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Is Chip Kelly A Better Fit For Ohio State Than Bill O'Brien? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Sunday, February eleventh. I'm your host,
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  Tom Moore. The Akron game is in two hundred and two days, the
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  game against Michigan in two hundred and ninety three days. Today we are talking
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  about new Ohio State offensive court and there Chip Kelly. Very familiar name for
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  a lot of people, but someone who's offense and offensive mind and offensive views
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  have changed quite a bit since the last time you were probably watching Chip Kelly
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  on a regular basis. So we're going to be taking a look at what
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  chip Kelly will bring to Ohio State and the differences between Chip Kelly and Bill
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  O'Brien and all that kind of fun stuff with our Goodriddy Ross faulton of bucke
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  huddle dot com and every time Ross is on. Of course, we are
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  pretty darn soon. You can do that at Jeffruby dot com slash Columbus right
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  now. You can even pause the podcast if you want to do that.
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  But then once you're done making your reservations Jeff Ruby, we're gonna be talking
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  to Ross. Let's start with just Bill O'Brien versus Chip Kelly. We just
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  did a bunch of shows with a couple of shows on the Bill O'Brien offense
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  and what Bill O'Brien is gonna bring to Ohio State, and then he brought
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  it for about two weeks and now we gotta have another conversation. So Bill
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  O'Brien versus Chip Kelly, is this wildly different? Is this a much better
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  fit for Ohio State? Is this so much worse fit for Ohio State?
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  Where do you see those two guys? Yeah, scheme wise, it's a
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  more natural fit. You know. I think Ryan Day said on his press
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  conference this week something along the lines of, like, we're going to run
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  the Ohio State offense and Bill O'Brien was going to bring elements to it,
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  but there's a lot more overlap between what Ryan Day and Chip Kelly have done
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  in their careers. Obviously they Brian Day worked for Chip Kelly in the NFL,
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  than is not. The passing game at least at a conceptual level,
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  is the same same spread run concepts, same use of tempo. So you
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  know, I think when we talked about Bill Brian it was like, you
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  know, bringing an adult into the room, a lot of like administrating and
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  having an experienced hand. You obviously have that with Chip Kelly, but you
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  have a I think a much better scheme fit and really someone who can,
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  like to me, what Ohio State has been lacking like he brings. So
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  that's that's the key thing to me on offense. So what does he do
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  well? If you if you're looking at Chip Kelly and saying, Okay,
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  he's really going to help us with our you know at the downhill running game?
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  Is it the you know, passing game. Where does chip Kelly really
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  where did his strength really lie in terms of being an offensive play caller?
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  Yeah, And for those who are interested, like check out Chris Osgood on
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  Twitter or x I guess if it's called now and he's done scheme x's and
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  other stuff about UCLA football. So lots of good Chip Kelly stuff through that.
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  But as like another good follow on Twitter, Chris Brown from Smart Football
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  said, like, I mean, Chip Kelly's real strength is in the run
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  game. Like you know, I would say I've looked longingly at the amount
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  of run game diversity that UCLA has used these past few years under Chip Kelly.
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  You know, I think my hope and probably others hope when Justin Fry
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  was hired was that he was going to bring that with him to Ohio State.
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  And you know, we talked about it. We saw a little bit
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  of it this year, but I would say it was certainly in fits and
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  starts. But you know, Chip Kelly like what he's done in the run
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  game, particularly like post NFL, Like NFL got a little stale, he
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  got to a little too basic some of the problems that I States had,
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  But he's just doing a ton of stuff at UCLA with you know, yes,
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  zone concepts and counter but also like a lot of pin and poll,
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  a lot of formation use. Like you'll see him run a lot of like
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  pin and poll or counterplays where he's like bringing a receiver in tight and then
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  the receiver is functioning as one of the polers and so like are like unbalanced
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  multiple tight end sets, so like really playing with the numbers and each side
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  of the number line. So like you know, definitely see like a Mecho
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  a Buca in that role like functioning like coming in tight as a lead blocker,
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  like as the second poller. You know, so you get like,
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  as I said, a lot of pin and poll you get trap concepts,
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  you get wham wind back, so just a much more diverse run game,
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  you know, as Chrispy Brown also said, like you know, as I
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  would say, Chips like probably his principal failing in the NFL, and like
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  still has always been an issue, is like the passing game isn't super precise
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  and like a little basic because there's so much focus on the run game.
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  But like guess what, Like that's Ryan Day's strength, right, so you're
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  putting together I would think, like Ryan Day's strength in the past game ideally
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  with Chip Kelly strength in the run game, and hopefully you're getting the best
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  of both worlds because as I said, conceptually they use the same past concepts.
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  It's just that I think Day brings like a level of like NFL precision
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  to it, whereas like what they really needed is to improve the run game.
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  And you know, they have two really good backs heading into next year,
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  so there's a lot of different things they can do with it. I
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  think when people hear the name Chip Kelly, they think, oh, it's
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  the cute little spread offense with the little running. Oh look at how fast
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  the Michael James is and the Anthony Thomas and you know, they're we're in
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  their cute, little gimmicky uniforms and they're running the blur offense and all that
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  kind of stuff. That's not really what he's doing anymore, right, I
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  mean, this is kind of a different How different is what he's doing now
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  compared to what he was doing then, because I think that's people in their
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  heads are still thinking that's what he's running. Is like, well not completely,
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  yeah, no, I mean it's still like a spread run attack,
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  right, Like they'll get under center, do a little bit of one back
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  stuff. There's some pistol, but a lot of shotgun. It's different in
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  the sense of, like, you know, football adapts, right, and
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  so like we went from being more spread out to now things like people are
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  re realizing the advantage of numbers in the run game and blocking, so you're
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  getting a lot more as I said, a lot more like use of like
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  two tight ends from him or like unbalanced or as I said, like you
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  know, in theory being in eleven or twelve perconnel, but then like bringing
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  multiple wide receivers in tight and suddenly you're in a heavy package. So you
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  know, somewhat has more the look of like what Michigan had been doing under
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  Jim Harball, where like, yes, you're in the shotgun, but you're
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  like getting like six and seven man surfaces to run the football or pulling guards
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  and tackles or tight ends or receivers to get like more numbers to one side.
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  And you know, you do still see he certainly still incorporates like the
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  Q run as it or like the bubble reliefs. You know. I think
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  Day also indicated during his press conference earlier this week that like he wanted to
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  get back to that and having that threat at least to help the run game.
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  So like you still get that, but it's just much more reliant on
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  heavier personnel and i'd say more even diversified run game than what he should organ
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  like a lot more polling a lot more trapping and so, like you know,
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  going beyond just sort of like the zone read concepts you mentioned earlier that,
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  of course, he did work with Justin Frey at UCLA. Right before
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  Justin fry came to a House State, he was Chip Kelly's offensive line coach
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  at UCLA. So is that something that provides an advantage that these guys sort
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  of have this shared history and you know, not that Chip Kelly needs a
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  Ruyan Day translator or anything like that, but those three guys, the offensive
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  coordinator, the offensive line coach, and the and the head coach, they've
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  all worked together in various combinations at times in the past. Is that something
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  that makes a big difference or not? Really? I think, I mean,
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  it certainly helps. I think it particularly again, like I think that
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  you have in my envisioning of this, like right, like ship biggest contribution
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  will be to the run game, and I think that obviously that involves a
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  lot of the offensive line and the offensive line coach, so to the extent
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  they're on the same page. And you know, if perhaps Justin I mean,
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  it's not going to be anything new to Justin Fryer, right like he
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  was using these concepts when he was at UCLA in terms of teaching the offensive
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  line. So I and I presume that he's on board with, you know,
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  moving the run game beyond being quite so outside zone heavy in mid zone
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  heavy. So I think that that it certainly provides a benefit. As I
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  said, like, that's why to me, at least from a scheme perspective,
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  this makes more sense than Bill O'Brien because, like you got, you
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  got a lot of alignment here between the head coach, the offensive coordinator,
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  and the offensive line coach. So in that way it maybe makes a little
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  more sense than the Bill O'Brien move did. But there's another way in which
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  it probably solves one of the big issues that Bill O'Brien was also brought in
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  to solve, which is you kind of need the grown up in the room.
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  You need the veteran guy up in the box to call the offense.
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  You know, who is the new Kevin Wilson. Well, it feels like
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  Chip Kelly definitely fills that role every bit as well as Bill O'Brien did.
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  Yeah, I would think so, I mean different personalities obviously, so maybe
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  like different tact you know, one thing that's just jumped out to me,
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  I think that probably most of us can relate to, is like it'll be
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  interesting to see how Ryan Dan chip Kelly worked together, Like you go from
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  being someone's you know, you work for someone to becoming their boss. Like
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  that's a different dynamic than you know, for instance, Ryan Day and Bill
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  O'Brien who had not worked together before, right, so they didn't have that
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  like past shared experience. So that will obviously maybe don't you know, maybe
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  it'll work great, Maybe it'll take some adjustments from both of them. I'm
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  sure you know, it seems to me like chip Kelly's going to be happy
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  to get back to just like getting to focus on scheme and offense and not
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  having to worry about recruiting and nil and boosters and all the sort of the
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  things that go with being a college football head coach in twenty twenty four.
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  So I think, you know, he'll be happy about that. And as
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  I said, I think ideally it's a collaborative effort where you know, Chips
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  contributing to Ryan Day's run game and Ryan Days contributing to chips passing game,
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  and they can make it all meshed together. Yeah, the last time that
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  chip Kelly was not the head coach of a football team. You know that
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  he was on the coaching staff for was two thousand and eight. The year
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  after that he went from offensive coordinator to head coach at Oregon. So,
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  yes, it has been a hot minute since Ship Kelly was reporting to anyone,
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  you know, other than an athletic director or a general manager president of
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  football in the NFL level. Earlier in the week, Ryan Day at the
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  press conference talk about how Bill O'Brien had brought in sort of audited essentially their
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  system and audited, you know, given his thoughts on like hey, why
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  do you do this? Why do you call this this? Why do you
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  you know, what kind of value does that bring? Is is that a
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  significant thing or is that just one of those things coaches do to sort of
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  fill some time or in the off season. And how might Chip Kelly build
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  off of what Bill O'Brien did. Yeah, I mean that'll be interesting,
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  right because like what if any fingerprints does Bill O'Brien leave in terms of his
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  recommendations and thoughts with Ryan Day, And you know, maybe even more so
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  like in the past game, like we talked about some of those things like
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  from his like sort of West Coast lineage in terms of like quick game stuff
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  and the like. But I you know, again, like the thing,
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  the nice thing with Bill O'Brien was gonna have to learn like Brian Day's terminology
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  and lineage and Chip Kelly like there, you know, maybe some of the
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  terminology has diverged in the last few years. I mean, I wouldn't be
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  surprised if like when Ryan Day and Kevin Wilson came to Ohio State they picked
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  up using a bunch of Verman Myers terminology and so they might. But like
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  again, their passing games like Ryan, like Chip Kelly basically like you know,
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  has taken some air raid concepts, some like core el concepts like Ryan
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  Day and Chip Kelly's passing game is is basically conceptually the same, like a
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  lot of snag why cross four verticals, you know, they use the relief,
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  they have the same sort of pots built in. There's just a lot
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  of overlap there. So you you have someone who you know, you lost
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  a month, right essentially with Bill O'Brien. But like the good news is
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  like you're sort of picking up already running and so again. And then I
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  think it comes down to like a lot of like what's Chip Kelly, you
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  know going to add and then you obviously have like the flavor of like you
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  know, beyond the scheme itself, like you know, what do you call
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  in the moment on second and six? And you know how does that mesh
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  to? Like everyone has their preferences, but like I do think that both
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  show, both O'Brien and ship Kelly show that, Like I think Ryan Day
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  is aware that, like the run game has not been where it needs to
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  be consistently, and like they need to keep like get some fresh ideas on
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  it, some fresh ways to do it, and just like because I just
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  think it has been too inconsistent and like and just not reliable enough. And
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  you know, I think that goes from everything from as I said, like
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  diversifying the concepts to having at least a semblance of a quarterback run threat,
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  so like when you do run a replay, like the defense has to account
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  for that. And then you know, Chip Kelly has always been great at
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  like reading different players, So now it'd pop like a defensive tackle might be
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  unblocked, it's because they're reading them. And so he's very good at sort
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  of like playing those different chords. Whereas as I said, I thought,
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  Ohio state sprinted game has gotten a little can get a little stale at times.
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  Well, a new offensive coordinator, potentially a reshaped run game, whole
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  bunch of new players of some note, a whole bunch of familiar old players
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  of some note. It is going to be a football season. I think
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  a lot of people are in Columbus are pretty darn excited about and we're going
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  to be following it all at bucke huddle dot com. We have a couple
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  interview sessions we hope coming up. We've been told maybe we're going to get
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  some assistant coaches, maybe get the true freshman as well. Very very interesting
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  players and very very interesting names among those groups. Both of those groups spring
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  football starting in less than a month. Boy oh boy, some interesting stuff
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  happening on the recruiting trail as well, maybe some stuff in the transfer portal.
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  It would be a great time to become a member of bucke huddle dot
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  com. That's where Tony, Kevin and I cover the team, our covers
• 14:48
  recruiting, Ross and Justin and Mickey and Devin all covering ex's and o's.
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  Making you a smarter football fan on the huddle Board presented by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse
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  named one of the top fifty steakhouses in America. Buy Food Network, go
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  to Jeffruby dot com slash Columbus to make a reservation today. That will do
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  it for today. Thank you guys all for joining us. Have a great
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  day. We will talk to you tomorrow.