Minisode: Is Jaylen McClain The Most Important Member Of The Ohio State Secondary?

Why Jaylen McClain Might Be Ohio State's Most Important Defender

In this episode, Tony Gerdeman from Buckeye Huddle dives deep into the significance of Ohio State sophomore safety, Jaylen McClain. Gerdeman discusses McClain's impressive performance so far this season, highlighting his tackling stats and role within the Ohio State defense. He compares McClain's contributions to those of his teammate Caleb Downs and emphasizes the former's ability to handle a variety of defensive responsibilities. Gerdeman also looks ahead to the challenges McClain will face against Washington and how these will further test his abilities. Tune in to get a complete breakdown of why Jaylen McClain is a crucial asset for the Buckeyes this season.

00:00 Introduction to Jaylen McClain's Impact
00:38 Jaylen McClain's Impressive Stats
01:09 Role and Responsibilities in the Defense
02:44 High School Highlights and Tackling Skills
05:19 Upcoming Challenges and Expectations
09:33 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Is Jalen McLain the low key most important member of
the Ohio State secondary? Hello, everybody, I'm Tony Gerderman from
Buckeye Huddle dot com today wanting to talk about Ohio
State sophomore safety Jalen McClain, who is having a very
good season to this point three games into the year.

(00:22):
Certainly going to be tested this week against Washington. But
the reason I'm asking if he is the most important
guy in the secondary is because it sounds like a
preposterous question when you know that Caleb William or Caleb
Downs is there as well. But let's talk this out.
Jalen McLain right now second on the team with seventeen tackles.

(00:45):
He's first among safeties. Just throw that out there. He's
got seventeen tackles. Caleb Downs as thirteen. This is not
a competition or anything like that. I'm just trying to
add to the claim here. He is also leading the
team with thirteen solo tackles, which is six more than
anybody else, So he's basically doubled to everybody else in
terms of anybody else in terms of these solo tackles.

(01:09):
He is at times the last line of the Ohio
State defense, which is, as you know, a very important
position based because of everything that's going on in front
of him with all of these moving parts that Matt Patrician,
defensive coordinator has going on, and he's moving parts are
pre snap post snap. Safety is running from high to

(01:32):
low to low to high. There's all kinds of things
going on, and Jalen McLain has been able to handle
whatever he's being asked to do. And one of the
reasons that is so important is because of everything that
Caleb Downs is being asked to do. So and those
are your two starting safeties and Caleb Downs is playing

(01:56):
inside the box. He's running all over the place, he's
doing this, he's doing that. You need to have somebody
that can play alongside him at safety in terms and
do the things that he's not doing. So there's there's
some slack to pick up because of what Caleb Downs
does that no other safeties can really do. So then
you still have some jobs that are left over for

(02:18):
Jalen McClain, for nickelback Lorenzo Styles Junior that they have
to do these things and in order to allow Caleb
Downs to do his things, and they've done it very well.
Jalen McClain is a short tackler. He's a physical tackler,
as people saw in the Ohio game with his hit
that was checked and cleared for targeting. He is a

(02:41):
he's I'll say this. One of the reasons that I
first started being interested in what kind of player Jalen
McLain was was seeing his highlights in high school. And
I'll throw them in right here. There's a two minute
I put together, two minutes of just him chasing the

(03:04):
playdown and not giving up on a play. And there
are plays where he saves touchdowns by just getting to
the guy at the goal line basically, and he does
not give up on a play, and you can see
his speed in these clips. You can see just his
desire to not give up a score. And when that

(03:25):
is the guy that is at times the last line
of your defense, he can make up for some bad
angle from somebody else and can clean things up. Now,
the good news is to this point we haven't seen
many bad angles. The Washington game is going to be
the stiffest test yet in terms of being correct and

(03:46):
sound defensively with all of the angles, with all of
the tackling and all things like that, So Jalen McLean
doing whatever is needed. There are times when he is
the poe, he is the free safety, he is a
deep center fielder where he is that last line of defense.
There are times where he starts out there triggers when

(04:07):
he sees a running play and the running back may
get the ball five yards behind the line of scrimmage.
Jalen McLain is coming from twelve yards away and they
meet near the line of scrimmage. He's fast, he triggers,
and he's a sound tackler what he gets there. So
they're asking him to do a lot and he's a sophomore,

(04:28):
just like Caleb Downs was last year sophomore All American.
I'm not saying Jalen McLain is going to be an
All American. What I'm saying is he's advanced for his
age and he's showing it on the field, and he
gets overshadowed because Ohio State has two very good corners.
They've got obviously an All American safety, and you lose

(04:49):
sight of the fact that there's also this guy over here,
Jayalen McLain. And the same thing can be said for
Lorenzo Styles junior. You lose side of the fact that
these are five guys working in unison and working very
well at what they do. And that's why I just
wanted to shed a little bit of light on on
Jalen McLain, who's gone not unappreciated, underappreciated, underrecognized. But now

(05:16):
the question becomes what more can he do? Because Ohio
State is now hitting the Big Ten and a Big
ten schedule, and if you look at the national rankings
of the best pass efficiency quarterbacks in the nation, I
think maybe the top six, top five or six or
all Big Ten quarterbacks. So he's going to start running

(05:36):
into games. Where as that last lander of defense, we're
going to see what he's like as a center fielder
against the pass and that's not something that he's ever
really had to do at Ohio State. Talking to him
last winter between bowl games or at bowl games, and
you know, what are you most comfortable with? What do
you expect your season? Where do you expect to line

(05:56):
up next year? Because there was a question where where
is Caleb Down's going to be? Is he's they call
him a free safety, but he's in the box more
than than he's outside of the box. He's in the
boundary more than he's you know, in the field, and
so what exactly is Jalen McLain And he told me
that I feel more comfortable at boundary because that's what

(06:17):
I know, that's what I've been doing. And so this
is also him doing more than what he's been comfortable doing.
Now he's getting comfortable. He looks comfortable doing it. But
what does he look like when he's being attacked down
the field when he's supposed to be there trying to
help out the corners, or when he's matched up with
another receiver that is going downfield? How does he hold

(06:40):
up when he's in coverage downfield? Because right now he
looked fine, he looks great everywhere. There's no he's not
shown any reason for concern. However, he's just not We've
not seen him be that deep guy yet. Now they're
going to find some accurate quarterbacks demand Williams his receivers
to run under it. Now, the good news for ire

(07:01):
State there is they don't necessarily have more than just
one receiver that you need to worry about in Denzel Boston.
But moving forward, and I think when I say moving forward,
that's still gonna be this week as well. Against Washington.
We're gonna have to see what kind of cleanup he
can do in the passing game, because in the running
game he's very solid. Although Jonah Coleman, Washington running back,

(07:24):
is going to provide a very good test because he's
he's about five eight five nine two twenty five. He's
hard to bring down, he's quick, he's got great vision
and that's not even talking about Demand Williams. That quarterback
will run by anybody, put a juke on anybody, and
put his four four speed out in the open field

(07:44):
and then really see how well Jalen McClain can keep
somebody from getting to the end zone. But just wanted
to talk a little bit about Jalen McLain because I
think he needs to be propped up a little bit more.
People need to recognize what he's doing. And I remember
that this was a guy that we wondered would he
be able to win a starting job this year and

(08:05):
against Molie Cartford, and what would that look like and
would those two guys split reps? And then we talked about, yeah,
probably when I have them split reps. And then against Texas,
you saw that Jalen McClain played every single snap and
Mollie Cartford did not get into the game at least
on defense. So that gives you an idea of how
the coaches feel about him. And you can even go
back to when we talked too with Matt Greary and

(08:28):
bowl games in Bullprep last year when he said, even
as a true freshman, Jalen McLain would grade the highest
in terms of players being around the football and whenever,
whenever he's out there, he finds the football and had
really high grades in terms of making that play or
getting to the ball, making a tackle, being around the ball.

(08:48):
Vicinity kind of guy. And that's that's continued on this season,
and there's no reason to think it won't. But I'm
excited to see what the evolution of his game becomes.
How much more center field hes he play, how much
more does he learn from kleb downs. Because those two
guys are playing well together, they take the entire secondary
community communicates very very well. And that's the key to

(09:12):
making it all work, that you can have so many
guys communicat so well quickly and then also execute everything
that they're talking about, everything that they've prepared for in
practice in meeting rooms. It's a very smart, physical athletic
player who so far has lived up to the expectations
of his coaches who had quite quite high expectations. But

(09:34):
this will be a fun weekend to watch him see
how he does. Watch number eighteen out there, sophomore safety
Jayalen McLean in Seattle on Husky Stadium, which is going
to be a fantastic venue for a football game. So
that will do it from here. If you if you
could hit the thumbs up, we would appreciate that. Of course,
you can continue to find us at Buckeye huddle dot com.
Thank you all for tuning in and we'll talk to

(09:54):
you all later.