December 20, 2024 • 29 mins
In this episode of the Buckeye Weekly Podcast, hosts Tony Gerdeman and Tom Orr dive deep into the upcoming College Football Playoff game between the Tennessee Volunteers and the Ohio State Buckeyes. They discuss key matchups, expectations, and predictions.
Whether it's analyzing Tennessee's road game struggles or Ohio State's defensive strengths, this episode covers all angles to prepare you for the big game. Tune in for insights on player performances, potential game-changing plays, and the overall strategies that could decide the outcome.
00:00 Welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast
00:58 Tennessee vs Ohio State: Game Preview
01:17 Tennessee's Road Game Challenges
05:43 Key Players and Matchups
18:52 Coaching Strategies and Predictions
28:24 Final Thoughts and Sign Off
Whether it's analyzing Tennessee's road game struggles or Ohio State's defensive strengths, this episode covers all angles to prepare you for the big game. Tune in for insights on player performances, potential game-changing plays, and the overall strategies that could decide the outcome.
00:00 Welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast
00:58 Tennessee vs Ohio State: Game Preview
01:17 Tennessee's Road Game Challenges
05:43 Key Players and Matchups
18:52 Coaching Strategies and Predictions
28:24 Final Thoughts and Sign Off
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast. I am
Tony gerdamand here as always with Tom or Tom.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
How's it going, Tony? It feels like we've been talking
about this Tennessee game for about three months. Really, it's
only been about three weeks and only two weeks since
it's been official, but it is finally almost here. This
is it. I'm just so excited to finally get to
see this game after we've been thinking about it and
(00:28):
talking about it and watching games for the other you know,
there's been so much thinking about this game. Now it's
finally finally almost here.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Finally almost here. It's much quicker moving than a bowl game,
but it feels like we've been covering this, and we
have covered this like a bowlgang. Frankly, certainly the playoff
game we've done in the past with Georgia. Looking back
at past games, even the Cotton Blood, I think we've
went back to look at past Missouri games and then
this one. Of course, we have looked over four past
Tennessee games. We are now now just talk for a
(01:00):
full blown game preview in terms of what we expect
to happen, what we think will happen, what may or
may not happen, what are the keys to the game.
And we've talked about what o Io State must do
twin that's a previous show. What Tennessee must do to win,
that is a previous show. So I want to start
in this one with the fact that this game is
(01:21):
a road game for Tennessee and is a home game
for Ohio State. We know the last home game for
Ohio State did not go well, but the past road
games for Tennessee have not gone well. And they wrapped
up the season with a thirty six to twenty three
win at Vanderbilt twenty eight thousand people. I don't think
that that's really this neither here nor there. But you
(01:41):
look at their other three road games this season, true
road games. They're one to two in those games. They
beat Oklahoma twenty five to fifteen. They lost at Arkansas
nineteen fourteen, They lost Georgia thirty one to seventeen. So
in those three games, averaging about nineteen points per game.
And so if that were to carry over, and those
(02:03):
are not the Oklahoma and Arkets are not the best
teams the year we're going to play, Georgia is a
playoff team. Ohio State is a playoff team. I can
hear Toennessee fan saying Ohio States Georgia, and that's fine.
But I think Ohio State is what are they close
to Arkansas at least I think in terms of defense?
But can we expect do we expect that kind of performance?
(02:27):
Say if Tennessee scores nineteen points in this game, where
where is your confidence level at Ohio State wins? This
is on a scale of one to ten, ten being
most confident.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So Tennessee scores nineteen points, am I? How confident am
I that Ohio State wins the game? I'm gonna say
about a five. I think we're I'm expecting a relatively close,
low scoring game. And I mean we'll get to the
actual predictions at the end of the show. But I've
(03:01):
kind of been bouncing around between load to mid twenties
for Ohio State. So if you tell me Tennessee scores nineteen,
that tells me if I'm right about what Ohio State
is going to score, then it's a close game. And
then you're also in the spot where you turn the
ball over once and that twenty one goes to seventeen
and then all of a sudden you lose by two
(03:22):
instead of winning by five. So I think Tennessee scoring
nineteen twenty twenty one points that may be enough. I
certainly not a guarantee that it's enough. It's not a
guarantee that it's enough for Ohio State either, but I
don't think the Tennessee offense is going to have to
put up a ton of points. So, well, what's the
(03:42):
over run around this game? Forty five, forty six something
like that. That's forty six. Yeah, that feels pretty high
to me. It just feels like these are two very
good defenses. These are two offenses that are sometimes good
and sometimes not. The condition are not going to be
seventy degrees and inside a dome. There's just a lot
(04:05):
about this that points to probably somewhat low scoring, probably
fairly close.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, I feel like that is that number is high
as well, the forty six or whatever, So I'm expecting
something low. And I know people say, is it the
first team to twenty that wins. I'm like, no, it
could be the second team, because there might not be
much beyond twenty, and it could be that last drive
that gets the the winning team twenty four to twenty
(04:33):
or something. He's a number that keeps popping into my head.
But when you look at these road games and the
Tennessee offensive performance on the road has not been great.
That four point seven yards per play against Okahoma, five
point one against Arkansas, four point four against Georgia three
of that's three of their four that's their three of
(04:56):
their four worst performances of the season. They also were
four four point five yards per play against Florida, which
was a seven point win or six point wins for Tennessee.
So there is there are performance issues on the road
for Tennessee, and we've seen them get better as the
season went on. They finished, like I said, they finished well,
but it's like you go to Georgia and then you
(05:18):
have Utah and then you have Varionbilt. Yeah, you're gonna
finish well based on you know, the the trends there.
But the the Ohio State defense, I think in this
one they have everything that they need to give Tennessee's
offense trouble or at least a whole of Tennessee's offense
in check, and Ohigh State can stop to run. They
(05:39):
have they have a secondary that can defend the pass.
Which of these areas Tom if Tennessee is going to
win this game, and we've kind of talked about that,
but what is more important for them is it is
it Dylan Sampson running because we've seen him run well
and lose, Or is it Nico Imliava quarterback playing well
and playing maybe like one of his two or three
(06:01):
best games.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Boy, that's that's tough, because I feel like the answer
in terms of just hitting a couple big plays, we've
seen Niko IaMmE Aliov has struggled to throw the ball
downfield accurately. We've seen a lot of you know, the
receivers kind of there will be overshot at by three yards.
We've seen a lot of that over the course of
(06:23):
the season. And if they hit just one or two
in a game that you're expecting to be relatively low scoring,
you hit one or two of those downfield. A couple
couple fifty yarders, hit an eighty six yard at Adante
Thorton again like they did against Vanderbilt. Boy, if you're
just trying to get to twenty one, that gets you
a third of the way there in one play. That
that's going to be something that if you you know,
(06:45):
if you tell me, he's gonna hit two three plays
forty yards downfield? Sure that that probably would be the
single biggest thing that would go okay, that moves the needle. Now,
Ohio State has played twelve games of American football this
year and they give given up two plays all season long.
So that's probably not where Tennessee is going to make
their you know, make their money, make their you know,
(07:07):
make their hay this on Saturday night. So given that,
I think they're gonna have to really kind of work
for it. And given that, I think the answer for
me is Dylan Samson. If Dylan Samson is at the
twenty seven, carries one hundred and fifty yards, one hundred
and forty yards, maybe a touchdown, that is probably one
(07:29):
of the you know, if you're going to build the
build the foundation of what does it take for Tennessee
to win this game, that's probably the bottom level of
the of the foundation you're building everything on. If Dylan
Samson can can run the ball well effectively consistently, that
just makes life so much easier for Tennessee because if
(07:50):
you can't do that, then they have to do it
the hard way. That's kind of the Dylan Samson running
consistently for five yards of carry. That's the easy way,
That's the way they would choose to do it. Will
they be able to do that? I don't know that.
A lot of that's going to come down to Ohio
State's tackling. I think they're going to struggle to run
the ball consistently, you know. I don't think they're gonna
(08:10):
be just going five five five five five. But the
challenge is, Okay, you know he's going to fall forward,
so it's it's three, and then it's four, and then
it's two. Can you avoid the thirty five in there?
Because you can you can see him picking up picking
up a chunk here or there with one or two
missed tackles just because of the way they stress your defense.
(08:32):
They pull guys out of the box with how they
set up before the snap, and so it puts a
lot of strain on Ohio defensive line and linebackers to
make plays. And then is Ohio State going to be
comfortable bringing Caleb downs into the box to train and
help with the run. If they do, and if Nico
im alaiav I can't make them pay for it, then
(08:52):
that's going to go a long way to helping Ohio
State contain Dylan Sampson. So you know, long story short, yes,
Dylan Samson is my answer.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Well, and they are as we talked about all two
or three weeks long. They're very patient in terms of
building their running game. They run them ball forty five
times per game. They throw it twenty nine times per
game on average, So this is run heavy. They want
to control the game, control the ball and wear you down.
(09:21):
And that's part of Dylan Sampson's purpose is just to
wear down in defense. But that's also part of the
passing games purpose. The way everybody gets spread out, you
want the defensive line to run against screens and all
of these different things. With Nico, he's been held under
six yards per pass attempt twice this season, and it's
their two losses. And he was five point four yards
(09:44):
per pass attempt against Arkansas, he was five point one
against Georgia. The next worst was six point five against Florida.
That Florida game keeps popping up in this other than that,
he's over seven yards, well over seven yards per pass
attempt in every other game. So it feels like if
you force some incompletions in there and tackle tackle tackle
(10:05):
UH protest. We sent in our I sent in my
score prediction for BUCKEHDDLE staff predictions and for me, like
this is one of the biggest things for our students.
It's dumb below you go to tackle against Tibessee like
you need. They need to tackle at all three levels.
They need to tackle Nico Iyamliava when they have an
opportunity to get him in the backfield. They need to
(10:27):
be able to tackle. They need to tackle Dylan Sampson
around the line of scrimmage and as close to the
line of scrimmage as possible, and then beyond a line
of scrimmage in those one on one situations. We talked
with Caleb Downards and Lathon Ransom and Jim Knowles about
the way Tennessee spreads you out with the receivers past
the the yard numbers and things like that, beyond the numbers,
(10:49):
and that creates one on one situations with the safeties,
with the corners where they've got the ball and you
are the last line eight defense and those guys have
to tackle. The good news is all three levels are
pretty get tackling. They've gotten a lot better in terms
of the the linebackers have gotten better as the season's
going on. Lathan Ransom and Caleb Gwin's are always solid.
So again, this is a defense that is equipped to
(11:10):
handle these things. But I think it kind of just
starts with, yes, you got to stop the run. But
if they can keep Niko Iamliava from making some plays
in this game after the initial rush is right there,
then I think that'll go a long way towards the win.
(11:32):
With all of this being said, so if you aside
from the quarterbacks and maybe aside from Dylan Sampson in
this one, for you, who is the most important player
for the balls in this game on.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Offense or overall overall? Overall?
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Taking out the two most important players.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
For the balls, Yeah, yeah, I think there's there's a
couple of different directions I could go with this. I
think there's an argue for Dante Thornton because, like I said,
if you hit one or two big ones, if you're
only trying to score three touchdowns to win, and you
hit one or two big ones, well that gets you
a good chunk of the way there, and that can
be a have two big plays and take the rest
(12:14):
of the day off. Like that's fine, like don't tire
yourself out before the before the quarterfinals kind of thing.
I think there's an argument sort of on the flip
side for their right tackle. Campbell. He is he is
going to be in a real street fight with Jack Sawyer.
And we've seen him have trouble with noise on the road.
(12:35):
We've seen him jump, We've seen him have holding penalties.
We've seen him take hands to the face penalties. We've
seen him get frustrated and take a really unnecessary personal
foul against against Vanderbilt. This is a defense where you
can't do that. You cannot get yourself behind the sticks.
And if you get yourself behind the sticks, you're in
probably pretty big trouble because that's going to take away
(12:56):
Dylan Sampson. That's going to put more on Ego Iam Aliava,
and that's going to put you know, he's someone who
will we'll probably talk about him a little more, but
he's someone who he's going to be a big play
maker for one team or the other or possibly both
at different times because he he will try and do
a lot and he can extend plays and he does
not throw the ball away. So when he throws that
(13:17):
ball downfield late or late and over the middle, which
is at place you typically don't want to throw the ball.
Who's going to come down with it, because that can
be a big play one direction, or that can be
a big play of the other direction. If Jack Sawyer
is in there getting pressure on Iamaliyava, if Jack Sawyer
is in there chopping down Dylan Samson some on the
on rundowns, that's going to put Tennessee potentially behind the
(13:40):
sticks and put them in predictable passing situations where they
do not want to be. There's plenty of choices on
the defensive side of the ball. I will I will
leave the defensive side of the ball for you because
I think there's plenty of good choices over there as well.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, and I'm just looking at the matchups when we
talk about the Ohio State interior of the offensive line
having some question marks with the possible of rotating three
guys at the two guard spots, and we know Tennessee
rotates four or five defensive tackles in the game, so
it could be any of those guys. And they're gonna
stay fresh, and they're gonna stay active, and they're going
to keep getting after it. So I don't know that
(14:13):
one of those guys is the key or the most
important player. I think you could talk about James Pearce,
number twenty seven. They're their edge rusher against both of
Ohio States tackles wherever he decides to line up, wherever
they put him and let him go, and if they
can contain him, then I think Ohio State's gonna have
some really good success throwing the ball. If they can't,
(14:37):
then you know all bets are off. But if if
Will Howard is upright and is able to just stand
back there and throw, then again, I don't really care
how well Ohio State runs the ball. They're going to
be able to move the ball, so I think that's
a big one. And if he can dominate the game,
then Ohio State's gonna have some issues. Jermad McCoy, we
(14:58):
know the number three, their top corner has been outstanding
when we've gotten to see him in four games, and
he's been good in other games as well. Can he
lock down one guy? Doesn't really matter if he can
because there are other guys out there. So now I
think Tennessee needs good games from Will Brooks. Safety Andre
Turntine to safety. We've seen Will Brooks have a good
game and in one of the four games that we've
(15:20):
watched and not be a presence really in any of
the others. Same with Andre Turntein they're kind of just there.
And maybe the fact that I keep saying this that
they're just there, there's probably gonna be a big play
made by one of those guys this weekend. But if
you're asking me for the most important defensive player, I
think I have to go with James Pearce because he
(15:42):
can control a game unlike Abdulla Carter or you know
some of the stuff we've seen from from Oregon's pass rush,
Like he is a wrecker, he's showing up. He's good
against the run as well. So if they can contake him,
if you don't hear much from him, then you gotta
feel pretty good in my o higher state here.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, I think that's definitely definitely a good pick. The
other choice for me, he was one of the guys
I was thinking about, Omar Norman Lott, one of the
defensive tackles. He's probably the guy who if someone is
going to just ruin Ohio State's day on the interior
the defensive line. It's probably him, but the other guy
is this is a little bit of a chooser on adventure.
(16:21):
Ricky Gibson or Jermald McCoy, which of Tennessee's corners is
going to be one on one with whoever they're one
on one with, because you feel like they're probably going
to bracket Jeremiah Smith. And is that a You put
Ricky Gibson on him and you trust that having a
safety over the top will help because Jamald mcoy is
a better corner than Ricky Gibson. So do you have
Ricky Gibson on him with one on one but you've
(16:44):
got a safety over the top, So you're really kind
of bracketing Jeremiah Smith because I'm sort of expecting that
to be what they probably try and do. And then
you take Jeremond McCoy and you put him over on
Cartnel Tate whoever is one on one with the Ohio
State receiver because we see them play a ton of
you know, just just want to say good luck. We're
all counting on you, Like, put put your corner out
(17:04):
in an island and and trust him to go one
on one with with the guy Ohio State's for wide
of shivers, jere Rii Smith gets all the pub meccha
Ubuka is very good. He's gonna be in the slot,
He's probably be mostly against Blue Carter. And then on
the out on the outside, Carnel Tate. If if it's
Carnel Tate one on one with Ricky Gibson, that's that's
the one that I've got circled in sharpie on my
(17:26):
on my depth chart, on my on my game card
because it's that's where you you could see Ohio State
potentially making heavy, you know, having a pretty big game
because Ohio State, you know, Tennessee has Jermal McQuay is
a great corner, really good corner. Mc Carter's solid in
the slot. Gibson we have seen have some issues this
(17:48):
this season, and they have just not had to play
teams that have three wide receivers as good as Ohio State,
and it just feels like the one versus the one
is going to be that's going to be an absolute war.
And then you get the two verses the two and
the three verses of three and it's like it's like
two baseball teams where they both have great ace starting pitchers,
(18:08):
and then the one team's number two starters a little
better than the other teams number two starter, and then
the team's number three starters way better than the other
team's number three starter. And it's like, yeah, that the
one everyone wants to talk about Game one where it's
Ace versus Ace. It's like, you might win the series
by just winning game two in game three because you
got better depth at those positions.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Got John Smoltz is your number three and he's Steve
Avery behind him, Like this is not fair at all.
And then of course the ops giving Tom Glavin six
inches outside of the plate also does not help. There
you go.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I can tell we've been doing the show long, you know,
a long time, because I was all ready to say,
oh is Ohio state and you get strikes eight inches
off the plate. But there you go. You beat me
to it, so you're all.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
You're all set, Tom Clevin. Anyway, I don't want to
derail the show. We did a show earlier. We did
a listener question is talking about the most important one
on one matchups? And so I posted that on Twitter
and whatnot. A lot of the replies and on YouTube
was Josh Hipel against Ryan day, and we didn't really
(19:09):
talk about that. We didn't really think about that. And
I think that's interesting to me because you've got two
guys who Riday wants to be aggressive. Josh Hippel in
the games that we've seen, has been very risk averse,
very generally risk averse, not too aggressive on going for
it on fourth downs. And so I'm wondering, in this game,
(19:29):
knowing that it's going to be close, does somebody need
to make a play, need to make a call a
you know, some sort of a risky playoff fake punt.
There was a fantastic fake punt in the un LV
Bowl game the other night. There's something like that need
to happen. Or are they so scared about making that
(19:50):
one play that loses the game that now it's like
we've got to be even more conservative. We can't. Yeah,
we gotta we've got to swing and we gotta keep
chopping whatever. You know, we'll swing for the fence, says,
but we also don't want to make the play. You know,
what are you doing faking a punt there? You've just
cost yourselves And like the only thing you need to
do is not give the opponent at the ball where
(20:11):
they can score, and so then you've done that. Do
you think somebody needs to make something happen? Do you
think that will happen? So?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Do I think it will happen? Probably not. I think
we have a long track record of watching Ryan Day
in these games, and Ryan Day almost always takes the
safe route in these and that has cost them a
bunch of times. Since you know, why does Ohio State
keep losing these close games? Well, they lost the close
game against Clemson in the twenty nineteen Festival because of
(20:45):
about ten different things that went wrong against them, but
one of them was they had it fourth and three
at the Clemson I don't know, forty two or something
like that, with a chance to potentially just drain the
clock out and kill the game, and he punted. And
he has sort of ended towards conservatism in those spots
a lot. He's he's you know, they they have had
(21:06):
you know, you go back to the twenty twenty two
Michigan game, and they had it, they were they had
they were set to run a fake punt and then
the long snapper snapped it to the punter instead and
everyone went what And so that kind of you know,
even even when he's tried to do it, he hasn't
gotten the opportunity to do it. But generally his tendency
has been just you know, you know, throw it all
out there against the bad teams, like go forward and
(21:28):
fourth down against Akron, you bet, when it's on the
road against Penn State, when it's in the college football playoff,
he tends to be more conservative. And I, you know,
unless he's doing the George Costanza, well, I've got to
do the opposite of everything that I would normally do
because what I've been doing before hasn't been working. I
don't expect him to, you know, suddenly suddenly start you know,
(21:53):
going forward on fourth and seven as an territory or
anything like that. I think you're going to need to
do something at someone is going to have to do something,
and that play is going to probably could very well
decide the game if it's close. I just the way
Josh Hypewol's managed games this year, the way where I
Ryan Day has managed this type of game in the past.
(22:14):
It just feels like they're both kind of tend towards
being a little more conservative and don't be the idiot
who screwed it up by doing this by going for
it on you know, John Cooper in what nineteen ninety
went forward on fourth and one in his own territory
against Michigan late in the game, and they didn't get it,
and then he's the idiot who lost the game because
they went forward on fourth and one, even though statistically
(22:35):
that's probably the right decision. Not that we had words
for analytics back in the early nineties, but you know,
back then it was right, probably the right decision. Jim
Trussell went forward on fourth and one against Florida right
before halftime in the two thousand and six National Championship
game and didn't get it, and then he's the idiot
who went forward and didn't get it. And I think
I think the coaches on the whole are just so
(22:56):
risk averse that my assumption is always going to be
they're going to do the safe thing. But if someone does,
you know, if you do have the one real balls.
He call Dan Lanning doing an on side kick in
the middle of the game, right after they got a
personal or fifteen yard penalty, taking advantage of that field
position to try an onside kick and just kick it
(23:17):
off of one of the up guys that gave to
Oregon an extra possession in the game they won by
one point. So you know, if you're willing to do
it and it works, great. I just my tendency is
always to assume coaches are going to be conservative in
games like this because they don't want to be the
idiot who screwed it up.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
That's why sucked these When the NFL went to a
two point conversion, like a bunch of better the NFL
coaches didn't want it because it just added to another
decision that they could be blamed for losing a game
for US. So there are a bunch of people opposed
to it. So Tom, I have some in my score prediction.
As I was typing it out, I did not go
with the score that I thought I was going to
(23:56):
go with. I went with Ohio State twenty four to seventeen.
I was it's going to go twenty four twenty, but
I went seventeen instead. I don't know if it's because
of the nineteen points per game on the road and
fourteen against Arkansas seventeen against Georgia. That's hard to ignore.
And that was, you know, way back when. And Nicoli
(24:16):
iamalai Ava is a more accomplished and experienced quarterback. But
also I think these conditions are going to be worse
for it quarterback and for scoring. But Tennessee is kind
of built for that with their running game. But I
go twenty four to seventeen, and what do you got.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
I have been kind of balancing back and forth between
twenty one ten and twenty one thirteen. I think it's
going to be even lower scoring.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Than you do.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I'm gonna go twenty one thirteen. This is not me
saying you should take your mortgage and put it on
Ohio State minus seven. I'm not. This could very easily
be twenty one seventeen or something like that. It just
I just don't think Tennessee's going to be able to
score consistently on Ohio State because really, no one this
season has scored on Ohio State consistently outside of and
(25:01):
Oregon has. You know, Oregon has been the number one
team of the nation for quite a number of weeks
and put up forty whatever points they put up in
the Big Ten Championship game, So you know, thirty one
points at home for Oregon or thirty two points for
home at home for Oregon in a game where they
stole a possession, you know all. I just I don't
think Tennessee's getting to thirty. I think you could see
(25:24):
them get to twenty. And that's just where you get
one more big play, one more long run, one more
long pass, one turnover deep in Ohio State territory. If
twenty one thirteen is like, oh wow, he thinks they're
going to win by a bunch, that's you know, you
have one turnover and deep in your own end, or
you have one turnover in the red zone and all
of a sudden that turns to twenty one twenty or
fourteen thirteen. I mean, we're not talking about a huge
(25:48):
margin here. I just broadly think it's going to be
a low scoring game. I think coaches are when it
gets close and you know, close and tight and late,
I think coaches are going to get conservative. I think
you're going to see I don't think I see Ohio
State kick and field goals. I just don't think they
have you know, we'll see. It's very easy to say
you have faith in your kicker, and it's another thing
(26:09):
to say, well, it's the third quarter and it's tied,
and it's fourth and one, what do I want to
do here, and I think it's very easy to not
side with your kicker who missed a couple thirty something
yarders against Michigan. So I think I think in that case,
in those instances, Ryan Day is probably going to be
a little more aggressive, not settling for field goals. You're
going to probably go for it on fourth downs in
(26:31):
the red zone more often than you might have otherwise.
And Tennessee, I think they probably are a little more
willing to rely on their kicker because all Tennessee has
to do is keep it close, keep it close, stay
within striking distance, take the points, and get to get
yourself into the fourth quarter, and then you see what happens.
That's that's what the underdog needs to do. You just
(26:52):
keep it close, keep it low scoring, make it a
sixty minute game, and give yourself a chance to win.
At the end, I think you may see Joshie kicking
some more field goals. They feel much better about Max
Gilbert than Ohio State does about Jaden Fielding right now,
and you know, for good reason. Max Gilbert had a
bad stretch in the middle of the season and otherwise
has been great at the beginning and the end of
the season, So I think you'll probably see tennessee a
(27:13):
few more field goals. Ohio State probably going to be
going for a little more on fourth down, not necessarily
out of aggressiveness, but just out as well. We don't
like any of our other options. We're we're on the
eighteen yard line. We can't pump from here, so what
do we want to do? That's that's where I think
you might see Ryan Day get a little more aggressive.
I think it is going to be a really really tight,
(27:37):
entertaining football game for pretty much the full time, but
I do think Ohio State wins in the end.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yeah, field goals for Ohio State feels like a situational
thing where fourth and fourteen from the you know, the
twenty or something where it's just like you know you're
gonna take that chance, or at the end of the
half something where it's like forty eight yards away. I
don't think you side with field goals on this one.
Just stay aggressive, and maybe that's maybe that's the aggression
(28:06):
of what the winning coach. You don't need some big thing,
you don't need a fake punt. You just need to
stay aggressive on fourth downs as opposed to kicking and
hoping for the best because odds are if you kick
three field goals, you probably making it most two of those,
and so then really would you have been better off
going for all three of those fourth downs and maybe
(28:27):
getting a touchdown over that six points? So there you go.
That's Tony Lennox. It's the only way to go.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
So that will do it.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
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Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast. I am
Tony gerdamand here as always with Tom or Tom.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
How's it going, Tony? It feels like we've been talking
about this Tennessee game for about three months. Really, it's
only been about three weeks and only two weeks since
it's been official, but it is finally almost here. This
is it. I'm just so excited to finally get to
see this game after we've been thinking about it and
(00:28):
talking about it and watching games for the other you know,
there's been so much thinking about this game. Now it's
finally finally almost here.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Finally almost here. It's much quicker moving than a bowl game,
but it feels like we've been covering this, and we
have covered this like a bowlgang. Frankly, certainly the playoff
game we've done in the past with Georgia. Looking back
at past games, even the Cotton Blood, I think we've
went back to look at past Missouri games and then
this one. Of course, we have looked over four past
Tennessee games. We are now now just talk for a
(01:00):
full blown game preview in terms of what we expect
to happen, what we think will happen, what may or
may not happen, what are the keys to the game.
And we've talked about what o Io State must do
twin that's a previous show. What Tennessee must do to win,
that is a previous show. So I want to start
in this one with the fact that this game is
(01:21):
a road game for Tennessee and is a home game
for Ohio State. We know the last home game for
Ohio State did not go well, but the past road
games for Tennessee have not gone well. And they wrapped
up the season with a thirty six to twenty three
win at Vanderbilt twenty eight thousand people. I don't think
that that's really this neither here nor there. But you
(01:41):
look at their other three road games this season, true
road games. They're one to two in those games. They
beat Oklahoma twenty five to fifteen. They lost at Arkansas
nineteen fourteen, They lost Georgia thirty one to seventeen. So
in those three games, averaging about nineteen points per game.
And so if that were to carry over, and those
(02:03):
are not the Oklahoma and Arkets are not the best
teams the year we're going to play, Georgia is a
playoff team. Ohio State is a playoff team. I can
hear Toennessee fan saying Ohio States Georgia, and that's fine.
But I think Ohio State is what are they close
to Arkansas at least I think in terms of defense?
But can we expect do we expect that kind of performance?
(02:27):
Say if Tennessee scores nineteen points in this game, where
where is your confidence level at Ohio State wins? This
is on a scale of one to ten, ten being
most confident.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So Tennessee scores nineteen points, am I? How confident am
I that Ohio State wins the game? I'm gonna say
about a five. I think we're I'm expecting a relatively close,
low scoring game. And I mean we'll get to the
actual predictions at the end of the show. But I've
(03:01):
kind of been bouncing around between load to mid twenties
for Ohio State. So if you tell me Tennessee scores nineteen,
that tells me if I'm right about what Ohio State
is going to score, then it's a close game. And
then you're also in the spot where you turn the
ball over once and that twenty one goes to seventeen
and then all of a sudden you lose by two
(03:22):
instead of winning by five. So I think Tennessee scoring
nineteen twenty twenty one points that may be enough. I
certainly not a guarantee that it's enough. It's not a
guarantee that it's enough for Ohio State either, but I
don't think the Tennessee offense is going to have to
put up a ton of points. So, well, what's the
(03:42):
over run around this game? Forty five, forty six something
like that. That's forty six. Yeah, that feels pretty high
to me. It just feels like these are two very
good defenses. These are two offenses that are sometimes good
and sometimes not. The condition are not going to be
seventy degrees and inside a dome. There's just a lot
(04:05):
about this that points to probably somewhat low scoring, probably
fairly close.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, I feel like that is that number is high
as well, the forty six or whatever, So I'm expecting
something low. And I know people say, is it the
first team to twenty that wins. I'm like, no, it
could be the second team, because there might not be
much beyond twenty, and it could be that last drive
that gets the the winning team twenty four to twenty
(04:33):
or something. He's a number that keeps popping into my head.
But when you look at these road games and the
Tennessee offensive performance on the road has not been great.
That four point seven yards per play against Okahoma, five
point one against Arkansas, four point four against Georgia three
of that's three of their four that's their three of
(04:56):
their four worst performances of the season. They also were
four four point five yards per play against Florida, which
was a seven point win or six point wins for Tennessee.
So there is there are performance issues on the road
for Tennessee, and we've seen them get better as the
season went on. They finished, like I said, they finished well,
but it's like you go to Georgia and then you
(05:18):
have Utah and then you have Varionbilt. Yeah, you're gonna
finish well based on you know, the the trends there.
But the the Ohio State defense, I think in this
one they have everything that they need to give Tennessee's
offense trouble or at least a whole of Tennessee's offense
in check, and Ohigh State can stop to run. They
(05:39):
have they have a secondary that can defend the pass.
Which of these areas Tom if Tennessee is going to
win this game, and we've kind of talked about that,
but what is more important for them is it is
it Dylan Sampson running because we've seen him run well
and lose, Or is it Nico Imliava quarterback playing well
and playing maybe like one of his two or three
(06:01):
best games.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Boy, that's that's tough, because I feel like the answer
in terms of just hitting a couple big plays, we've
seen Niko IaMmE Aliov has struggled to throw the ball
downfield accurately. We've seen a lot of you know, the
receivers kind of there will be overshot at by three yards.
We've seen a lot of that over the course of
(06:23):
the season. And if they hit just one or two
in a game that you're expecting to be relatively low scoring,
you hit one or two of those downfield. A couple
couple fifty yarders, hit an eighty six yard at Adante
Thorton again like they did against Vanderbilt. Boy, if you're
just trying to get to twenty one, that gets you
a third of the way there in one play. That
that's going to be something that if you you know,
(06:45):
if you tell me, he's gonna hit two three plays
forty yards downfield? Sure that that probably would be the
single biggest thing that would go okay, that moves the needle. Now,
Ohio State has played twelve games of American football this
year and they give given up two plays all season long.
So that's probably not where Tennessee is going to make
their you know, make their money, make their you know,
(07:07):
make their hay this on Saturday night. So given that,
I think they're gonna have to really kind of work
for it. And given that, I think the answer for
me is Dylan Samson. If Dylan Samson is at the
twenty seven, carries one hundred and fifty yards, one hundred
and forty yards, maybe a touchdown, that is probably one
(07:29):
of the you know, if you're going to build the
build the foundation of what does it take for Tennessee
to win this game, that's probably the bottom level of
the of the foundation you're building everything on. If Dylan
Samson can can run the ball well effectively consistently, that
just makes life so much easier for Tennessee because if
(07:50):
you can't do that, then they have to do it
the hard way. That's kind of the Dylan Samson running
consistently for five yards of carry. That's the easy way,
That's the way they would choose to do it. Will
they be able to do that? I don't know that.
A lot of that's going to come down to Ohio
State's tackling. I think they're going to struggle to run
the ball consistently, you know. I don't think they're gonna
(08:10):
be just going five five five five five. But the
challenge is, Okay, you know he's going to fall forward,
so it's it's three, and then it's four, and then
it's two. Can you avoid the thirty five in there?
Because you can you can see him picking up picking
up a chunk here or there with one or two
missed tackles just because of the way they stress your defense.
(08:32):
They pull guys out of the box with how they
set up before the snap, and so it puts a
lot of strain on Ohio defensive line and linebackers to
make plays. And then is Ohio State going to be
comfortable bringing Caleb downs into the box to train and
help with the run. If they do, and if Nico
im alaiav I can't make them pay for it, then
(08:52):
that's going to go a long way to helping Ohio
State contain Dylan Sampson. So you know, long story short, yes,
Dylan Samson is my answer.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Well, and they are as we talked about all two
or three weeks long. They're very patient in terms of
building their running game. They run them ball forty five
times per game. They throw it twenty nine times per
game on average, So this is run heavy. They want
to control the game, control the ball and wear you down.
(09:21):
And that's part of Dylan Sampson's purpose is just to
wear down in defense. But that's also part of the
passing games purpose. The way everybody gets spread out, you
want the defensive line to run against screens and all
of these different things. With Nico, he's been held under
six yards per pass attempt twice this season, and it's
their two losses. And he was five point four yards
(09:44):
per pass attempt against Arkansas, he was five point one
against Georgia. The next worst was six point five against Florida.
That Florida game keeps popping up in this other than that,
he's over seven yards, well over seven yards per pass
attempt in every other game. So it feels like if
you force some incompletions in there and tackle tackle tackle
(10:05):
UH protest. We sent in our I sent in my
score prediction for BUCKEHDDLE staff predictions and for me, like
this is one of the biggest things for our students.
It's dumb below you go to tackle against Tibessee like
you need. They need to tackle at all three levels.
They need to tackle Nico Iyamliava when they have an
opportunity to get him in the backfield. They need to
(10:27):
be able to tackle. They need to tackle Dylan Sampson
around the line of scrimmage and as close to the
line of scrimmage as possible, and then beyond a line
of scrimmage in those one on one situations. We talked
with Caleb Downards and Lathon Ransom and Jim Knowles about
the way Tennessee spreads you out with the receivers past
the the yard numbers and things like that, beyond the numbers,
(10:49):
and that creates one on one situations with the safeties,
with the corners where they've got the ball and you
are the last line eight defense and those guys have
to tackle. The good news is all three levels are
pretty get tackling. They've gotten a lot better in terms
of the the linebackers have gotten better as the season's
going on. Lathan Ransom and Caleb Gwin's are always solid.
So again, this is a defense that is equipped to
(11:10):
handle these things. But I think it kind of just
starts with, yes, you got to stop the run. But
if they can keep Niko Iamliava from making some plays
in this game after the initial rush is right there,
then I think that'll go a long way towards the win.
(11:32):
With all of this being said, so if you aside
from the quarterbacks and maybe aside from Dylan Sampson in
this one, for you, who is the most important player
for the balls in this game on.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Offense or overall overall? Overall?
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Taking out the two most important players.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
For the balls, Yeah, yeah, I think there's there's a
couple of different directions I could go with this. I
think there's an argue for Dante Thornton because, like I said,
if you hit one or two big ones, if you're
only trying to score three touchdowns to win, and you
hit one or two big ones, well that gets you
a good chunk of the way there, and that can
be a have two big plays and take the rest
(12:14):
of the day off. Like that's fine, like don't tire
yourself out before the before the quarterfinals kind of thing.
I think there's an argument sort of on the flip
side for their right tackle. Campbell. He is he is
going to be in a real street fight with Jack Sawyer.
And we've seen him have trouble with noise on the road.
(12:35):
We've seen him jump, We've seen him have holding penalties.
We've seen him take hands to the face penalties. We've
seen him get frustrated and take a really unnecessary personal
foul against against Vanderbilt. This is a defense where you
can't do that. You cannot get yourself behind the sticks.
And if you get yourself behind the sticks, you're in
probably pretty big trouble because that's going to take away
(12:56):
Dylan Sampson. That's going to put more on Ego Iam Aliava,
and that's going to put you know, he's someone who
will we'll probably talk about him a little more, but
he's someone who he's going to be a big play
maker for one team or the other or possibly both
at different times because he he will try and do
a lot and he can extend plays and he does
not throw the ball away. So when he throws that
(13:17):
ball downfield late or late and over the middle, which
is at place you typically don't want to throw the ball.
Who's going to come down with it, because that can
be a big play one direction, or that can be
a big play of the other direction. If Jack Sawyer
is in there getting pressure on Iamaliyava, if Jack Sawyer
is in there chopping down Dylan Samson some on the
on rundowns, that's going to put Tennessee potentially behind the
(13:40):
sticks and put them in predictable passing situations where they
do not want to be. There's plenty of choices on
the defensive side of the ball. I will I will
leave the defensive side of the ball for you because
I think there's plenty of good choices over there as well.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, and I'm just looking at the matchups when we
talk about the Ohio State interior of the offensive line
having some question marks with the possible of rotating three
guys at the two guard spots, and we know Tennessee
rotates four or five defensive tackles in the game, so
it could be any of those guys. And they're gonna
stay fresh, and they're gonna stay active, and they're going
to keep getting after it. So I don't know that
(14:13):
one of those guys is the key or the most
important player. I think you could talk about James Pearce,
number twenty seven. They're their edge rusher against both of
Ohio States tackles wherever he decides to line up, wherever
they put him and let him go, and if they
can contain him, then I think Ohio State's gonna have
some really good success throwing the ball. If they can't,
(14:37):
then you know all bets are off. But if if
Will Howard is upright and is able to just stand
back there and throw, then again, I don't really care
how well Ohio State runs the ball. They're going to
be able to move the ball, so I think that's
a big one. And if he can dominate the game,
then Ohio State's gonna have some issues. Jermad McCoy, we
(14:58):
know the number three, their top corner has been outstanding
when we've gotten to see him in four games, and
he's been good in other games as well. Can he
lock down one guy? Doesn't really matter if he can
because there are other guys out there. So now I
think Tennessee needs good games from Will Brooks. Safety Andre
Turntine to safety. We've seen Will Brooks have a good
game and in one of the four games that we've
(15:20):
watched and not be a presence really in any of
the others. Same with Andre Turntein they're kind of just there.
And maybe the fact that I keep saying this that
they're just there, there's probably gonna be a big play
made by one of those guys this weekend. But if
you're asking me for the most important defensive player, I
think I have to go with James Pearce because he
(15:42):
can control a game unlike Abdulla Carter or you know
some of the stuff we've seen from from Oregon's pass rush,
Like he is a wrecker, he's showing up. He's good
against the run as well. So if they can contake him,
if you don't hear much from him, then you gotta
feel pretty good in my o higher state here.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, I think that's definitely definitely a good pick. The
other choice for me, he was one of the guys
I was thinking about, Omar Norman Lott, one of the
defensive tackles. He's probably the guy who if someone is
going to just ruin Ohio State's day on the interior
the defensive line. It's probably him, but the other guy
is this is a little bit of a chooser on adventure.
(16:21):
Ricky Gibson or Jermald McCoy, which of Tennessee's corners is
going to be one on one with whoever they're one
on one with, because you feel like they're probably going
to bracket Jeremiah Smith. And is that a You put
Ricky Gibson on him and you trust that having a
safety over the top will help because Jamald mcoy is
a better corner than Ricky Gibson. So do you have
Ricky Gibson on him with one on one but you've
(16:44):
got a safety over the top, So you're really kind
of bracketing Jeremiah Smith because I'm sort of expecting that
to be what they probably try and do. And then
you take Jeremond McCoy and you put him over on
Cartnel Tate whoever is one on one with the Ohio
State receiver because we see them play a ton of
you know, just just want to say good luck. We're
all counting on you, Like, put put your corner out
(17:04):
in an island and and trust him to go one
on one with with the guy Ohio State's for wide
of shivers, jere Rii Smith gets all the pub meccha
Ubuka is very good. He's gonna be in the slot,
He's probably be mostly against Blue Carter. And then on
the out on the outside, Carnel Tate. If if it's
Carnel Tate one on one with Ricky Gibson, that's that's
the one that I've got circled in sharpie on my
(17:26):
on my depth chart, on my on my game card
because it's that's where you you could see Ohio State
potentially making heavy, you know, having a pretty big game
because Ohio State, you know, Tennessee has Jermal McQuay is
a great corner, really good corner. Mc Carter's solid in
the slot. Gibson we have seen have some issues this
(17:48):
this season, and they have just not had to play
teams that have three wide receivers as good as Ohio State,
and it just feels like the one versus the one
is going to be that's going to be an absolute war.
And then you get the two verses the two and
the three verses of three and it's like it's like
two baseball teams where they both have great ace starting pitchers,
(18:08):
and then the one team's number two starters a little
better than the other teams number two starter, and then
the team's number three starters way better than the other
team's number three starter. And it's like, yeah, that the
one everyone wants to talk about Game one where it's
Ace versus Ace. It's like, you might win the series
by just winning game two in game three because you
got better depth at those positions.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Got John Smoltz is your number three and he's Steve
Avery behind him, Like this is not fair at all.
And then of course the ops giving Tom Glavin six
inches outside of the plate also does not help. There
you go.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I can tell we've been doing the show long, you know,
a long time, because I was all ready to say,
oh is Ohio state and you get strikes eight inches
off the plate. But there you go. You beat me
to it, so you're all.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
You're all set, Tom Clevin. Anyway, I don't want to
derail the show. We did a show earlier. We did
a listener question is talking about the most important one
on one matchups? And so I posted that on Twitter
and whatnot. A lot of the replies and on YouTube
was Josh Hipel against Ryan day, and we didn't really
(19:09):
talk about that. We didn't really think about that. And
I think that's interesting to me because you've got two
guys who Riday wants to be aggressive. Josh Hippel in
the games that we've seen, has been very risk averse,
very generally risk averse, not too aggressive on going for
it on fourth downs. And so I'm wondering, in this game,
(19:29):
knowing that it's going to be close, does somebody need
to make a play, need to make a call a
you know, some sort of a risky playoff fake punt.
There was a fantastic fake punt in the un LV
Bowl game the other night. There's something like that need
to happen. Or are they so scared about making that
(19:50):
one play that loses the game that now it's like
we've got to be even more conservative. We can't. Yeah,
we gotta we've got to swing and we gotta keep
chopping whatever. You know, we'll swing for the fence, says,
but we also don't want to make the play. You know,
what are you doing faking a punt there? You've just
cost yourselves And like the only thing you need to
do is not give the opponent at the ball where
(20:11):
they can score, and so then you've done that. Do
you think somebody needs to make something happen? Do you
think that will happen? So?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Do I think it will happen? Probably not. I think
we have a long track record of watching Ryan Day
in these games, and Ryan Day almost always takes the
safe route in these and that has cost them a
bunch of times. Since you know, why does Ohio State
keep losing these close games? Well, they lost the close
game against Clemson in the twenty nineteen Festival because of
(20:45):
about ten different things that went wrong against them, but
one of them was they had it fourth and three
at the Clemson I don't know, forty two or something
like that, with a chance to potentially just drain the
clock out and kill the game, and he punted. And
he has sort of ended towards conservatism in those spots
a lot. He's he's you know, they they have had
(21:06):
you know, you go back to the twenty twenty two
Michigan game, and they had it, they were they had
they were set to run a fake punt and then
the long snapper snapped it to the punter instead and
everyone went what And so that kind of you know,
even even when he's tried to do it, he hasn't
gotten the opportunity to do it. But generally his tendency
has been just you know, you know, throw it all
out there against the bad teams, like go forward and
(21:28):
fourth down against Akron, you bet, when it's on the
road against Penn State, when it's in the college football playoff,
he tends to be more conservative. And I, you know,
unless he's doing the George Costanza, well, I've got to
do the opposite of everything that I would normally do
because what I've been doing before hasn't been working. I
don't expect him to, you know, suddenly suddenly start you know,
(21:53):
going forward on fourth and seven as an territory or
anything like that. I think you're going to need to
do something at someone is going to have to do something,
and that play is going to probably could very well
decide the game if it's close. I just the way
Josh Hypewol's managed games this year, the way where I
Ryan Day has managed this type of game in the past.
(22:14):
It just feels like they're both kind of tend towards
being a little more conservative and don't be the idiot
who screwed it up by doing this by going for
it on you know, John Cooper in what nineteen ninety
went forward on fourth and one in his own territory
against Michigan late in the game, and they didn't get it,
and then he's the idiot who lost the game because
they went forward on fourth and one, even though statistically
(22:35):
that's probably the right decision. Not that we had words
for analytics back in the early nineties, but you know,
back then it was right, probably the right decision. Jim
Trussell went forward on fourth and one against Florida right
before halftime in the two thousand and six National Championship
game and didn't get it, and then he's the idiot
who went forward and didn't get it. And I think
I think the coaches on the whole are just so
(22:56):
risk averse that my assumption is always going to be
they're going to do the safe thing. But if someone does,
you know, if you do have the one real balls.
He call Dan Lanning doing an on side kick in
the middle of the game, right after they got a
personal or fifteen yard penalty, taking advantage of that field
position to try an onside kick and just kick it
(23:17):
off of one of the up guys that gave to
Oregon an extra possession in the game they won by
one point. So you know, if you're willing to do
it and it works, great. I just my tendency is
always to assume coaches are going to be conservative in
games like this because they don't want to be the
idiot who screwed it up.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
That's why sucked these When the NFL went to a
two point conversion, like a bunch of better the NFL
coaches didn't want it because it just added to another
decision that they could be blamed for losing a game
for US. So there are a bunch of people opposed
to it. So Tom, I have some in my score prediction.
As I was typing it out, I did not go
with the score that I thought I was going to
(23:56):
go with. I went with Ohio State twenty four to seventeen.
I was it's going to go twenty four twenty, but
I went seventeen instead. I don't know if it's because
of the nineteen points per game on the road and
fourteen against Arkansas seventeen against Georgia. That's hard to ignore.
And that was, you know, way back when. And Nicoli
(24:16):
iamalai Ava is a more accomplished and experienced quarterback. But
also I think these conditions are going to be worse
for it quarterback and for scoring. But Tennessee is kind
of built for that with their running game. But I
go twenty four to seventeen, and what do you got.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
I have been kind of balancing back and forth between
twenty one ten and twenty one thirteen. I think it's
going to be even lower scoring.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Than you do.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I'm gonna go twenty one thirteen. This is not me
saying you should take your mortgage and put it on
Ohio State minus seven. I'm not. This could very easily
be twenty one seventeen or something like that. It just
I just don't think Tennessee's going to be able to
score consistently on Ohio State because really, no one this
season has scored on Ohio State consistently outside of and
(25:01):
Oregon has. You know, Oregon has been the number one
team of the nation for quite a number of weeks
and put up forty whatever points they put up in
the Big Ten Championship game, So you know, thirty one
points at home for Oregon or thirty two points for
home at home for Oregon in a game where they
stole a possession, you know all. I just I don't
think Tennessee's getting to thirty. I think you could see
(25:24):
them get to twenty. And that's just where you get
one more big play, one more long run, one more
long pass, one turnover deep in Ohio State territory. If
twenty one thirteen is like, oh wow, he thinks they're
going to win by a bunch, that's you know, you
have one turnover and deep in your own end, or
you have one turnover in the red zone and all
of a sudden that turns to twenty one twenty or
fourteen thirteen. I mean, we're not talking about a huge
(25:48):
margin here. I just broadly think it's going to be
a low scoring game. I think coaches are when it
gets close and you know, close and tight and late,
I think coaches are going to get conservative. I think
you're going to see I don't think I see Ohio
State kick and field goals. I just don't think they
have you know, we'll see. It's very easy to say
you have faith in your kicker, and it's another thing
(26:09):
to say, well, it's the third quarter and it's tied,
and it's fourth and one, what do I want to
do here, and I think it's very easy to not
side with your kicker who missed a couple thirty something
yarders against Michigan. So I think I think in that case,
in those instances, Ryan Day is probably going to be
a little more aggressive, not settling for field goals. You're
going to probably go for it on fourth downs in
(26:31):
the red zone more often than you might have otherwise.
And Tennessee, I think they probably are a little more
willing to rely on their kicker because all Tennessee has
to do is keep it close, keep it close, stay
within striking distance, take the points, and get to get
yourself into the fourth quarter, and then you see what happens.
That's that's what the underdog needs to do. You just
(26:52):
keep it close, keep it low scoring, make it a
sixty minute game, and give yourself a chance to win.
At the end, I think you may see Joshie kicking
some more field goals. They feel much better about Max
Gilbert than Ohio State does about Jaden Fielding right now,
and you know, for good reason. Max Gilbert had a
bad stretch in the middle of the season and otherwise
has been great at the beginning and the end of
the season, So I think you'll probably see tennessee a
(27:13):
few more field goals. Ohio State probably going to be
going for a little more on fourth down, not necessarily
out of aggressiveness, but just out as well. We don't
like any of our other options. We're we're on the
eighteen yard line. We can't pump from here, so what
do we want to do? That's that's where I think
you might see Ryan Day get a little more aggressive.
I think it is going to be a really really tight,
(27:37):
entertaining football game for pretty much the full time, but
I do think Ohio State wins in the end.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yeah, field goals for Ohio State feels like a situational
thing where fourth and fourteen from the you know, the
twenty or something where it's just like you know you're
gonna take that chance, or at the end of the
half something where it's like forty eight yards away. I
don't think you side with field goals on this one.
Just stay aggressive, and maybe that's maybe that's the aggression
(28:06):
of what the winning coach. You don't need some big thing,
you don't need a fake punt. You just need to
stay aggressive on fourth downs as opposed to kicking and
hoping for the best because odds are if you kick
three field goals, you probably making it most two of those,
and so then really would you have been better off
going for all three of those fourth downs and maybe
(28:27):
getting a touchdown over that six points? So there you go.
That's Tony Lennox. It's the only way to go.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
So that will do it.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
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(28:56):
huddle dot com. Sign up now. First month four ninety
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