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BONUS: Scheme Insider - How Iowa Attacked Ohio State's Defense, And The Buckeyes Responded · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

0:00
Speaker 1: All right, we are back with another episode, and this
0:03
Speaker 1: is a bonus episode. We have so many shows this week,
0:07
Speaker 1: so many scheme shows in particular, that even with seven
0:11
Speaker 1: days a week, we have too much stuff. So this
0:13
Speaker 1: is not like, I don't know, this is not canon,
0:15
Speaker 1: I guess, in terms of the Buckeyes tomorrow morning schematic universe.
0:19
Speaker 1: That's all right. We're bringing in Michael Pettit. He is
0:22
Speaker 1: our scheme insider on the defensive side of the ball
0:25
Speaker 1: at BuckeyeInsiders.com. He'll be taking a look at what the
0:27
Speaker 1: Buckeyes did on defense. against Iowa, both in the run
0:31
Speaker 1: game and the pass game. Some of the stuff that
0:33
Speaker 1: changed a little bit at halftime to improve things after
0:37
Speaker 1: they got gashed a little bit through the pass in
0:40
Speaker 1: the first half. Michael, let's start on the ground. And
0:46
Speaker 1: when you're playing Iowa, you know you're not going to
0:48
Speaker 1: be in a lot of dime. But 6-1, this is
0:52
Speaker 1: one that you don't see all that often, I feel like,
0:54
Speaker 1: from Ohio State. But when you're playing Iowa, you can
0:56
Speaker 1: do this kind of stuff.
0:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, so really it's 4-3 personnel. It's just a way
1:02
Speaker 2: to match 12 personnel, but the alignment is a 6-1 alignment.
1:07
Speaker 2: As you can see here, they've got the four down
1:09
Speaker 2: defensive linemen and then Christian Allegro and Riley Pettijohn walked
1:13
Speaker 2: up as stand-up edge players with Peyton Pierce as the
1:16
Speaker 2: lone off-ball linebacker. So it's a 6-1. And the 6-1
1:20
Speaker 2: front is often an adjustment that will be made against
1:25
Speaker 2: a team that's very zone heavy or very stretch heavy.
1:29
Speaker 2: And that's kind of been Iowa's forte for years now
1:31
Speaker 2: on offense. They don't really run a lot of gap
1:33
Speaker 2: scheme stuff, typically. And so it made sense that Patricia
1:37
Speaker 2: rolled this out for Iowa. And just to look at
1:40
Speaker 2: the mechanics of how the 6-1 front works, they align
1:44
Speaker 2: the defensive tackles up in two techniques, which is head
1:47
Speaker 2: up on the guards, and they are playing lag techniques.
1:50
Speaker 2: So what a lag technique is, is whichever way that
1:53
Speaker 2: offensive lineman steps, they are going to lag behind and
1:57
Speaker 2: fill the gap behind them. So in this case, the
2:02
Speaker 2: offense is running stretched to their left to the Ohio
2:05
Speaker 2: State defense's right. And so once both of those guards
2:09
Speaker 2: step to the left, you're going to see the two
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Speaker 2: defensive tackles lag and fill those gaps right behind them.
2:15
Speaker 2: And ultimately here, this was a pretty good rep by
2:18
Speaker 2: the Ohio State defense. Edric Houston and Zion Grady in particular.
2:22
Speaker 2: Edric Houston had a great game on Saturday. Probably his
2:24
Speaker 2: best game I've ever seen him play, to be honest.
2:29
Speaker 1: All right. Next up, we're looking at, this is a
2:31
Speaker 1: little more familiar, the penny front. We've talked about this
2:33
Speaker 1: a bunch, but you may have solved the mystery of
2:37
Speaker 1: the uncovered gaps. That was something we talked about a
2:39
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago and it was kind of like, okay,
2:42
Speaker 1: what are they trying to do here? And it sounds
2:44
Speaker 1: like you and maybe, maybe in some of your group
2:47
Speaker 1: texts with some of our other scheme guys may have
2:50
Speaker 1: sort of started to solve the mystery here.
2:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's a little complicated. It's a little weird. Again,
2:57
Speaker 2: as you can see here on the screen, they're in
2:59
Speaker 2: the penny front. I was an 11 personnel and Riley
3:02
Speaker 2: Pettijohn is the off ball linebacker. And once again, it
3:05
Speaker 2: kind of looks like, is he responsible for both that
3:08
Speaker 2: a gap and the C gap? And that's kind of
3:11
Speaker 2: what it looks like.
3:12
Speaker 1: Right.
3:13
Speaker 2: So I think just through, you know, some resources and
3:17
Speaker 2: some discussions with other people whose opinions I trust and value,
3:22
Speaker 2: I think what's going on here is that the, you know,
3:28
Speaker 2: they're kind of having Pettijohn fill the gap kind of
3:32
Speaker 2: more where the ball is going based on the action.
3:35
Speaker 2: And then you'll see at the top of the screen
3:38
Speaker 2: on this play, Earl Little is the, you know, deep
3:42
Speaker 2: safety there or the middle safety there who's kind of
3:46
Speaker 2: coming down as a late filler to fill whichever gap
3:49
Speaker 2: Pettijohn is going to vacate or not fill. He kind
3:52
Speaker 2: of is just a late fill guy to clean up
3:54
Speaker 2: the mess. But, What essentially happens here also is I
3:58
Speaker 2: want you to watch Edric Houston, the three technique. It
4:02
Speaker 2: seems weird, but he's essentially able to close two gaps
4:05
Speaker 2: at once because he gets into the backfield. So he's
4:07
Speaker 2: able to close that B gap, which is his job
4:10
Speaker 2: as a three technique to hold that. But because the
4:12
Speaker 2: left tackle just kind of climbs straight up to the
4:15
Speaker 2: second level, Edric Houston is now suddenly basically closing off
4:20
Speaker 2: the C gap as well. And that's not uncommon. It's
4:25
Speaker 2: very common for defensive coordinators to call schemes that essentially
4:31
Speaker 2: have defensive linemen close gaps in the backfield rather than
4:34
Speaker 2: just by holding point at the attack. Matt Patricia often
4:41
Speaker 2: runs what I call a jet front. Some people call
4:44
Speaker 2: it a float front, but it's when they have the
4:46
Speaker 2: two or three techniques on the field. And what they're
4:48
Speaker 2: doing is that kind of makes the center just When
4:51
Speaker 2: there's no one over top of the center, the center
4:53
Speaker 2: is just going to climb to the second level immediately.
4:55
Speaker 2: And that kind of allows for those three techniques to
4:57
Speaker 2: slide in behind the center and basically close the A
5:01
Speaker 2: gap in the backfield rather than, you know, closing it
5:04
Speaker 2: by fighting with the center at the line of scrimmage.
5:07
Speaker 2: So I believe that's kind of what's going on here
5:10
Speaker 2: is they're kind of adding a technique where Edrick Houston
5:14
Speaker 2: or the defensive linemen are essentially kind of responsible for
5:17
Speaker 2: closing gaps in the backfield. The linebacker is going to go.
5:21
Speaker 2: where the scheme is telling him the ball is going
5:23
Speaker 2: to go. And then you've got that safety there to
5:26
Speaker 2: come be a late filler and clean up the mess.
5:29
Speaker 2: And I'm sorry if that was not the greatest explanation
5:32
Speaker 2: in the world. This is a little new to me.
5:35
Speaker 2: I'm not going to lie. I'm not the biggest fan
5:37
Speaker 2: of it. I think I would really prefer something that's
5:40
Speaker 2: just a little more straightforward. And you look at it,
5:43
Speaker 2: it's very explanatory who's responsible for which gap. But this
5:47
Speaker 2: is the direction they're going this year. And I see
5:49
Speaker 2: the vision. I definitely do. I will say that I
5:54
Speaker 2: don't think the run defense was as great on Saturday
5:57
Speaker 2: as a lot of people do. I don't know why
6:00
Speaker 2: Iowa didn't commit to the run more in the first half.
6:04
Speaker 2: They really were having some success, particularly late in the
6:07
Speaker 2: first half. Nothing earth-shattering, but a lot of four, six,
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Speaker 2: eight-yard gains. For some reason, Iowa was just really committed
6:15
Speaker 2: to throwing the ball, which was strange, but So I'm
6:19
Speaker 2: kind of at a point where I'm still in wait-and-see
6:21
Speaker 2: mode on the run defense, but I'm at least starting
6:23
Speaker 2: to understand the mechanics here a little better. So yeah,
6:28
Speaker 2: that's kind of where I'm at as far as the
6:30
Speaker 2: run defense goes. But was it better on Saturday than
6:32
Speaker 2: it was against Illinois? Absolutely.
6:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely a step in the right direction at the
6:39
Speaker 1: very least. And you talk about sometimes not loving things
6:42
Speaker 1: that are super complicated. There were issues with the pass
6:45
Speaker 1: in the first half. No question. They and then they
6:48
Speaker 1: felt like they addressed them. So we're going to look
6:50
Speaker 1: at some of the things that went wrong in the
6:51
Speaker 1: first half and then some of the things that they
6:53
Speaker 1: changed a little bit in the second half where things
6:55
Speaker 1: seemed like they worked better. And this is one of
6:58
Speaker 1: these things where, you know, you're starting. We're going to
7:01
Speaker 1: start with some cover one coverages. But this one is
7:04
Speaker 1: this one feels like, OK, this is a solvable problem.
7:07
Speaker 1: because you look at, you watch the play and it's like, they,
7:10
Speaker 1: how did this guy get this wide open? And it's like, Oh,
7:13
Speaker 1: you watch it once and you're like, ah, I see.
7:15
Speaker 1: This feels like this should be a fixable issue. Right.
7:19
Speaker 2: So they're in cover one here. They played a lot
7:21
Speaker 2: of cover one on Saturday, particularly in the first half.
7:24
Speaker 2: They weren't very successful with it, but, um, again, cover one,
7:29
Speaker 2: you know, losing in cover one doesn't always just mean,
7:31
Speaker 2: you know, your, your, your corners suck or your corners
7:34
Speaker 2: can't cover or anything like that. Um, There are rules
7:37
Speaker 2: to cover one. A lot of it has to do
7:40
Speaker 2: with switching off routes, and that was kind of a
7:42
Speaker 2: problem on Saturday. So what I want you to see
7:44
Speaker 2: here is you're going to see Earl Little is in
7:47
Speaker 2: man coverage on the tight end to the field, so
7:51
Speaker 2: more to the bottom of the screen, whereas Jermaine Matthews
7:54
Speaker 2: is in man coverage on the receiver to the bottom
7:56
Speaker 2: of the screen to the field. But watch what happens
8:01
Speaker 2: once the ball is snapped. That receiver is going to go,
8:05
Speaker 2: you know, upfield, vertical, and essentially pick off Earl Little
8:10
Speaker 2: while the tight end is just going to beam to
8:13
Speaker 2: the flat. And what needs to happen here is there
8:16
Speaker 2: needs to be a switch off of the routes. Once
8:19
Speaker 2: this action is seen, Jermaine Matthews needs to realize, okay,
8:23
Speaker 2: the receiver is not my man anymore. Earl Little is
8:26
Speaker 2: going to take him. I'm going to go out and
8:28
Speaker 2: get the tight end. It's just like in basketball. Sometimes
8:33
Speaker 2: in basketball, when you set screens, uh guys will switch
8:38
Speaker 2: men well the same applies in football oftentimes and that's
8:40
Speaker 2: especially true against like bunch formations stack formations or really
8:45
Speaker 2: tight splits like right here so there were some problems
8:48
Speaker 2: with that on saturday for sure and we're going to
8:50
Speaker 2: look at another example on the.
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Speaker 1: Next play as well yeah the next one you know
8:56
Speaker 1: if you're if you're a defensive guy you call this
8:58
Speaker 1: a pick play If you're an offensive guy, you say, like, hey,
9:02
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just trying to run my route. I'm
9:03
Speaker 1: very sorry that I got in your way or you
9:05
Speaker 1: got in my way, really, if you think about it. So, yeah,
9:08
Speaker 1: very similar issues here. Looks a little different.
9:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, those dang offensive guys, man. Always got something up
9:15
Speaker 2: their sleeve. But, yeah, so right here, they're running a–
9:19
Speaker 2: Ohio State's running a cover one blitz. You're going to
9:24
Speaker 2: have Pettijohn, the off-ball linebacker, is the fifth rusher. And again,
9:28
Speaker 2: Iowa goes empty here. So it pulls out Christian Allegro's
9:31
Speaker 2: and man coverage on the running back, who is the
9:34
Speaker 2: slot receiver to the boundary. And I believe that's Devin Sanchez,
9:38
Speaker 2: who's the corner on the outside receiver to the boundary.
9:42
Speaker 2: And once again, look at this route combination here. There's
9:46
Speaker 2: essentially no, Devin Sanchez doesn't really have a chance to
9:49
Speaker 2: stay with his man. Once that is seen, and again,
9:52
Speaker 2: this is very, it's easier said than done, right? But
9:55
Speaker 2: Christian Allegro needs to, Recognize this and pick up that
9:59
Speaker 2: receiver because Devin and they need to switch men in
10:02
Speaker 2: that situation because Devin Sanchez has no hope of staying
10:05
Speaker 2: with this man and you know I feel I don't
10:08
Speaker 2: even want to pick on Christian Allegro too much he's
10:10
Speaker 2: been he's been quite good all year really but this
10:13
Speaker 2: is just an example of something that went on a
10:15
Speaker 2: lot on Saturday just not really switching and passing off
10:20
Speaker 2: men the way you need to in man coverage. And
10:22
Speaker 2: Iowa was exploiting that from very early in the game.
10:27
Speaker 1: So then Ohio State started making some changes, and folks
10:30
Speaker 1: who have watched some of your earlier segments know you
10:33
Speaker 1: love talking about sim pressures. We've got a couple different
10:35
Speaker 1: kinds of sim pressures here, including one I don't think
10:37
Speaker 1: we've talked about yet. But first, let's talk about a
10:40
Speaker 1: double rat sim pressure. I don't know if I've talked
10:42
Speaker 1: to you about it. I know I've talked to Ross
10:43
Speaker 1: about this at some point in the past, but It
10:46
Speaker 1: has been a little while since I think we've seen
10:48
Speaker 1: one of these.
10:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this Ohio State, you can tell Patricia, over
10:54
Speaker 2: the past couple weeks, you can tell he's been trying
10:56
Speaker 2: to throw some different things in terms of pressure packages
11:00
Speaker 2: at the defense or at the offense. This is a
11:03
Speaker 2: cover one double rat sim pressure. So again, a sim
11:07
Speaker 2: pressure because they've got five men on the line of scrimmage.
11:10
Speaker 2: They're bringing a back seven defender, the middle linebacker Peyton Pearce,
11:15
Speaker 2: but because they're dropping two of those, uh, men on
11:18
Speaker 2: the line of scrimmage, they're really only rushing four. So
11:20
Speaker 2: that's why it's a simulated pressure and they're in cover
11:24
Speaker 2: one here. Uh, the two defensive linemen who are dropping out,
11:29
Speaker 2: they're going to act as rats, which essentially just means
11:32
Speaker 2: they're underneath eyes in the quarterback spying, potentially intercepting crossing routes. Uh,
11:38
Speaker 2: that's just kind of their job on this play. Uh,
11:40
Speaker 2: what I do want to point out on this play,
11:42
Speaker 2: it's away from the ball. Um, If you look to
11:46
Speaker 2: the bottom of the screen, the corner and the nickel here,
11:49
Speaker 2: they do a phenomenal job passing off routes. So like
11:53
Speaker 2: the last two plays I was talking about how, you know,
11:55
Speaker 2: you've got to trade off routes here. You've got to
11:57
Speaker 2: switch men. Watch what the corner and the nickel to
12:00
Speaker 2: the bottom of the screen do here. That's exactly what
12:02
Speaker 2: needs to happen. So it was really encouraging to see this.
12:05
Speaker 2: It unfortunately kind of goes unnoticed because this was the
12:08
Speaker 2: play they threw away from that side. But It was
12:15
Speaker 2: really just good to see that. It was really good
12:17
Speaker 2: to see that, you know, some adjustments were obviously made
12:21
Speaker 2: and they are being taught to do that. They just
12:23
Speaker 2: failed to execute a couple of times, but if they
12:25
Speaker 2: can get better in that regard, I think they could
12:27
Speaker 2: potentially be a successful cover one team. I just, you know,
12:30
Speaker 2: it's easier said than done, but this is a good
12:32
Speaker 2: example of what it's supposed to look like. And then
12:36
Speaker 2: we'll take a look at the end zone view of this,
12:38
Speaker 2: just so you can see the rush path here. You're
12:41
Speaker 2: going to have the three technique, become the contain rusher
12:44
Speaker 2: to the boundary. The nose is going to scrape over
12:47
Speaker 2: to the opposite a gap to leave that his a
12:50
Speaker 2: gap vacant for Pierce to come through. And then Allegro
12:54
Speaker 2: is going to be the contain rusher to the field.
12:58
Speaker 1: All right. Next up, we have a different kind of
13:00
Speaker 1: sim pressure. This one, I'm pretty sure is a new one.
13:03
Speaker 1: I don't think we've talked about this at any point before.
13:05
Speaker 1: Explain what an off ball sim is.
13:09
Speaker 2: So an off ball simulated pressure, um, As I've said,
13:13
Speaker 2: a simulated pressure is when you've got five or six
13:15
Speaker 2: guys in the line of scrimmage. You bring a back
13:18
Speaker 2: seven defender, but you drop enough guys that you're only
13:21
Speaker 2: actually rushing four. And a creeper is when you're in
13:25
Speaker 2: a base four down alignment. You bring a back seven defender,
13:28
Speaker 2: but you drop a defensive lineman in place. So you're
13:32
Speaker 2: still only rushing four. I view an off-ball simulated pressure
13:36
Speaker 2: as a hybrid between those two. What it is here
13:39
Speaker 2: is you have only four down alignment, four guys in
13:42
Speaker 2: the line of scrimmage, but you're bringing two back seven
13:45
Speaker 2: defenders and in exchange dropping two defensive linemen into coverage.
13:49
Speaker 2: So rather than simulating pressure by having five or six
13:52
Speaker 2: guys on the ball, you're simulating pressure by bringing two
13:56
Speaker 2: guys from the back seven. When an offense sees that,
13:59
Speaker 2: they're thinking, okay, they're going to be rushing at least
14:01
Speaker 2: five here, but they're ultimately only rushing four. Once again,
14:05
Speaker 2: the coverage here is cover one, double wrap. And if
14:09
Speaker 2: you go ahead and look at the end zone view
14:12
Speaker 2: of this, you can get a good idea of what
14:13
Speaker 2: the blitz path looks like. So the two defensive tackles
14:18
Speaker 2: are going to become the contain rushers here with the
14:21
Speaker 2: defensive ends dropping as rats. And Christian Allegro is the
14:27
Speaker 2: first rusher here. He and Riley Pettijohn are both rushing. Allegro,
14:32
Speaker 2: what they're both doing is they're reading the center. Now
14:35
Speaker 2: because the center opens up towards Allegro, Allegro fights over
14:39
Speaker 2: top to the A-gap opposite the center, and Pettijohn goes
14:45
Speaker 2: to the A-gap that was vacated by Allegro. They're kind
14:49
Speaker 2: of just trying to confuse the center and the running
14:50
Speaker 2: back there. It's a read path that becomes a cross-dog path.
14:56
Speaker 2: And the quarterback gets rid of the ball here, so
14:58
Speaker 2: this doesn't really lead to anything. But this is just
15:00
Speaker 2: another example of the types of things they're trying to
15:03
Speaker 2: do to get a little more creative with their pressure
15:06
Speaker 2: packages and such.
15:09
Speaker 1: And we talked about the fact that the second half
15:11
Speaker 1: of that game against Iowa, it looked like a completely
15:14
Speaker 1: different defense at times where the first half they could
15:18
Speaker 1: not get off the field and give it a passes
15:19
Speaker 1: and give it runs and what's going on. And then
15:22
Speaker 1: the second half, get a couple three and outs, get
15:24
Speaker 1: an interception. One of the things that changed is it
15:26
Speaker 1: sounds like they played a lot more cover two in
15:28
Speaker 1: the second half. Why did they make that change and
15:31
Speaker 1: why did that work?
15:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did. They played a lot more cover two
15:36
Speaker 2: in the second half. They played a few different variations
15:39
Speaker 2: of cover two. For today, we're just going to talk
15:43
Speaker 2: about one that I thought was interesting because it was
15:45
Speaker 2: a new wrinkle. I think they switched away from all
15:48
Speaker 2: the man coverage largely just because, you know, as we
15:50
Speaker 2: talked about, they were having trouble with it. They weren't
15:53
Speaker 2: being fundamentally sound with passing off routes and stuff like that.
15:57
Speaker 2: So in the second half and also in You know,
16:00
Speaker 2: Iowa got behind the eight ball to the point where
16:03
Speaker 2: they had to really lean on their passing game. And
16:07
Speaker 2: resorting to cover two or Tampa two in those situations
16:10
Speaker 2: is a pretty common strategy for the defense. But yeah,
16:14
Speaker 2: so this cover two you'll see right here is interesting.
16:18
Speaker 2: I've never seen Patricia run it, but you're going to
16:20
Speaker 2: have your typical, you know, two safeties for the deep
16:23
Speaker 2: halves of the field. And then you're going to have
16:25
Speaker 2: your five underneath defenders, you know, the two seam guys,
16:28
Speaker 2: a hook guy. And the corners here are playing a
16:33
Speaker 2: different technique. Rather than just being the flat defenders, they
16:36
Speaker 2: are initially going to be man defenders. And they're going
16:44
Speaker 2: to give the image that they're playing man, but you'll
16:46
Speaker 2: see they eventually flip around and are just regular cover
16:51
Speaker 2: two flat defenders. And this might look familiar. If anyone
16:55
Speaker 2: has the time, go back and look at the interception
16:57
Speaker 2: Julian Sane threw against Michigan last year. It shouldn't be
17:00
Speaker 2: too painful to watch because Ohio State ended up winning
17:03
Speaker 2: that game pretty big. Just go take a look at it.
17:07
Speaker 2: The reason Julian Sand threw that interception is because Michigan,
17:10
Speaker 2: what they called was this similar technique here where the
17:13
Speaker 2: corner initially looked to be playing man coverage for the
17:16
Speaker 2: first few steps of the route. And so Sand thought
17:20
Speaker 2: he could throw a back shorter throw there, but the
17:22
Speaker 2: corner was actually playing man and falling into zone and
17:26
Speaker 2: And so the corner flips his head around and it's like, oh, wow,
17:29
Speaker 2: there's the ball coming at me. And that's what Ohio
17:32
Speaker 2: State's corners are doing here. I just thought it was
17:34
Speaker 2: interesting because I've never seen it before, but I like it.
17:39
Speaker 2: It's a nice wrinkle. And especially when you've been playing
17:42
Speaker 2: so much man all game, it's just a way to
17:46
Speaker 2: change things up on the back end. Still be a
17:50
Speaker 2: heavy cover two team like Ohio State always has, but
17:53
Speaker 2: just a kind of a way to maybe hopefully get
17:56
Speaker 2: a cheap interception or something just like Michigan did in
17:59
Speaker 2: last year's game.
18:01
Speaker 1: So on the offense shows, I've been talking to Ross
18:06
Speaker 1: and Justin, and it seems like they feel like Arthur
18:09
Speaker 1: Smith is sort of starting to get stuff dialed in
18:12
Speaker 1: as they're sort of figuring out what is this team
18:13
Speaker 1: good at? What is this team not good at? And
18:15
Speaker 1: there's like a sense of like some real tangible progress
18:19
Speaker 1: on the offense. They're sort of getting stuff dialed in.
18:22
Speaker 1: Are you feeling kind of the same way about Matt
18:25
Speaker 1: Patricia and the defense? And now you talked about the
18:27
Speaker 1: fact that they're trying a bunch of different stuff. Do
18:30
Speaker 1: you get the sense that they're starting to get stuff
18:36
Speaker 1: a little bit more settled in terms of, okay, this
18:40
Speaker 1: is going to work with this group of personnel. This
18:42
Speaker 1: might not. Figuring out what their strengths are going to
18:45
Speaker 1: be this year.
18:47
Speaker 2: I think I do. I've been a little... harsh on
18:51
Speaker 2: the defense as anyone watching these shows might've picked up on.
18:55
Speaker 2: And certainly on the board, I'm a little, I think
18:57
Speaker 2: it's a little more obvious. Uh, but there are a
19:01
Speaker 2: couple of things. Um, I think Arthur Smith's job is
19:04
Speaker 2: a lot easier than Matt Patricia's this year because Arthur
19:07
Speaker 2: Smith had what five returning offensive linemen with a ton
19:11
Speaker 2: of experience, uh, the best wide receiver maybe ever to
19:16
Speaker 2: play college football, uh, a quarterback, a returning quarterback, who's
19:20
Speaker 2: a Heisman winner, you know, he returned a lot of
19:23
Speaker 2: guys and just the offense in general is saved for,
19:26
Speaker 2: you know, Jacoby Jackson and Mason Williams is it's, it's
19:29
Speaker 2: the same core guys as last year, really. And Devin
19:32
Speaker 2: McEwen as well. It's a lot of returning guys and it's,
19:36
Speaker 2: it's just an easier job. Whereas Patricia has so many
19:39
Speaker 2: new guys on defense. I do think it's been, it's
19:42
Speaker 2: probably been a challenge for him to, things out and
19:45
Speaker 2: I don't think that process is over yet. I think
19:47
Speaker 2: he's still in the process of doing it and that's
19:49
Speaker 2: why you're seeing some of these different things I feel
19:52
Speaker 2: like I'm starting to get a better grasp on what
19:55
Speaker 2: it is he's trying to do uh I don't think
19:58
Speaker 2: the defense is where it needs to be yet but
20:01
Speaker 2: I'm starting to get a better feel for it so
20:04
Speaker 2: I think we can be cautiously optimistic going forward uh Just,
20:08
Speaker 2: you know, one more week to clean some things up
20:12
Speaker 2: and work some things out against Maryland before another big
20:16
Speaker 2: ranked game on the road against Indiana. But I'd say overall, yeah,
20:20
Speaker 2: the defense is moving in the right direction.
20:23
Speaker 1: All right. So there you go. A little bit of
20:25
Speaker 1: an upbeat ending at the end of the show. That's good.
20:28
Speaker 1: I know there was it was kind of an upbeat
20:30
Speaker 1: ending to the game on Saturday as well. I know
20:32
Speaker 1: the first half was a rough one looking on Twitter.
20:36
Speaker 1: during the game. But yeah, they got things turned around
20:39
Speaker 1: later on. So things trending in the right direction. Buckeyes
20:43
Speaker 1: will be back on the field on Saturday, 4.15 p.m.
20:47
Speaker 1: at the Horseshoe, taking on Maryland. That game's going to
20:49
Speaker 1: be on BTN. We will have our usual pregame show
20:52
Speaker 1: and live postgame show from Ohio Stadium following that game.
20:56
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20:59
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21:48
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