Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Ross Fulton Analysis: How Arthur Smith Will Change Ohio State's Offense
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Wednesday, August twenty sixth,
- 0:03Speaker 1: time' your host Tom or the ball State game in
- 0:05Speaker 1: ten days, the Gamming Gains Michigan in ninety four days.
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- 0:22Speaker 1: Today a short sign that the season is right around
- 0:25Speaker 1: the corner going to be welcoming. In Ross Fulton, one
- 0:28Speaker 1: of our scheme insiders at Buckeye Insiders dot com can
- 0:31Speaker 1: be talking a little bit about what to expect from
- 0:33Speaker 1: the Ohio State offense this year on a new offensive coordinator,
- 0:36Speaker 1: Arthur Smith. We're going to try and have a bunch
- 0:38Speaker 1: of scheme shows for you as we count down to
- 0:41Speaker 1: kickoff of Ross and Michael petted on. If you enjoy
- 0:44Speaker 1: talking scheme, enjoy getting questions answered, figuring out exactly what
- 0:48Speaker 1: those little x's and o's are doing, this would be
- 0:51Speaker 1: a great time to sign up at Buckeye Insiders dot
- 0:53Speaker 1: com because we spend a lot of time talking about
- 0:55Speaker 1: scheme on that board. I know I get a lot
- 0:57Speaker 1: smarter about football talking to these guys will too, and
- 1:00Speaker 1: I think you'll enjoy that as well. So sign up
- 1:02Speaker 1: today at Buckeye Insiders dot com. All right, so we're
- 1:04Speaker 1: going to welcome in Ross Ross. This is obviously going
- 1:08Speaker 1: to be a very different offense. I think there's gonna
- 1:10Speaker 1: be some scheme differences this year. I think there's probably
- 1:13Speaker 1: gonna just be some operational differences and some just how
- 1:18Speaker 1: things flow together kind of differences on game day. Let's start,
- 1:22Speaker 1: I guess with the scheme stuff, because we've talked a
- 1:24Speaker 1: little bit about this over the course of the spring
- 1:26Speaker 1: and after they hired Arthur Smith. But it's been a
- 1:29Speaker 1: little while and people probably have been thinking about a
- 1:31Speaker 1: few other things since you know, February March April. So
- 1:35Speaker 1: you grew briefly, what kinds of schemes, what kinds of
- 1:40Speaker 1: running concepts, rushing concepts, passing concepts. Is Arthur Smith sort
- 1:45Speaker 1: of known for that? You might expect to see a
- 1:47Speaker 1: little bit more from Ohio State this year.
- 1:49Speaker 2: I think you see a lot of it in his
- 1:51Speaker 2: his run game or you know, his stamp on it.
- 1:54Speaker 2: I mean, you see a lot of an outside zone
- 1:59Speaker 2: heavy bay, you know, particularly when he was with the Titans.
- 2:03Speaker 2: I think of a lot of Derrick Henry on inside zone,
- 2:06Speaker 2: outside zone, and you see a lot of duo. I
- 2:09Speaker 2: think increasingly so. And you know, I think we've talked
- 2:13Speaker 2: on at least on the Insiders board and here as
- 2:15Speaker 2: well about duo is just basically like a gap scheme
- 2:19Speaker 2: without a backside pulling guard bellustrated before everyone blocks down.
- 2:24Speaker 2: Soores you know, on inside or outside zone, a zone play,
- 2:27Speaker 2: the line is stepping you if the play is going
- 2:30Speaker 2: to the right, the line stepping to the right. On duo,
- 2:34Speaker 2: if the run is going to the right, everyone's stepping
- 2:36Speaker 2: down to the left and blocking back and giving the
- 2:40Speaker 2: running back a two way go to either hit up
- 2:42Speaker 2: inside or bounce out if the linebacker comes down. So
- 2:45Speaker 2: you know, i'd say those those zone and duo make
- 2:48Speaker 2: up a heavy amount of what Arthur Smith does. And
- 2:51Speaker 2: then I said, you know, as I mentioned, a lot
- 2:53Speaker 2: of play action passing off those particuarly liking to fake
- 2:57Speaker 2: outside zone one way and bootleg back the other way. Again,
- 3:00Speaker 2: so a lot of that with Ryan Tannehill when he
- 3:05Speaker 2: was with the Titans and Derrick Henry.
- 3:07Speaker 1: All right, and I'm gonna give everyone a little spoiler.
- 3:09Speaker 1: I'm also gonna be talking a little bit about duo
- 3:11Speaker 1: later this week with Michael Pettitt. He has pulled some
- 3:14Speaker 1: some Arthur Smith clips from previous stops, so you're gonna
- 3:16Speaker 1: get to see and hear a little bit more about
- 3:18Speaker 1: that later in the week. We didn't even plan that.
- 3:21Speaker 1: That is how good these guys are. So one thing
- 3:23Speaker 1: that I know we have seen a lot more in
- 3:26Speaker 1: practice and our limited practice windows, and we've certainly heard
- 3:29Speaker 1: is going on a little bit more is quarterback under center.
- 3:33Speaker 1: And Arthur Smith during the interview session when he was
- 3:36Speaker 1: asked about it, got a little bit like defensive and
- 3:39Speaker 1: I don't know, It's just it was a little like,
- 3:42Speaker 1: you know, you're you're not at You're acting like this
- 3:43Speaker 1: as a secret that we're not supposed to know. But
- 3:46Speaker 1: you know, I don't know that that's really a real
- 3:48Speaker 1: deep secret that they're doing more under center stuff. But
- 3:51Speaker 1: what is the benefit of them doing more under center stuff? If?
- 3:54Speaker 1: And are we really going to see more this year?
- 3:57Speaker 3: Yeah? And I suspect we will see more.
- 4:00Speaker 2: I you know, knowing that answer that you are referring to,
- 4:03Speaker 2: He's like, well, we can, you know, operate from the shotgun,
- 4:06Speaker 2: we can operate for pistol, and I'm sure you'll see
- 4:08Speaker 2: both of those as well. But under center, obviously, that
- 4:12Speaker 2: was a big part of what Smith's done in the NFL. Again,
- 4:16Speaker 2: we sort of talked about like broader trends. It's kind
- 4:19Speaker 2: of consistent with both the NFL and college football morphing
- 4:22Speaker 2: back to more multiple tight end sets, more downhill run
- 4:27Speaker 2: scheme and response to defenses getting lighter and playing more
- 4:30Speaker 2: too high coverages, split safety pre snap looks, and so
- 4:34Speaker 2: you know, under center has the benefit obviously of it's
- 4:39Speaker 2: easier to run the football in either direction than if
- 4:42Speaker 2: you're in the shotgun with the half back to what
- 4:44Speaker 2: side of you. That is gives a pre snaptail to
- 4:48Speaker 2: the defense where the ball is going. Under center is
- 4:52Speaker 2: good for play action because the quarterback turns his back
- 4:56Speaker 2: to the defense, and so you know, you get some
- 4:59Speaker 2: you know, you just get more of like a run
- 5:00Speaker 2: action going with the tailback coming downhill the quarterback turning.
- 5:05Speaker 2: You can do bootleg easier off of that duo. You know,
- 5:09Speaker 2: I'm sure Mike will showing his clips. Is you can
- 5:14Speaker 2: run it from the gun. It just kind of works
- 5:17Speaker 2: more naturally from under center with those down blocks and
- 5:21Speaker 2: the back it can you know, kind of get more
- 5:23Speaker 2: going more north and south. And so you know, those
- 5:27Speaker 2: are the benefits obviously, like the downside and the reason
- 5:29Speaker 2: that like shotgun became so prevalent at college and then
- 5:34Speaker 2: you know in the NFL, I mean there's sort of
- 5:36Speaker 2: two different ones. I mean, one, you know, you still
- 5:38Speaker 2: see a lot of shotgun in passing situations. Just get
- 5:41Speaker 2: the quarterback back with his head up and he doesn't
- 5:43Speaker 2: have to the we just talked about it having to
- 5:46Speaker 2: turn from the defense. From under center, you don't have
- 5:48Speaker 2: to shotgun. The other is more like it lends itself
- 5:52Speaker 2: to the run reads and then are you know, run
- 5:55Speaker 2: pass options when you're the gun and because the quarterback
- 5:57Speaker 2: doesn't have to turn, you could sit there and read
- 5:59Speaker 2: a defender.
- 6:00Speaker 3: So that's why I don't think it's gonna go away.
- 6:02Speaker 2: I mean, I think you'll still see lots of that
- 6:03Speaker 2: from High State, but I do think you know, again,
- 6:06Speaker 2: Julli Insane is not a big run threat, so some
- 6:09Speaker 2: of that shotgun, some of the benefits that you get
- 6:12Speaker 2: from the gun that I just described are not there. Conversely,
- 6:16Speaker 2: I think he's he's well situated. He is athletic enough
- 6:19Speaker 2: to run a lot of those half roles and play
- 6:22Speaker 2: action boot legs that we discussed. And you know, when
- 6:24Speaker 2: you're doing that stuff, you're getting the defense flowing downhill
- 6:26Speaker 2: going back the other way. That opens up the opportunity
- 6:30Speaker 2: ideally for explicit pass plays down the field. Uh, you know,
- 6:34Speaker 2: particularly to Jeremiah Smith. So you want to force the
- 6:36Speaker 2: defense to think run and that opens up big play opportunities.
- 6:42Speaker 1: Every time we talk to these guys about, you know,
- 6:44Speaker 1: with the scheme they're gonna run and how they're gonna
- 6:46Speaker 1: you know, what they're what they're planning to change this year,
- 6:48Speaker 1: the conversation always goes to, Okay, what what what works
- 6:52Speaker 1: for the personnel? You can't you're not gonna square peg
- 6:54Speaker 1: round hole it. You've got to look at what you've
- 6:56Speaker 1: got in terms of talent, in terms of personnel, in
- 6:58Speaker 1: terms of skill sets and adapt your scheme to that. So,
- 7:02Speaker 1: all right, you talked about you know, a multiple tight
- 7:04Speaker 1: end downhill run threat. How does that fit with the
- 7:08Speaker 1: personnel they've got this year?
- 7:11Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think obviously it leans
- 7:14Speaker 2: heavily into the offensive line. Ryan Day, I think in
- 7:19Speaker 2: discussing the not yet official but basically official starting offensive
- 7:25Speaker 2: line on Monday, you know, I mean, there's obviously been
- 7:28Speaker 2: a lot of focus on you know, how is Ian
- 7:31Speaker 2: Moore at left tackle?
- 7:32Speaker 3: Do you want him there?
- 7:32Speaker 2: But Day kind of pivoted it and talked about, you know,
- 7:36Speaker 2: the strength of the interior than when you put Luke Montgomery,
- 7:40Speaker 2: Carson Hintsman and Austin's Harrabel together, right, And that's a
- 7:43Speaker 2: lot of experience. It's a lot of starts, and so
- 7:48Speaker 2: you would expect, you know, you have a strong running game, right,
- 7:51Speaker 2: and so that lends itself to the to the downhill aspect.
- 7:55Speaker 3: Tight end is an interesting one. Again.
- 7:56Speaker 2: On Monday, Day sort of suggested that, you know, three
- 7:59Speaker 2: guys Nate Roberts, bend at Christian and Mason Williams are
- 8:03Speaker 2: sort of ahead of the rest of the pack. They
- 8:04Speaker 2: have a lot of depth there. I think there's a
- 8:06Speaker 2: lot of inexperience. That's sort of a position where it's
- 8:09Speaker 2: a little bit wait and see. I think in theory
- 8:12Speaker 2: you probably Nate Roberts more of the past catching tight end,
- 8:16Speaker 2: Mason Williams have Benet Christian more run blockers. But that
- 8:20Speaker 2: does give them obviously the ability to again and get
- 8:22Speaker 2: into multiple personal sets, you know, and I should mention
- 8:27Speaker 2: Brandon Innis too, because he's a bigger guy. Like we've
- 8:30Speaker 2: seen clips from the preseason of with them running duo,
- 8:36Speaker 2: because duo is one of those plays I'm sure once
- 8:38Speaker 2: Mike shows it and like once you see it, it's
- 8:41Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of coming, or a play action
- 8:43Speaker 2: off it's coming because you kind of get the two
- 8:44Speaker 2: tight ends to one side. A lot of times you'll
- 8:46Speaker 2: bring like a bigger receiver like Innis in motion down
- 8:51Speaker 2: and he'll kind of dig it out.
- 8:52Speaker 3: And because you're trying to create.
- 8:53Speaker 2: Like four or five gaps to one side the line
- 8:55Speaker 2: of scrum mentioned, so the defense can't fill them all.
- 8:57Speaker 2: So that also, you know, again people like to focus
- 9:01Speaker 2: on the receivers for receiving, but I do think that
- 9:04Speaker 2: you know, nsbing a bigger guy gives them some of
- 9:08Speaker 2: that blocking at the point of attack as well.
- 9:11Speaker 1: One thing that when we're talking about the offense, one
- 9:14Speaker 1: thing that I know we're going to get and we're
- 9:16Speaker 1: going to get in the comments on YouTube is are
- 9:18Speaker 1: they going to run more tempo? Are they going to
- 9:20Speaker 1: be faster this year? They're going to run more plays
- 9:21Speaker 1: this year? Like, I get it. Believe me, we were
- 9:23Speaker 1: all there, We all lived through the twenty twenty five offense.
- 9:26Speaker 1: We all get it. You and I were part of
- 9:29Speaker 1: a conversation on the Insider Sport of Pockeye Insiders that
- 9:32Speaker 1: come like a couple of days ago, maybe a week ago,
- 9:35Speaker 1: about a phenomenal article from Bill Comley at ESPN talking about, Okay,
- 9:40Speaker 1: why are teams getting away from tempo? Because this is
- 9:43Speaker 1: not a uniquely Ohio state phenomenon, and it's it was
- 9:47Speaker 1: kind of like, well, there's a lot of reasons, and
- 9:48Speaker 1: you sort of read through it and it was like, yeah,
- 9:50Speaker 1: there's a lot of really good explanations as to why.
- 9:53Speaker 1: So I guess can you sort of explain broadly some
- 9:56Speaker 1: of the why behind teams are sort of getting away
- 9:58Speaker 1: from the tempo thing and at least taking a little
- 10:01Speaker 1: more time to it. And is that something that you
- 10:04Speaker 1: think or as it might start going back the other
- 10:06Speaker 1: way a little bit this year, or are you thinking
- 10:08Speaker 1: this is just this is how life is now?
- 10:11Speaker 2: So, I mean, there's a couple of trends right again, Defenses,
- 10:14Speaker 2: like everything adapts in football, a sort of kind of
- 10:17Speaker 2: has this ebbs and flows to it. The people got
- 10:22Speaker 2: much better at defending up tempo spread offenses and just
- 10:26Speaker 2: being more you know, lighter personnel adjusting the fly.
- 10:29Speaker 3: When you go really fast.
- 10:31Speaker 2: You can run a lot of plays, but you don't
- 10:33Speaker 2: obviously have as much time to think through every play
- 10:35Speaker 2: and to be you can't be as diverse in your
- 10:38Speaker 2: formations or your personnel packages or layering plays together.
- 10:45Speaker 3: So those are trade offs.
- 10:46Speaker 2: The other thing obviously that's comingto that's now allowed is
- 10:50Speaker 2: helmet communication at college, right and so whereas you know,
- 10:55Speaker 2: people had to signal in the plays, which started to
- 10:58Speaker 2: lend itself to up tempo as well as.
- 11:00Speaker 3: Than sign ceiling.
- 11:01Speaker 2: Now that you can huddle and call in all the plays,
- 11:04Speaker 2: there's no there's you know, you're giving your opponent of
- 11:08Speaker 2: potential advantage by signaling that you can just eliminate by huddling.
- 11:13Speaker 2: I do not think it's going away. I think, you know,
- 11:16Speaker 2: Ryan Day, I think he takes some umbrage when he's
- 11:20Speaker 2: been asked multiple times since twenty twenty five about tempo.
- 11:24Speaker 2: I think, like a lot of things, you know, social
- 11:28Speaker 2: media and the Internet leads itself to sort of an
- 11:30Speaker 2: all or nothing conversation. I think that there is a
- 11:34Speaker 2: margin between which they should not be as slow as
- 11:39Speaker 2: they were last year without saying that they're going to
- 11:42Speaker 2: go back to being a fast paced offense, right Like
- 11:46Speaker 2: I think if they're in the range. Indiana last year
- 11:49Speaker 2: was also not fast, but they were slightly faster than
- 11:51Speaker 2: High State, and like of Ohio State can get themselves
- 11:54Speaker 2: one or you know, two more possessions. That that alone,
- 11:59Speaker 2: I think is sufficient. I think the other things I
- 12:01Speaker 2: would point out is like part of it too was
- 12:02Speaker 2: a result. I say it was partially so slow because
- 12:05Speaker 2: they were both efficient, which Bill Conley talks about the article,
- 12:09Speaker 2: and they weren't explosive enough, particularly times, which is why
- 12:12Speaker 2: you got both against Indiana and Miami these like super
- 12:16Speaker 2: long churning draws where they're moving the football, but then
- 12:20Speaker 2: they didn't convert them into points, which is why you
- 12:21Speaker 2: get such low scoring games and lack of opportunities. So
- 12:24Speaker 2: they need more explosiveness, particularly out of the run game.
- 12:27Speaker 2: Days hit upon that, like they were really bad last
- 12:30Speaker 2: year at explosiveness from the running back position, So like
- 12:33Speaker 2: that's that's on Bo Jackson and the rest of the room.
- 12:36Speaker 2: I do think some of the play action passing using
- 12:40Speaker 2: you know, Arthur Smith and Day have talked about using
- 12:42Speaker 2: crossing and other concepts where receivers are in motion or
- 12:45Speaker 2: you know, running at the catch less running. You know,
- 12:50Speaker 2: I think they kind of got into this habit of
- 12:52Speaker 2: like spamming curl flat over and over again, and then
- 12:57Speaker 2: you know, so you're getting guys stationary so instead of movement,
- 13:00Speaker 2: so things to create more explosives, because that is also
- 13:02Speaker 2: how you translate points, right, So it's hard to stream
- 13:05Speaker 2: those drives together. And you know, then you leave yourself
- 13:07Speaker 2: on a fourth and one or a third and one
- 13:09Speaker 2: for conversion, or you miss a field goal, so all
- 13:13Speaker 2: those things go together. The last thing I will I
- 13:15Speaker 2: it is not just also about the tempo. It's about
- 13:17Speaker 2: the snap count. And Arthur Smith kind of betrayed this
- 13:21Speaker 2: too earlier this year, like you know, the Temple had
- 13:24Speaker 2: nothing to do with them going silent count for inexplicit,
- 13:27Speaker 2: inexplicable reasons, particular against Miami and allowing people to tee
- 13:31Speaker 2: off and so that hurt the offensive line, that hurt
- 13:34Speaker 2: the play calling, and that hurt everything.
- 13:35Speaker 3: So all those things.
- 13:36Speaker 2: It's not just like tempo doesn't just mean either going
- 13:39Speaker 2: sow or fast. It also means changing it up to
- 13:42Speaker 2: keep the defense off balance.
- 13:44Speaker 1: All right, And the last thing I want to ask
- 13:46Speaker 1: you about is just sort of you talked about sort
- 13:48Speaker 1: of building on the other people, you know, building the
- 13:50Speaker 1: offense and a little bit more of a stacking things
- 13:53Speaker 1: and and you know the you know, thinking through things
- 13:56Speaker 1: and being diversed and all that kind of stuff. It
- 13:58Speaker 1: feels like that's an area where no disrespect to Brian Hartline,
- 14:02Speaker 1: who was a first time offensive coordinator last year, but
- 14:04Speaker 1: you're bringing in a guy who has been a play
- 14:06Speaker 1: caller for multiple NFL teams. Now you would assume that
- 14:10Speaker 1: just sort of he's just sort of seen more stuff
- 14:13Speaker 1: and he's had to deal with more stuff, and he's
- 14:15Speaker 1: probably going to This is something we've heard from offensive
- 14:18Speaker 1: guys and defensive guys, keeping things relatively simple for the offense,
- 14:22Speaker 1: but just sort of being able to build off of
- 14:24Speaker 1: things and sort of sequentially grow off of concepts to
- 14:28Speaker 1: keep things simple for the offense and make it really
- 14:31Speaker 1: confusing for the defense.
- 14:33Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's sort of one of the oldest
- 14:34Speaker 2: truisms of offensive football is making plays look alike is
- 14:37Speaker 2: what slows a defense down because they don't know where
- 14:40Speaker 2: the ball is necessarily going to be right. So that's
- 14:42Speaker 2: you know, concepts as back far as the wing tee,
- 14:46Speaker 2: you know, t formation, single wing. It's like making you
- 14:48Speaker 2: know this run, it turns into a play action pass
- 14:50Speaker 2: turns into reverse. So yes, layering plays, you know, Arthur Smith,
- 14:56Speaker 2: I think there's a couple of ways to go about things, right,
- 14:58Speaker 2: Like you can have a high volume of play, or
- 15:00Speaker 2: you can like make build off of plays and guys
- 15:03Speaker 2: that are that are like to really run stretch in particular,
- 15:05Speaker 2: really want to rep that because it takes a lot
- 15:07Speaker 2: of time to do it correctly, and so then you
- 15:11Speaker 2: really want to build off of that with as I said,
- 15:13Speaker 2: half rolls, bootlegs, you know, things that build off of
- 15:18Speaker 2: that concept. And so I do think you're going to
- 15:20Speaker 2: see more leaning in that direction of like sequential play calling.
- 15:25Speaker 1: All right, So there you go a little bit of
- 15:27Speaker 1: a look at what do you expect from Arthur Smith.
- 15:29Speaker 1: Some maybe changes to this year's Ohio State offense. Some
- 15:32Speaker 1: things that may be different, somethings may be the same.
- 15:34Speaker 1: Some things that you know, I mean seems like should
- 15:36Speaker 1: be more or less welcome changes for Ohio State fans
- 15:40Speaker 1: and you know, the Ohio State football community on the whole.
- 15:43Speaker 1: And if you want to talk about all this stuff
- 15:44Speaker 1: with Ross and Michael and get a little bit smarter
- 15:47Speaker 1: about all of it, you can do that at Buckeye
- 15:49Speaker 1: Insiders dot com. We have our Insiders board has been
- 15:52Speaker 1: absolutely buzzing the last couple weeks with lots of scrimmage
- 15:54Speaker 1: updates and practice updates. Also just lots of scheme talk,
- 15:58Speaker 1: a little bit of basketball talk, a little recruiting talk.
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