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Why Will Howard Could Be A Game-Changer For The Ohio State Offense · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to buck Eyes tomorrow morning from Monday, July eighth. I'm your host
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  Tom Moore. The Akron game in fifty four days, the game against Michigan
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  in one hundred and forty five days. We're going to have a brief conversation
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  about a commitment that the Buckeyes got over the weekend that you may not have
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  heard about. Then we're going to be moving on to the bulk of today's
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  show. We're doing that with our buddy Tony Gerdermantfuckyabble dot com an Tony.
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  Before we get into your fifty for fifty series, I do want to talk
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  just for a moment about the commitment of linebacker Riley Pettijohn over the weekend.
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  This is one where ohifted has the top class in the nation and things have
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  been really rolling, even on the defensive side of the ball, but they
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  had a couple recent guys who recent top targets who committed elsewhere. This one
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  felt like this is a particularly big commitment for the Buckeyes in twenty twenty five.
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  Yeah, Texas linebacker Riley Pettijohn a top five linebacker by all of the
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  four recruiting services. Number one for rivals number two for twenty four, number
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  two for on three, and number five for the other two. Coveted guy
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  obviously and you know six two, two, fifteen to twenty can really really
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  move. I believe in April was timed at a ten seven to seven one
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  hundred meters with a legal you know, not win aided or anything like that.
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  So a very fast guy who when he watches huddle highlights, he's he
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  can pick and move between a blockers and get to the ball, and he
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  can run down the line. He can obviously blitz well. So one of
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  the top linebackers in the nation, James loriniis now I has three linebackers in
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  this class, and I assume, I assume he's done head linebacker in this
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  class and can move on to twenty twenty six and then twenty twenty seven,
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  and Tom even twenty twenty eight, even twenty twenty eight, whether we're ready
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  for it or not. It is interesting to me that you look at Ohio
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  State. They've brought in a couple really highly ranked prospects from the state of
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  Alabama this cycle, and they get Riley Pettijohn, who's coming out of the
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  state of Texas. But Dorian brew who is in the state of Texas but
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  with longtime family ties to the state of Ohio. Well, he's going to
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  Oregon and they just lost justin Hill defensive end out of Cincinnati. He's going
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  to Alabama. It just feels like this is a weird cycle. And I
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  don't know what chalk that up to in terms of you normally would assume,
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  Okay, the Ohio guys are all going to Ohio State and then you know,
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  hey, the Texas guys maybe they're staying home at Texas and the Alabama
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  guys while they're going back to Alabama. And it just feels like between the
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  departure of Nick Saban and maybe nil and maybe just other random you know,
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  maybe this is just a random thing, this cycle. It just it feels
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  like this is a kind of a weird and unpredictable year in some ways.
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  Well, when you were asking, you know, how, how is this
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  happening? Why is this happening? I think a lot of people are just
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  going to point and say, anil, everything that bad happens for your team
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  is nil. Anything that good happens for another program is nil. And I
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  think this is circumstantial circumstances and timing and position, and with Dorian Brew he
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  was there's already two cornerbacks committed to Ohio State, two very very good quarterbacks,
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  in fact, the top two corners in the nation by most metrics,
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  So do you want to be the number three there? And there's also thought
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  that maybe he isn't a corner at Ohio State, maybe he's a safety,
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  or maybe he's a nickel. But what he wants to do is he wants
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  to play outside corner and so he's going to go somewhere and do that.
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  And to me that that would play more into it than any nil even though
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  Uncle Phil out of Oregon is going to take care of, you know,
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  take care of his boys, take care of his guys. And then Justin
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  Hill said it after the fact, it's really hard to recruit a three to
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  four outside linebacker when you don't play that defense. And we know they talk
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  to him about playing the jack and we've talked about how got to show it
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  before people will buy into it, and they haven't, and he didn't and
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  goes to Alabama where they're more apt to play something of his position. So
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  I think a lot of this is just time. I mean, in terms
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  of missing the guys. But yeah, I mean when when you're talking about
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  three guys we can if you want to throw trade mcnut in there as well,
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  three guys that were in Ohio last year and we're considered you know,
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  Ohio state leans to go perhaps oh for three on those and still currently have
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  like the number one class. I think, I think says a lot about
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  who is in this class, which is always the more important thing as opposed
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  to who isn't in the class. Yeah, exactly, when you finish with
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  the number one class in the country, as they potentially could this year,
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  or even if they finished number two or number three in the class with a
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  pretty deep class which could be twenty eight, twenty nine player or something like
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  that, you really you have to kind of squint pretty hard to see something
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  to complain about at that point. So we will see how this class finishes
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  out, but it does, you know, obviously number one in the nation
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  right now and right up at the top in terms of average star ranking and
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  all the other different metrics you want to look at. So another big addition
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  for the buck Eyes over the weekend. Now on to Tony's fifty for fifty
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  series. He's counting down fifty days to the Big Ten Media Days and Tony
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  your fifty for fifty series now down to fifteen more days. Now we are
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  almost there. Two weeks from tonight we will be heading. We will be
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  in Indianapolis for Big Ten Media Days three days this year, Tuesday, Wednesday
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  Thursday. With the addition of the four new teams, there will be plenty
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  to talk about. There. There's plenty to talk about. In your most
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  recent column on this, Let's start with Will Howard and you have him projected
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  to bring something very different to the Ohio State offense that they really have not
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  had for the last three years. Yeah, we know he can run the
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  ball. I think he has one thousand or just under a thousand career rushing
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  yards. So every day with these fifty for fifty I've thrown an Ohio State
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  prediction. My prediction in this one is that Will Howard will have your rush
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  of at least thirty seven yards and Tom Whye thirty seven yards seems like a
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  very arbitrary number. It is now the thirty four yards that people of the
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  buck Eye Weekly fans would recognize. This is thirty seven yards, and it
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  is because twenty twenty one twenty twenty two twenty twenty three, the Ohio State
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  quarterbacks combined you rush for a grand total of thirty six yards. So I
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  am predicting in one fell swoop, maybe not his first fell swoop, but
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  an eventual fell swoop, Will Howard will rush for thirty seven yards on one
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  carry, surpassing the entire quarterback total from the past three years. And it
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  feels like you think back to Ohio State running quarterbacks in the past and some
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  of the long runs that you've seen out of them. You know, you
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  go back to C. J. Stroud had a what fifty yarder on one
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  play against Michigan State in twenty twenty and he was not really a truly running
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  quarterback. But go back to JT. Barrett in the snow against Minnesota with
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  what was that an eighty nine yard run or whatever it was. You know,
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  you have seen some long runs in that in that run game out of
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  the quarterback position before. It feels like you're probably going to see them again
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  and just need to see one or two of them to keep the defense honest
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  and really impact the numbers in that run game for the rest of the you
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  know, for the rest of the game. For the rest of the season.
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  So definitely something to look forward to. There something else, something for
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  people potentially in Mississippi to look forward to. You think this is a year
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  that Ole Miss makes history, makes the college football Playoff. I have seen
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  them projected, you know, kind of close. I think I've seen one
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  that had them in. But that's that's something that you feel like Lane Kiffin
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  going to get it done this year. Why are you so bullish on the
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  Rebels. Well, they played nobody in the non conference, so that's for
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  free wins right there. But you look at their the road games is where
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  I immediately go because I think it's obviously much tougher to win on the road,
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  and the road games are South Carolina, LSU, Arkansas, and Florida.
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  They'll probably only be an underdog against LSU and maybe Florida sneaks up and
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  bites them. I don't think you can really have any faith in them to
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  do anything at this point, So maybe chalk up a loss to LSU,
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  and then at home they have Oklahoma and Kentucky and Georgia and Mississippi State.
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  We can assume the loss to Georgia, but you gotta beat Oklahoma, like
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  you basically have to beat one of at LSU home against Georgia home against Oklahoma,
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  and to do that, you're probably in. I don't expect them to
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  necessarily make the SEC Championship Game unless they end up beating Georgia, But there's
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  going to be I don't know, two or three SEC teams sitting at home
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  on the Saturday of the SEC Championship Game feeling pretty good about themselves. And
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  if an SEC team has two losses and they're not playing in the SEC Championship
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  Game, you can just go ahead and put them in and probably give them
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  a home game in the first round. Yeah, I think you need to
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  win two of those three and then not have anything stupid happen, especially in
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  the Egg Bowl, and Tony, what are the odds something stupid happens?
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  They bowl only like ninety seven percent or so, so I mean, what
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  could possibly go wrong. We'll see there. I do think that Ole Miss
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  probably is a team that will sneak that sneak in somewhere. I've actually seen
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  them projected as a team that could play the Buckeyes in the second round if
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  the Buckeyes win the Big Ten. You could see that. I think it
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  was a ole Miss Ohio State Rose Bowl projection, which is both a wonderful
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  piece of tradition in Ohio State playing in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day
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  and also oh boy, ole Miss playing in the Rose Bowl. I don't
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  know if I'm ready for that emotionally. We will see how that goes.
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  But this is a year where you're going to see a lot of very different
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  stuff. You got the twelve feet Playoff, you got the conference realignment,
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  all that kind of stuff. So many things that are different, something that
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  you have to look forward to this year. You talked about it, Tony.
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  One of our absolute favorite things, both you and me, Michigan Week.
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  It is something that you know, Ohio State fans, there's a lot
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  that is going to change this year, and you know, the dynamics of
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  the Ohio State Michigan rivalry could potentially change this year with the team's potentially playing
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  back to back weeks if they played the Big bitch of game. But still
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  with all the everything else in the college football world changing, it does feel
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  like you have to enjoy that week as it only comes once a year,
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  you know, unless it's more than once a year now. Yeah, well,
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  and it may very well be. But like Michigan Week is separate from
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  the Michigan game. Even you're the build up, it's the anticipation. We
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  know that eleventh game. As soon as that game is over, boom,
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  it's Michigan Week. And when we're talking to the players after the game,
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  it doesn't really matter what happened in that game. It's like, hey,
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  so what do you think about Michigan. And that's that's when the anticipation.
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  The anticipation is always there. But Michigan Week, then and now it is
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  real, and you're talking to coaches about it, you're talking to players about
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  it, We're going up to ann Arbor and talking to those people about it,
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  and all the while, you know, Twitter, message board and it's
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  all ramping up. And there's going to be so much built up in this
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  one, so much angst, so much desire for revenge, so many storylines,
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  so much, so many you know, make or break or now to
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  your bust, all of these ultimatums that have some similts of realism but mostly
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  not. But that week, everything is going to be real. Like every
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  kind of outrageous thing you want to say during Michigan Week is like you're probably
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  right you know, this is the biggest thing ever, so you better do
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  it well. The game against Michigan, as I told you off the top
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  of the show, one hundred and forty five days away. It means Michigan
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  Week about one hundred and thirty seven and a half days away, depending on
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  what time the week before Michigan kicks off for the Buckeyes this year. But
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  that is definitely something I always look forward to, You always look forward to,
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  probably a lot of the folks listening to this podcast look forward to as
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  well, the most wonderful week of the year. And quite a bit could
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  be on the line during that game on that on that Saturday after Thanksgiving,
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  and there's can be plenty on the line for Ohio State in all of the
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  games that follow that as well, potentially the Big Ten Championship game, been
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  three and four potential College Football PLAF games. We're going to be there for
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  all of them, covering the team. That's Kevin, Tony and I at
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  Buckey Huddle covering the team, Mark covering recruiting, and our whole team of
• 12:07
  x's and OS screws as well at buckey Huddle dot Com. Making you a
• 12:09
  smarter football fan, have some new x's and o'se content coming for you right
• 12:13
  now this week. We're going to have to have Devin Radcliffe on later on
• 12:16
  in the week as well some other some other exes and those content that is
• 12:20
  already there on the huddle Board, presented by Jeffruby Steakhouse. Something that members
• 12:24
  were asking for us. We said, all right, well it's your show.
• 12:26
  We will we will bring it to you there all on the huddle Board,
• 12:30
  presenter by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse. All at buckey Huddle dot com. If
• 12:31
  you're not a member, it'd be a great time to sign up. Shaping
• 12:35
  up to be a very memorable and exciting year of Ohio State football. Being
• 12:39
  a member of bucke Huddle dot Com is a great way to take advantage of
• 12:41
  all. So thutt'll do it for today. Thank you guys all for joining
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  us. Have a great day. We'll talk tomorrow.