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Ross Fulton Analysis: How Can Ohio State Improve Its Running Game? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Monday, October second, I'm your host,
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  tom Or. The Maryland game is in five days. The game against Michigan
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  in fifty four days. There was no Ohio State football game last weekend.
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  That's okay. There was still plenty to talk about from the previous weekend's game
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  against Notre Dame. We did two shows last week with our buddy Ross Fulton,
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  who breaks down Ex's nose for us at buckehell dot com. But there
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  were still a lot we needed to talk about, especially in the offensive side
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  of the ball. We're gonna be doing that a couple of times this week.
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  We're going to start today with the run game and taking a look at
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  four plays. A couple good, a couple bad, give you a little
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  something to look at, some things to dream on, some things to maybe
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  worry about a little bit. Ross, Let's start with one of the bad
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  ones. Offensive lineman. We always hear them talk about, you know,
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  hey, can you get someone to the second level. This is a play
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  where you were sort of hoping to have an offensive lineman get to the second
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  level and then when he got there, there was no one home. So
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  walk us through this first play. Yeah, I mean I gets to her
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  name. I'd say, like overall, I wasn't you know, they weren'ting
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  stuffed. They weren't having a lot of negative plays. But on the flip
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  side, you know, they were having even though like the runs that were
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  successful other than taking the two side that we'll talk about today, they you
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  know, they weren't getting much more than you know, four or five yards,
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  and so there's a couple of things going on. You know, one
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  of them, generally speaking, is the IC offensive line needs to sustain their
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  blocks just like literally half a second longer. A lot of times it's just
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  like one guy coming off for Notre Dame often was making a play. And
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  then the other issue is just continuing to work on getting to the second level.
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  I do think they've improved a lot from the Indiana game in terms of,
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  you know, on zone plays like the one we're going to show,
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  sustaining or you know, executing their technique. But there're still or some pickups,
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  so you know, Notre Dame here, Notre Dame do do some things
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  up front that kind of cause some issues for our state. They used they
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  kind of they got different ways to get into a barefront often or like here,
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  they play two techniques. So like these, both defensive tackles are lined
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  up head up on the guard or even like an inside shade, and rather
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  than go to combo block the defensive tackle, which I think they probably what
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  they probably should have done here is having a combo block the defensive tackle and
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  then one of them released the linebacker. But instead center Curtseman person Hinzman just
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  trying to go straight to the play side linebacker, and as you see,
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  he misses them and then kind of makes it, you know, a farcical
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  almost by sort of chasing him in a circle. You know, at a
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  minimum, if you're if you're an offensive lineman and you're trying to pick up
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  a play side linebacker and you miss them, you should at least turn yourself
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  and pick up, you know, a backside linebacker, like try to find
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  someone like you're not going to chase down a linebacker and try to create a
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  cutback. But again, like these are the sort of things, you know,
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  like they Hinsman can definitely get better getting the second level, and like
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  I think that applies to to you know, more than just him on the
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  offensive line. So you know, these are the kind of things, Like
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  I do see improvements. You know, you can definitely tell they're working on
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  things, and like it's a it's been a big step forward since Indiana,
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  but like these are still the issues that need to get cleaned up in the
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  run game. Yeah, we had someone ask us on thinking on Buckeye Weekly
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  last week. You know, is the offensive line getting better? Is the
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  offensive line where it needs to be and they're not where they need to be,
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  but they're clearly getting better. This is you can you can almost see
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  week to week what they're working on, and there has been improvement. And
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  the good news is there's some time between now and when they have to take
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  on Penn State and go to Wisconsin and then play Michigan at the end of
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  the year, so there's still more work to do, but you know,
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  progress undoubtedly there has been progress and progress that I think almost anyone can see
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  watching those games. There was a there was a good sign of progress for
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  All High State on offense against Notre Dame. Hey, the time they scored
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  a touchdown that was right before the you know, not the one at the
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  end of the game, the long touchdown run by Trevia and Henderson. This
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  was a play that you know, they really needed it, and they hit
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  a big one on the first play of the drive. Yeah. I mean
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  this is you know, myself and others have criticized Ryan Day at times in
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  the past, we're being too not diverse enough in the run game. And
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  to their credit, like you know, the run game was, as I
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  said, a little not sputtering, but it was. It was sort of
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  minimalist again, centered name a lot of the time. But the good news
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  was, and we'll see that in the next couple of plays, they did
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  continue to try to iterate and try to find plays that we're working. It
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  wasn't just like we're gonna keep running stretch, you know, like they ran
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  a lot of mid zone and they're inside zone. Here we run they run
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  countertray, which again, like so as I mentioned earlier, NERD Name often
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  was trying to jump down to a bear fronts right like bear we've talked about
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  probably since Virginia Tech in twenty fourteen, Like you cover up the center,
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  you have two defensive tackles outside on the outside edge of each guard. And
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  again, so that makes it tough to run zone plays. Again, like
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  we talked on short yardage last week, you can't get double teams. But
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  so oh, I stay here, smartly goes to countertray. They're running GT
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  counter so you're point both the guard and the tackle, and they get Henderson
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  outside. The one thing I like about zone runs with or I should say
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  gap runs with Henderson, is they're a little bit easier to bounce and you
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  know, as Ryan Day talked about last week, like Henderson, like everyone
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  has her strengths and weaknesses, like he's. As we've talked about many times,
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  his vision on zone runs is not necessarily the best and he's not going
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  to break tackle a bunch of tackles in the back feet that are make sudden
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  cuts, you know, near the lot of scrimmage. But what he can
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  do is when he gets in the second level, he's explosive and like he
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  is, he is in fact a game breaker. So you know, again
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  this gap run, I like it because he has a gap runs tend to
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  be easier than zone runs to bounce outside. And so anything you can do
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  to get Henderson out in space or get him to the second level is a
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  benefit. And this is a nice dread by him, The great block by
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  Matt Jones. We'll see a couple of great blocks by Matt Jones. You
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  know, people have criticized the offensive line alot, you know, and start
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  doing you often don't focus on like individual players. It is kind of a
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  collective criticism. But I thought Matt Jones played really well overall against their name.
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  Yeah, he was someone I think the return of Matt Jones was one
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  of the big big things that raise the ceiling for what this year's Ohio State
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  team could be. That was someone who think they were expecting, by and
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  large, to potentially get Luke Whippler back and lose Matt Jones, and then
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  neither of those ended up being true. But getting Jones back definitely raised the
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  ceiling for this year's Ohio State team. One thing before we move on,
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  something that I keep forgetting to mention, something that we'll raise the ceiling of
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  this podcast for you is we do have if you're listening to this, you
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  can find this on our YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle. We
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  have started editing in the plays the video of the plays in a lot of
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  cases of the replays as well, so you can see a couple of angles.
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  So you know, this is obviously not the easiest thing to digest through
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  the podcast medium, But if you want to see what we're talking about,
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  you can find that on our YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash Buckey Huddle.
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  All right, so here's one that they may not want to see. This
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  is one where you get the backside defensive end crashes and you know, you
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  have an interesting note in here about something they're not doing that could really help
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  with plays like this. Yeah, and so again, this is a one
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  critique I think that was someone valid after the Notre Dame game was that when
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  I State had a on first down, if they threw, if they had
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  in completion or even a short completion short of the sticks, they ran it
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  quite a bit on second down. I think it was like sixteen and nineteen.
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  I could be wrong on that statting precisely, but pretty often they were
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  running it on second down after that. And on the one hand, it's
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  kind of understandable, right, like you don't want to get ten if you
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  go pass, pass, pass and punt, then you know, hey,
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  we've abandoned the run game. We're not being balanced. You know, you
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  kind of can slide down that. Sol another hand, there's probably probably leading
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  too much the other way of like you know, Okay, now we need
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  to run the ball. And so you see that problem here, right,
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  there's a couple of things going on. So this is a stretch play.
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  And again I think this is an example of you know, offensive lineman could
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  have sustained their blocks better. You know, Carson Carson hintsman's in the backfield,
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  Matt Jones gets a hand on the play side linebacker but doesn't sustain a
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  block, but the play is made by the backside defensive end. I remember
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  watching this live being like, you know, where's the bootleg game? Like
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  we talked about during the Western Kentucky game, Like how nice of a job
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  they did bootlegging off a stretch. And again, if you're gonna rely on
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  stretch like you have to and you're not gonna have a quarterback run threat,
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  you have to bootleg. And that that was absent or largely absent from this
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  game. And so you know, you know, you just don't want to
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  see the backside defensive end just crashing down without any concern on stretch. And
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  so again combination of you know, this is again area they need to work
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  on, like don't be too predictable and second down, after you've had any
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  completion don't be you know, you have to constrain defensive also stretch. So
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  there there's some technical issues with the offensive lines the same in their blocks,
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  but also some schematic concerns. All right, and this last one is a
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  play that could have been one of the biggest plays of the game, but
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  because of what happened on the two plays after this, I think everyone has
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  just sort of forgotten that this happened and is much more focused about the things
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  that did did or didn't happen on the next two plays. This is that
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  long run, the nine yard run by Trevi and Henderson that set up a
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  third and one on Ohio States next to last drive, Ross Wee. We
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  talked about the short yardage struggles on one of the previous shows last week,
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  so we don't need to dive back into that. Let's just focus on the
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  positive. Here, get everyone all down a high note. Nice nine yard
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  run by Trevy and Henderson here, Yeah, I thought it was a ten
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  yard run, but you know, I guess there was no reviews. So
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  you know, I think that the summation of sort of this segment is like
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  things are improving, improving, that could still get better, right, So
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  like again, I just criticized Ryan Day and staff are being a little too
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  predictable and second down and not be like it off a stretch. But as
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  I said earlier, like they did do a good job using m more diversified
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  run game and and trying to get I think they're cognizant at this point that
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  like you know what trade on Henderson's strengths are, and like if we're gonna
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  rely on him again, he's not you know, he's like I contrast him
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  to say like Blake Korum, right, Like he's not gonna like keep you
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  ahead of the chains. He get like five or six yards at a time
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  and like keep pushing forward. On the other hand, he's like he's an
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  explosive running back, right, So like you're gonna get a couple of bus
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  but you're also gonna get some booms. And this is close to one of
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  boom. But you know, so they they're trying to get him to the
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  edge. So this is called a same side pin and poll, and so
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  you're gonna you're gonna anyone one who's uncovered or anyone who's covered, he's gonna
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  pull and the people that are uncovered blocking back to that side it's same side
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  because Raydon Henderson's aligned to the right side and runs to the right side.
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  But again, this is a good play to get to the edge, you
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  know. I guess my hope is that they continue with these kind of players.
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  I know last year they ran this a few times and it was very
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  successful and then it disappeared. So you know, I will caveat that,
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  you know, and we may not see it again, but I think the
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  hope is that they do, because I do think again like these sort of
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  gap runs your point, Blinman again, another really nice block by Matt Jones.
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  Pulling gives Henderson more like a more explicit opportunity to get to the edge,
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  which you know, as I said, I think we've talked about the
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  other day. To me, they have like three true explosive playmakers and Marvin
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  Harrison, Amica Booka and Travian Henderson, So you want to get those guys
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  opportunities in space. All right. So there's your look at the game.
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  Not all perfect, but getting better and getting better, and a four and
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  no start is not a bad thing for Ohio State at this point of the
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  season. So we'll continue to look at the run game, probably coming up
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  next week after that Maryland game, we still have a look at the passing
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  game, a deep dive on the passing game coming up a little later on
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  this week, so you have that to look forward to. And again,
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  if you enjoy these shows and you want to see them, you can find
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  them at YouTube dot com slash Puckeye Huddle. Of course, you want to
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  listen to them on the go, you know, not necessarily easy to do
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  that while you're walking the dog. You can listen to them while you're walking
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  the dog on your podcast platform choice, and then when you get home you
• 12:33
  can watch them again and rewind and take a look, and we try and
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  provide you a couple of angles when the good folks at the TV networks provide
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  us with a couple angles, so you can get a real good look,
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  and you know, rewind and make sure you're really understanding everything we're talking about
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  here. So I hope you guys enjoyed that one. We'll be back with
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  another one of these a little later on the week. We'll be back with
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  a lot more coverage of the upcoming game against Maryland at Pukee Huddle dot com.
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  Should be a lot of stuff to talk about. We'll be a recruiting
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  another big scruiting visit weekend for the Buckeyes. We're trying to get Elex Blitman
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  on a little later on this week to talk about some of that stuff,
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  and of course we have your usual coverage Ryan Day interviews on Tuesday, Bryan
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  Day and Jim Knowles on Tuesday, some of the Buckeye players on Wednesday,
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  and then get your rolling into kickoff on Saturday for Ohio State. So that
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  will do it for today. Thank you guys all for joining us. Have
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  a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.