:08Speaker 3: so the guard and kicks out and so you know,
- 7:10Speaker 3: like they have to fit that from penny. We talked
- 7:12Speaker 3: about the challenges of fitting gap plays from the penny
- 7:15Speaker 3: look like you have to box it.
- 7:16Speaker 2: And then Peyton Peters has the running back.
- 7:18Speaker 3: But you know by not adjusting right to this other,
- 7:22Speaker 3: UCLA has the numbers advantage here, like this is three
- 7:24Speaker 3: over two. This should be a big gain for UCLA.
- 7:27Speaker 3: But Caleb Downs able. He just defeats the tight end
- 7:30Speaker 3: blocking and makes the play in the backfield. So you know,
- 7:34Speaker 3: it's it's like when you take Jeremiah Smith off the
- 7:36Speaker 3: field offensively, you can immediately notice the difference, for I say,
- 7:41Speaker 3: when Caleb Downs is not on the field. And so
- 7:43Speaker 3: we we saw some of that on Saturday once he
- 7:47Speaker 3: did not play in the second half.
- 7:50Speaker 1: All right, next up, we're going to take a look
- 7:51Speaker 1: at another play that High State ended up getting off
- 7:54Speaker 1: the field. But there was probably a little moment where
- 7:56Speaker 1: everyone's heart jumped into their throats. This is when we're
- 7:58Speaker 1: a High State is bringing some heat. Riley Petty John
- 8:01Speaker 1: does get to the quarterback, but quarterback gets the ball
- 8:03Speaker 1: out and hast got nailed on a crosser a couple
- 8:06Speaker 1: of different times. Once was in a man on the
- 8:09Speaker 1: on the touchdown, the UCLA scored this is zone and
- 8:12Speaker 1: it took you know, a pretty nice tackle to keep
- 8:15Speaker 1: them from getting a first down here.
- 8:17Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean again, you know, similar concept where you're
- 8:20Speaker 3: getting three verticals and you're bringing a guy across, so
- 8:23Speaker 3: you're in four to one side against Cover three. This
- 8:25Speaker 3: is the fire zone, as you said, so their high
- 8:27Speaker 3: states bringing five, so you get a three deep three
- 8:29Speaker 3: under you know, I just kind of want to like
- 8:32Speaker 3: you continue to see, like, yeah, there's there's trade offs
- 8:35Speaker 3: and everything, right, and so like Lorenzo styles here does
- 8:37Speaker 3: what I said they needed to do last week. Like
- 8:39Speaker 3: he so you say, he's looking to hit the seam
- 8:42Speaker 3: route against Cover three, and he you know, contacts the
- 8:47Speaker 3: seam runner he re routes him, you know, and so
- 8:51Speaker 3: he slows him down.
- 8:52Speaker 2: You know.
- 8:52Speaker 3: The converse of that, obviously is like he's responsible for
- 8:55Speaker 3: that underneath hook curl zone and so he's slower getting there.
- 9:00Speaker 3: I personally would still take the trade off of like
- 9:02Speaker 3: giving up that ten yard route than like allowing explosives
- 9:05Speaker 3: down the seam and you know, they were later in
- 9:07Speaker 3: the game, like UCLA had an open steam route, So
- 9:11Speaker 3: like this will continue to be an issue. Obviously, Ohio
- 9:13Speaker 3: State's playing more man, as you said, but that has
- 9:17Speaker 3: its own issues with the crossers and stuff like that.
- 9:20Speaker 3: So again I've broken record. Everything is trade offs. I
- 9:23Speaker 3: thought this was actually a good job though, of rerouting
- 9:26Speaker 3: the scene and forcing the ball underneath.
- 9:29Speaker 1: All right. And the last one, this was the long
- 9:31Speaker 1: play of the night for UCLA. This was a fifty
- 9:32Speaker 1: one yard reception for Rico Floras and it's one where
- 9:36Speaker 1: Ohio State had guys there and it just didn't make
- 9:39Speaker 1: the play. So I assume this is more of a
- 9:41Speaker 1: technique or angle kind of issue rather than a schematic one.
- 9:44Speaker 1: But I mean, what went wrong here?
- 9:47Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's a combination. Yes, I would say technique.
- 9:50Speaker 3: So this is another pressure, right, So they're only bringing
- 9:55Speaker 3: four and they're playing, but they're playing cover four behind it,
- 9:58Speaker 3: and so you get these double slam and you know,
- 10:01Speaker 3: part of it, I do think is like you've got
- 10:02Speaker 3: guys and positions where they're like, haven't got a ton
- 10:05Speaker 3: of reps together. Like you've got you know, Grady at
- 10:08Speaker 3: defensive end, he's dropping out. You've got Jermaine Matthews at
- 10:11Speaker 3: Nickel now, and then Devin Sanchez at corner. I don't
- 10:14Speaker 3: think like the trade off here is smooth, and that
- 10:16Speaker 3: causes problems. And you know, obviously Sanchez had some some
- 10:20Speaker 3: issues his technique, I think on.
- 10:24Speaker 2: On Saturday, and we like talked about that earlier in
- 10:26Speaker 2: the year.
- 10:26Speaker 3: Rate where it's like when Lorenzo Styles was out, I
- 10:29Speaker 3: you know, teams is particular when he's in a dime
- 10:32Speaker 3: continued to go after him. They sort of got away
- 10:35Speaker 3: with one on earlier in the game where he Jermaine
- 10:38Speaker 3: Matthews tried to pass off a receiver to him and
- 10:40Speaker 3: he let him run free down the field.
- 10:42Speaker 2: Just I say, its fortunate UCLA didn't see it.
- 10:45Speaker 3: So I think, you know, I think some of this
- 10:48Speaker 3: is like, you know, the more you do right with
- 10:50Speaker 3: guys dropping into different places like this can lead to
- 10:53Speaker 3: these potential bus as. I think it's actually a testament
- 10:56Speaker 3: to like, ohigh State starters that like, given that they
- 10:59Speaker 3: like to be versative like this and have guys drop
- 11:01Speaker 3: into different locations and like handle different parts of the
- 11:04Speaker 3: zones that like, you haven't gotten more of these and
- 11:07Speaker 3: so it's you know, sort of easy for to take
- 11:09Speaker 3: for granted until you see younger guys or guys with
- 11:12Speaker 3: less experience trying to handle it at least these kind
- 11:15Speaker 3: of big gains, all right.
- 11:17Speaker 1: And before I let you go, want to take a
- 11:18Speaker 1: little bit of a just a bigger picture thing. We
- 11:20Speaker 1: will probably drill down on the Michigan game in more
- 11:23Speaker 1: detail next week, but I wanted to kind of hit
- 11:25Speaker 1: sort of like a broader picture kind of question, which
- 11:28Speaker 1: is it feels like and you have talked on the
- 11:30Speaker 1: board at buckehuddle dot com with the fact that Ohio
- 11:33Speaker 1: State hasn't necessarily been rolling out a bunch of new
- 11:35Speaker 1: stuff every week. So is that, in your mind maybe
- 11:39Speaker 1: reflective of the fact that Matt Patrici's out of ideas
- 11:42Speaker 1: or they you know that they they're kind of doing
- 11:44Speaker 1: what they can do, or is this just well they
- 11:47Speaker 1: haven't needed to do it, so therefore they have a
- 11:49Speaker 1: bunch more, you know, a bunch more clubs in their
- 11:51Speaker 1: bag that they haven't pulled out, but that they can
- 11:54Speaker 1: potentially pull out when when needed, whether that's against Michigan
- 11:57Speaker 1: or after that.
- 11:59Speaker 2: I mean said pretty dismissive of the concept of saving things.
- 12:02Speaker 3: I just I think they're like, but in this case,
- 12:05Speaker 3: I think they're saving things because they just haven't had
- 12:07Speaker 3: to use them right, they're like running so few plays
- 12:09Speaker 3: a game on defense, and they've pretty much able to
- 12:13Speaker 3: shut people down by playing you know, eight man spacing,
- 12:16Speaker 3: single high by eight man space. I just mean like
- 12:18Speaker 3: everyone has a single gap, you know. I continue to
- 12:21Speaker 3: wonder what it looks like when teams are able to
- 12:25Speaker 3: throw the football consistently, if teams are able to throw
- 12:27Speaker 3: the football consistently against them and they're forced into different
- 12:31Speaker 3: coverage looks, like how they how they choose to fit
- 12:33Speaker 3: the run from those you know, whether as we talked
- 12:36Speaker 3: about some of these cover three issues, like they start
- 12:38Speaker 3: matching routes more when they need to. It's just hard
- 12:42Speaker 3: to know because we just haven't really seen it, you know,
- 12:46Speaker 3: I think, uh, and I'm not sure.
- 12:49Speaker 2: You know Rutgers can you know, they throw the ball
- 12:51Speaker 2: pretty well.
- 12:52Speaker 3: They have a couple of big receivers, Like I think
- 12:53Speaker 3: they'll take some shots on the outside, you know, particularly
- 12:57Speaker 3: like as I said, I'm sure teams now we'll try
- 13:01Speaker 3: to go after Sanchez when he's in there in those
- 13:03Speaker 3: dime looks. But you know, I think teams are going
- 13:07Speaker 3: to try to force as I said, like especially, they're
- 13:09Speaker 3: gonna play a lot of cover three like Michigan increasingly
- 13:12Speaker 3: is running RPOs with Bryce Underwood. You know, they like
- 13:16Speaker 3: hitting those glance routes. You know that that did lead
- 13:19Speaker 3: to an Underwood interception when Northwestern kind of baited him
- 13:22Speaker 3: into it later in the game on Saturday. But I
- 13:25Speaker 3: think again, they're just going to keep getting Teams are
- 13:28Speaker 3: starting to get like, you know, the more film you
- 13:32Speaker 3: have out there, the more you can do. And I
- 13:35Speaker 3: do see teams like starting to respond the way they
- 13:38Speaker 3: probably should to the things like Patricia's doing, you know,
- 13:42Speaker 3: as I said, like the penning for like using a
- 13:43Speaker 3: lot of like spread out bunch of trips, looks like
- 13:46Speaker 3: pushing forwide receivers to one side, like outnumbering them in
- 13:50Speaker 3: the relief game. It's just that like they're so much
- 13:52Speaker 3: more talented than some of these teams, Like you know,
- 13:55Speaker 3: you can see the things like in theory could work
- 13:57Speaker 3: on film.
- 13:57Speaker 2: It's just they're able to shut it down.
- 14:00Speaker 3: And so I guess the question that becomes like can
- 14:02Speaker 3: Caleb Downs do that to anybody? Or are there teams
- 14:04Speaker 3: out there that eventually, like are enough talent equated that
- 14:07Speaker 3: like they're going to have to get out of wanting
- 14:09Speaker 3: to one gap everything and then once they do that, like,
- 14:12Speaker 3: what's it going to look like? I know Patricia's answer,
- 14:14Speaker 3: like he's done in the NFL. It's just what does
- 14:16Speaker 3: that look like for O High State.
- 14:19Speaker 1: Well, we'll find that out probably starting next week. This week.
- 14:22Speaker 1: As to your point, Rutgers is actually ahead of Texas
- 14:25Speaker 1: in sp plus on offense. They're forty second I think
- 14:28Speaker 1: in Texas forty seventh. So you know, this is not
- 14:31Speaker 1: a bad Rutgers team on the offensive side of the ball.
- 14:33Speaker 1: I think everyone hears Athan kaliakmanis and goes, he was
- 14:36Speaker 1: at Minnesota not very good. It's like, well he's he's
- 14:39Speaker 1: better now and they have a heck of a running game.
- 14:41Speaker 1: They're running back n I talked about this on one
- 14:44Speaker 1: of the Bonus shows. We dropped forty one carries two
- 14:47Speaker 1: hundred and forty yards against Maryland. Probably not going to
- 14:49Speaker 1: see that this weekend, but going to be an interesting
- 14:51Speaker 1: game when Rutgers comes to town noon kickoff on Saturday.
- 14:55Speaker 1: Will be there for Senior Day. We'll have our usual
- 14:57Speaker 1: pregame show and postgame show. We'll try and get you
- 14:59Speaker 1: some fun behind the scenes content as well. That is
- 15:02Speaker 1: all coming up this weekend at bucke Huddle dot com
- 15:04Speaker 1: at YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle. Thanks again to
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- 15:16Speaker 1: make a reservation today. That'll do it for today. Thank
- 15:19Speaker 1: you guys all for joining us. Have a great day.
- 15:21Speaker 1: We'll talk to you tomorrow.