Can Texas Use This Blueprint to Beat Ohio State? | IT Live

0:00Good morning, everybody. Welcome to IT Live. Brought to you by Academy Sports and Outdoors. I'm Texas Homer. That is Ian Boyd. I'm working to discuss Ohio State. Is there a blueprint we could utilize to try to get some dubs? Ian, we don't have a crazy amount of promos this morning. So just sign up for IT. Paul's book, pick it up if you want. But we're ready to get right into the action, Ian. Let's hop right into the article. So can you set this up for the fine viewers we have amongst us? Um, um, Michigan beat Ohio State four times in a row, using the same formula every single time. Texas borrowed the formula in the 2024 semi-final playoff game. And then again in the 2025 season opener last year.

1:01I would say that Miami more or less borrowed the formula last year in the playoffs when they shut down Ohio State. I can't speak to my to Indiana. Indiana kind of does their own thing on defense, but it's not worth getting into the overlap and discrepancies. But all, all these teams are basically just using Mike McDonald style defense against the buck guys. And it's working every single time. Every single time. If you have the personnel to do it. All right. Now that's a big thing. Like you're like, well, Michigan just got whipped by Ohio State last year. In Ohio State, not only did they what Michigan last year, but they like trampled them in the run game. And that's because Michigan can no longer had the defensive tackles to deploy the blueprint. So I like calling it the I like calling it the blueprint.

2:04It's I like describing it as like the Ohio State blueprint. It's like particularly effective against Ohio State. Honestly, it's really just modern defense in that shell. It's just like the cutting edge of modern defense. And it works against like the sea hawks just won the Super Bowl and had like a historic defense. Doing some doing like the blueprint is like they're normal standard operating procedure. No. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Yes. What that is. How it works. Why it works against Ohio State. Can't Texas do it again. Let's get into the keys for the blueprint. Point number one. And then someone already said, how do you learn day into playing meathead football? So let's look at point number one. It's the same as for Sark though. Like Sark does this too a little bit. I think Sark is actually a lot less vulnerable to it than day is.

3:04But he can still with Sark, you have to do like the flyover. The flyover puts Sark into meathead mode. Where he's like, you can't play three deep safeties. I have to run the ball. I have to. It's the law. It's the law. Like I'm going to be struck down by the football gods if I don't observe this holy ritual. Yeah. Also, I feel like day is like you could literally just in the press leak that like, I don't think Ohio State's going to be able to run the ball and day would be like, yes, we are. I feel like he's easily influenced ego wise there too, which is fun. I'd like to see a little hole right now. No, he's got some emotional moments where I was like, I've been doing a little bit of warfare. I'm just like, you think Ohio State's even going to be able to run the ball and then make sure that it's right back to right. I really need somebody to make a like a LSU freak or whatever that guy used to do. Those like hilarious moving gifts for movies or like insert.

4:07Harsh football characters and we've seen. I really need one to do somebody to do one of those for Ryan Day is like the bullet bill dude from Fury Road. You come out of the car with like the nipple ring and yeah. Yeah, he's a he's an interesting guy. He said plenty. I watched his press conference. He was all he was all good this week. Very complimentary. I also feel like the level of compliments received by like top teams is also equivalent to how much they want to slaughter you. Kirby smart. I was like, they're like, yeah, we're buddies. I'm like, my friends don't treat friends like that man. But he was very complimentary this week. Let's hit point number one. I'm a bros do though. Yeah, but it feels like keep your enemies closer sometimes with a Kirby smart. It kind of freaks me out. I don't know. It feels like I can just imagine them golfing in like Sark like doing the like tie the like fake snake to Kirby smarts. Like, or like Kirby like like puts weights in his golf balls or something.

5:13You know, so that is like you can't hit the like, you know, that seems like that kind of deal. Yeah, but then they just he just goes and slaughters us on the field. There's no mercy man. But we'll see if meathead is activated. What triggers it? Why might he go meathead? Well, let's just let's say what the blueprint is before we say what the keys are executing it. The blueprint is just two high-nickle defense. Let's get into the nuance of that maybe. There's like some particular quirks, but really just like playing like Sabin cover seven match quarter stuff. The quarters has like a lot of answers for how to get the safeties in the right spots to take away deep routes and avoid getting overloaded deep. Used it for a minute there in the 2010s.

6:13Quarters was like about to die and begin to go extinct because spread teams were killing it with different particular route combinations. And then people solved it. And now quarters is like more powerful than ever. Yeah, it's like it's like Goku after healing up from a fight. Now he's like super saying, is that doing anything for you Connor? You would do it. No, did you hit my demo actually? Yeah, Dragon Ball Z. Yeah, for sure. You just came out of the cryogenic chamber. Yeah, that's a good reference. Sometimes you guys little older than me. I'm like, I don't really get that one, but Dragon Ball Z. I can walk. You got that one. Okay. Yeah, so yeah, but it's it's teams have been afraid to play two high quarters against teams like Ohio State. Because it's like, well, we're going to get trampled if we do that. And maybe, maybe not Michigan with the defensive line that they had in one, two or two

7:14thousand twenty one two three or four, they were not getting trampled. And the same was true for Texas in the last two years. They did not get trampled. They had, you know, they're touching go moments for Michigan and for Texas where maybe Ohio State would put a drive together or two with the run. But if Jeremiah Smith or whoever the given elite Ohio State receivers are in that year, if they're not killing you, then probably Ohio State is not getting away from you on the scoreboard. And that gives you an awesome chance to beat them. Yeah, your offense has to step up on the other side, but but I mean Michigan won that last the last time they went off and you see each other, Michigan won like 13 to 10. Yeah. So they they didn't even play well in offense really. I think I'm more talking Texas. Texas is that's play what Texas has gotten this right the last two times they played Ohio State. And then they just couldn't do anything on offense. So that's we'll talk about that next. Maybe not me and you, but that'll be my next article.

8:17So when we say too high, what is that? You say quarters. We know cover two. Like what are the differences kind of here? What is what is too high allow? So it's like half equation going on. It doesn't have to be cover two exactly. It's just you need to be able to bracket their deep routes. And you want to play nickel personnel that can challenge them underneath. Like you want to put a corner on all three of their receivers and two safeties deep. So that way you can challenge them underneath. So there's not just like free access throws underneath. And then when they're deep, they get bracketed like over the top or inside and out either way. In particular, if you click through the article to the when I explained the blueprint before the playoffs in 24. The what Ohio State really has killed people on historically is they'll run like a seam bender from the slot.

9:20And then like goes or post wraps outside. And so the seam bender would be like man when that was like Jackson Smith jigba. It was like we have to help on this or we're going to die. And so your safety helps on that. And then he necessarily cannot help on the deep route outside. And so like it was just like pick your poison all the time. And it was really hard to stop that. But with cover set with like different types of match quarters, you can you can make sure that you have safety help where you need it pretty much all the time. What if they go fool me head and they're like hey it's 12 and 13 personnel all day baby. Then that means that one or two of their future NFL receivers are on the bench instead of on the field. So you're already one. Yeah exactly. So that's it. Yeah. So they did lost track. That's what they did last year and it was like.

10:21Thank you. If they weren't, if they didn't score that early touchdown on the like kind of prayer to carnival tape, then Ohio State could have been a in a world of hurt last year. Because they were they had like one good drive. They had a couple times where they were able to like sit on the ball and run it for a little bit before punting and eat clock. But if they'd had to like really push it to score, they would have been in huge trouble last year. How do you think that changes with a year older? I don't know. Let's get to the keys first and then we'll get into the specific. Well, we got me ahead check. So you can move to number two. Well, number one is a key is that you need Ohio State to fall into the trap. Which is if we're going to bracket everything deep with our safeties, then I'm going to run the ball. And I'm sure you would. I was all about that's where you want him. There are other solutions he could pursue.

11:24Really one in particular that would be much more dangerous and he usually doesn't deploy that solution, which is to spread you out even more and pick you apart underneath and in hot your linebackers. He doesn't do that. This is not he's like I'm going to attack deep with my receivers and I'm going to attack shallow with my run game. And he's like so locked into that mode. And then he hired Arthur Smith who was like the ultimate double down on that philosophy. Of like. Man ball in the box. They had a lot like versus ball state. And I wonder if you think the strategy will change. They had a lot of intermediate kind of just easy stuff that I thought was different than that total. Deep throw. Focus. I thought they answered that a little bit versus ball state. And I didn't like that as much. They just run kind of McEwen right into the to the middle. I was like, why cross kind of stuff though, right?

12:25I mean, no, there were I mean, I mean, it was across, but they know there were legitimate just quick kind of turns and sits and stuff like that and the intermediate range that I was like, Oh, no, because that's that would be annoying. Because I am used to that exact approach. So that's why I don't know if they've adapted that a little bit. And that makes me a little nervous. I don't know. I don't for one that needs to be like good against match quarters. Yeah. And not against ball state. Not against ball state. And secondly, that has to be something that they can protect. And that Julian saying can read and execute consistently. So if he can, then, you know, if they can read and execute it consistently, can he not get yet? Dude, he's the most accurate quarterback and coach football at all three levels of death. How often is he throwing a wide open dudes? I mean, fairly, I definitely versus ball state.

13:26It's one of those things where it's like he was 27 for 30 against ball state. And so now the stats say that he's. Oh, the stats. No, the stats from last year. And he's number one at deep. He's number one intermediate. And he's number one short for the entire last year. Okay, the outcome, they don't have a championship trophy then. He's so good. That's not what we're saying. I'm saying, but he's dead accurate questioning. He got wrecked against my under the end in Indiana. So that's what we need to see is the passing is the because as soon as he has to move off his spot, the game changes for him. But if you do let him sit there and just read, he'll complete all day. Well, let's get to the next few keys because that's going to get into that. All right, two, two, we should almost go out. Let's go out of order real quick. Let's go to number three. Defensive and you can set good edges in the run game. And to stop their stretch plays and who can keep the quarterback from sitting back in the passing game. So Michigan generally had this.

14:30They're. They're best. Advantage is there were actually in 21 when they had David a Yabo and. And Aiden Hutchinson. That was a big deal in that game. They got like a couple big sacks that like killed Ohio State drives and kind of put them away in that game. Other subsequent years Michigan was like. Good here, but not necessarily like a lead on the edges. Texas did this with well, who do they have in 04? They're 24 they had. So now. It sounds right that they have a young Simmons that he plays some in 024. Surrell and Burke probably. Yeah, they were pretty solid, but that wasn't like overpowering, but it was enough.

15:30This year, this is a really big deal because they have call and Simmons. And then they have Lance Jackson and Zina. You may as you lose. And then Ohio State seems more vulnerable than typical. At offensive tackle this season. And so that's like a really big deal is that. I don't know how well they're going to be able to get the edge in the zone outside zone run game, which is like part of it. It was like one of their bread and butter plays for Ohio State. If you if you can't like secure the edge and like get any kind of stretch on the perimeter, then that play just like gets compressed and bogged down and it just does nothing, which happened in Texas a couple times last week, right? And yeah, that's a problem for them. And then also if it's like, hey, well, we've got some plays where we think we can work McQuinn open on the backside or whatever and say and can find him and it's like, okay, can you do that? Can you protect well enough to do that?

16:32That's a big deal. Cute. Let's go. Key four real quick. This is the most important one to play too high and stop the run without getting gashed. You need to be good at defensive tackle. This is why Michigan beat them in 2024 when they didn't have Jim Harbaugh on the rest of the team was already pretty depleted is that they still had Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant. And people may remember I warned about when Texas played in Ann Arbor that at the beginning of that year, I was like, look, they're going to do this thing to us that they did do a house state. And they still have these two mammoth defensive tackles. And if you're playing for them playing too deep on everything is to try to run the ball. Those two guys, you cannot be efficient enough. I think Texas is an awesome shape here. I know hero canoe got pushed off the ball a little bit last week. A couple times.

17:32But I think this is I think Texas is you know, they're built to do this. Also, it's not like Ohio State was blowing guys off the ball in vertical run game either, right? So it's like they were they had to turn into screen blockers like the text offensive line. They just their big runs came off that kind of stuff. So it's not also like Ohio State was mulling a ball state either. So that's a big factor. Shout out to coach Don Gregory, the parent fellow Cedar Park alumni. Although legacy ranch, maybe fifth grade team is going to kick hills, but when we play all later, careful man. Maybe technically, technically lost our scrimmage against Cedar Park, but it was, it was competitive. It's going to feel we feel good about. We had a lot we had a lot we could build on. We were all we could build on from that outing. All right, and then here's the other thing that's also very favorable to Texas.

18:35One of the tricks of Ohio State that makes them super vulnerable against this, unless Arthur Smith is solved for it, which kind of doubt is that Ryan Day has this thing where he's always using the tight ends in the run game into ad physicality and edges and all this stuff in the run game, right? Which is very valuable, but it assumes that you can run on an honest six man box. It's like our answer to the six man box is our tight end is going to help us run the ball. And the problem is is if you don't get that big of an advantage from that and your tight end is always hanging around there, then he becomes this like glaring beacon that will tell one of the safeties exactly where to be on the field at all times. So it usually the boundary safety, which in this game is going to be Jolani McDonald, one of the best safeties in college football. He can cue the tight end on like every single play.

19:37It's like if the tight end is run blocking, then he like way to beat to make sure it's not play action so that you can stay back on a bracket and then get downhill and you can be a late seventh man in the box. If he's past protecting, it's play action. Make sure you get you don't get down too early. If he's running a route, don't worry about it. Let the tight end, let the linebacker deal with it. He's not going to be anything dangerous. Bracket the receiver. And then he can also read like the receipt, release of the receivers to know which ones to bracket, you know, on the backside. If the outside receiver comes in, he needs to help. If he doesn't, he can work to the other side of the field. Michigan would give their guy like it sounds like a lot, but it's not that much for like a veteran, fourth year safety. And Michigan would get just like just that their free safety would always be wherever he needed to be. Because Ohio State was kind

20:40of obvious based on what the tight end would do. And if that guy is like if he can always be where you need him. And then he's just like pretty decent at bracketing receivers or getting down and making tackles. If you're a six man box, let's something leak. Then it just gets that much harder to do anything on offense. It's just it's like a it's like a just a marginal diminishing of the off-bands on every single freaking snap. Does that make sense? Yeah. And also you don't have them in the past game. So it's like if they're they're there's diminishing returns there. They did a lot of we sure know go ahead and I'll share something. Go ahead. They did a lot of double tight off balance too. I need to go back and look at the all 22 and see if they're that guy's ever sliding back. Because if you're talking about tracking the tight end, if they're both on the left side now, now we're in a good spot. So I'm trying to see too if they even have that level of movement. That's only valuable for creating gaps in the run game.

21:42No, but I'm saying you'll know exactly where the two tight ends are with your thesis that it'll lead you to the ball. I mean, maybe they throw it to them for the first time ever and it's like like, okay. How do I put this? It was observed on the Texas side that Ohio State never involving their tight ends against Michigan was grievously limiting their ability to overcome that defense. Even when they had Max Claire. Yeah. And when Texas played Michigan, who was leading receiver, Connor? When Texas played Michigan this last game? No, in in an Arbor in 24. But they still was a goal at that point? No, in that game, it was Gunner Helm. Oh, it's Gunner Helm. That makes sense. Texas did not fall into that same trap.

22:45They're like, okay, you're going to really mark up our safeties and key then and get really mark up our receivers and like focus on bracketing or deep routes. Well, we will do what Ohio State wouldn't. We will throw underneath to our running backs and to Gunner Helm on your linebackers all day long. So tight end, the highest tight end target was one to Nate Roberts here. I think they targeted all three tight ends once though. They did. They have misalumes here and then they have actually targeted four. It looks like they only completed one one of those. They were finding a good way to get Jeremiah Smith the ball. So that's not so that hard. This is well a different ranges. So like Devin McEun, 57% of his targets came at intermediate. Jeremiah Smith, 44% came at intermediate. So Chris Henry, 100% of his targets came intermediate.

23:49So they're doing a lot more of that sit down, find space stuff as well. How do you fit that into your blueprint if they do start attacking like middle of the field? Well, they can't sit down if you're in match. Also, I would say that Ohio State throwing the guys sitting down is very preferable to them throwing the guys breaking open on the field. Yeah, but that's how they were able to spam Smith so much is the Smith, a lot of the time Smith was just able to break off his route because people were playing so deep. I'm just that's a change that I saw that I was like, okay, they're actually making the obvious decision here. So I don't know how much of that was just ball state playing off though. Oh, sure. Like they're they're not above taking free access to us. So yeah, all right, let's hear a quick word from Academy here. Turn everyday spending into more fun. Earn unlimited to present

24:57them awards when you spend outside Academy. My Academy rewards Mastercard, the official card of fun. I can't believe it. So what are your we got to the the keys, right? Let me see. Yeah. So you name some things that we needed. We know Texas has the edges there. We like that match up versus the tackles. We said we like Jolani in this role. What other pieces? He said you like canoe despite two times losing two yards on double teams disgusting. I think double teams might be more imposing than Ohio States. I probably in bulk, like definitely. And in Texas states are rushing offense. They're like 57% the bulk of their offense is actually rushing. So they do focus on the time when we interviewed DJ Kenny. He was like, thank you for not just mentioning the past game because we pride ourselves on the run foundation of this. Is there anything we don't have or anything you're not sure of

26:00execution wise? Not really. I mean, I think Derek Williams was a little iffy at free safety sometimes in the last game. You just played Jolani there. Problem solved. Don't have Derek Williams be the one that needs to come down and fit the box. We haven't totally seen it with the secondary and the D line. They played a little bit of a passive game plan last week. So we haven't seen them like show off some of what they could do theoretically. But this that's a classic trap. When must you have first came in 08. It was all this talk about how we're going to unleash our past rushers. And we're like, oh, cool. We have past rushers. That's fun. And then like the first

27:01few weeks, they didn't do anything. And it was like, well, where do the past rush go, must champ? And it was like, well, they're throwing the ball within like a second or two on every single play. And teams aren't really testing us at all. And then the teams finally got into a place where they tested Texas a little bit. And then like Kindle exploded and a rack bo exploded. So the week one people, you cannot let go of your offseason priors after week one. That's the lesson I've learned doing this business for several years now. Do not let go of your offseason priors after week one. Yeah. So how does that work? So you want to double their receiving threats. But does that mean that you end up giving up short stuff? Or is there like a style of defense there where you could test? So you're you are contesting underneath. You're just making sure that you have safety steep to bracket anything breaking in from the outside and anything over the middle.

28:05I think that's where teams go wrong. And so high estate is just playing super off because they can still throw it short and get an explosive. McHughan is really capable of that. I think he's 10 to 8, 10 to 800 meter. Yeah. Yeah. 10 to what? 10 to 8. 10 to 8 and 100 meter. Yeah. Not 10 to 800 meter. No. No. One B is one B is cool. He's 10 to 8 in the 100 meters. Or wait, that's the wrong way. That's an impossible. You would be a rocket ship. But both of those would be scary. But that's something that I think they messed up. And then also that I'm saying from all 22, they were breaking stuff off all the time. And so they've adapted there too. So you're still just going to give up the nickel and dime stuff and then they're going to wait until you get on third down or whatever and play man. And then that's when they're going to go out Jeremiah Smith. You know how Jeremiah Smith got his touchdown? That DC had to be holding his

29:06hands on his head. He was, he sent a corner blitz. He sent a corner blitz and left the same corner blitz. Yeah. And he left this safety one on one with Jeremiah Smith. It was almost like a adding rush too. Yeah. You're like, yeah, no jam on the receiver. Yeah. And then it's like he sees the running back in protection or something and then he goes. Yeah. And I was surprised that Jeremiah even ran the fake out. Like he still did this step out and everything. It's like he at that point, he could have just stayed straight on a line. But that you need to be aggressive short too. You need to match them short. And so people are like, well, playing man, they'll get demolished. It's like, that's not really what we're saying here. Can you explain that? Is it zone? Is it man? What is it? How does that work? Are all these guys on an island when we say match? What does that mean? Yeah. You're you're trying to take away short stuff aggressively.

30:06And but you're doing it with the security of having two safety's deep. No. And like Michigan would play like quarters. They wouldn't play cover two. Like they're not bailing over the top. But they would they would drop the back. Like 10, 12 yards pre snap and then like back pedaling 15 to 17. Sometimes immediately at the snap. Are you saying in the run game, the safety's going to have to play the run from death. He's not going to be actually down in the box. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So that's why you get someone who's smart and fast. Yeah. It's not it's not that hard. But you need to be good with the angles for sure. Exactly. You need to like know what you're saying and you need to be good with the angles. Like Johnny can do it. It's no question. Johnny is great at that. There's a bunch of stuff. I don't know about this game, but previous games of all 22 where he just comes flying into the beat gap dude. Johnny, Johnny making seven to 12 tackles in this game would

31:13be likely in a good indicator that things are going well. That would mean like oh, how state maybe running the ball some, but they're just not getting enough out of it. And McDonald is there to like limit the damage a lot. So I just watched, you know, saying in the playoffs, very passive leaves. I didn't study it. And so the thing I hear a lot is just like, yeah, but he's in the playoffs. He said it earlier. What what is going on with saying? What are they doing defensively to say in that's rattling him? Because the thing is basically like, yeah, he's all good and then he he gets scared in the playoffs. What does that mean when I keep hearing that? I don't know. I think I didn't watch all their games last year where he obliterated bad teams. I did see Ohio State fans complain all year that they weren't letting him loose enough. And that they were like keeping a governor on him in his play throughout the season. And they're like, we need to let him go. We got receivers. We need to be more aggressive than this. Yeah. And then they get to the playoffs where teams,

32:17they played teams that could disguise coverages and put people in unexpected places. And what happened? He like, and then he's like, well, I can't do that again. And then he would panic and take sacks. And I just normal young quarterback stuff. Like it's really hard to read these defenses and to figure out what they're doing. And a lot of Ohio State, like Ohio State, right in day in Sark, we're at the forefront. Like around 2020 was like the height of offenses figuring out we can use motion. We can do this. We can do that. And we can line up our kill shot before the snap. And our quarterback is going to drop back pretty much knowing where he's going to throw the ball on a designed play. And he may look this way or that way to help disguise it. But then he's going to hit the bomb. Right. And that was lasted like a few years. And then Michigan, I think was a big part of changing this.

33:22And other defenses have caught on. Teams don't let you do that anymore. They have too much versatility and their rules that they can play in coverage and where they line up and how they disguise it. And so like you've seen it was you've seen Sark be like one reason that Sark's numbers at Texas have just not been what we saw at Alabama in previous spots is because as good as he is at designing plays and lining up shots, it is a lot harder than he used to be. And it's really hard to drop back into know what you're getting and then just be able to drop back in front of a spot that you already anticipated before the snap and know that it's going to be what you think. And it only takes like a couple of mistakes doing that for a lot of quarterbacks to like become introverted. Because like Jackson Arnold so many of these guys, especially these highly rated guys, they have amazing arms that can drop back and they can throw to like any spot on the field.

34:24And they go to a camp and it's like look at the placement on that. Look at the placement on that. But it's all predicated on them operating as a robot. And doing like a perfectly rehearsed drop and throw to an anticipated place on the field and they can get really good at that. But if you make them like start to think and like change their footwork, change their timing, sometimes with those guys, not only does it go, but they start to look like one of those like Chinese AI robots that's like trying to dance to Michael Jackson or something. And also in like one step goes wrong and it just like claps. Yeah, exactly as soon as the one-code line messes up, these collapse on the ground. So that was Julian Sain in the playoffs last year. So that's what I mean, you even saw it Chinese robot running into the wall at full speed and falling apart. I mean, you saw versus ball state twice. First, they let that guy straight through the A gap, hit Julian Sain in the mouth. That's not really on Sain. That was a protection bus. But then they had

35:24another one where the left tackle got beat and the running back got beat. It feels like it's higher, right? Good. Good. Here, everybody got it. And then Sain, Sain had drifted out of the pocket a little bit and running back got beat and protected side of left tackle. But I'm not mad at him there for that. But he had to step around and you could tell he's just sensing those guys around him kind of messed up through there. So that's what I keep hearing about saying I need to watch it. I really need to go pull like all 22. What's the best game to watch it? Miami. I just need to go watch that because I haven't seen. Probably Miami. Probably Miami is a little closer to what we will do than in the end because in the end it's kind of unique because that's what I need to see because because if you do give him time, dude, he's freakishly accurate like insert absurdly accurate. So you but you cannot allow that to happen. But that was Quiniers. We saw how that went. Yeah. Yeah. We're certainly accurate at a certain depth like saying as if sir, they accurate at every part of the field. So that's a factor

36:29that you just can't let him sit there. He will complete. Go go down. There's one other there's one other thing. One other gift to football that Mike McDonald recently offered that Texas is already seized upon right here. The quarter spire zone. Is this it? The idea with the quarter spire zone is that you blitz an extra guy. So you bring five guys in the past rush. And you bring guys in the past rush in a way that's designed to overload the pressure and force the running back to stay and protect. Which is not worth explaining probably. The text is already running this. Yes. And it's just to get him off his spot like that, huh? And then you play quarters with no hook.

37:32Is it a fire zone? Ian, what does that mean? Fire zone was many ds this thing where you would play three deep three under coverage and bring five. So like many ds would be like it's basically cover three with only one hook defender instead of two. So you void a zone. There is an open zone there. Or you just yeah, you you don't necessarily void it so much as you make three guys cover the ground that four guys were able to cover previously. There's more elaborate ways to do it than that. Many ds would do it as like a spot drop zone. This one you see there's two deep safeties. It's hard to see because it's not all 22. But you see before the snap there's two deep safeties. And they don't spin one down to replace the blitzer like you would in a traditional fire zone. They're still playing quarters rules. So like the the linebacker in the middle becomes like the outside pearl flat kind of guy.

38:35So you're this is a way to get pressure and still keep your safeties up high. Yes. So now you're talking about blitzing five. It'll have states if the offensive line blitzing five at Julian say it robot saying to heat them up a little bit. But then they're still getting the bracket effect on all of their deep routes from two deep safeties on either side of the field. And you have good enough depth here also to contest if they decide to go short in that situation for a hot route. Yeah, they're like in press on top. And then to the field you can play with more space because it's a long throw. But these like in a scooch it's like a normal thing. It's like a normal quarters two deep alignment. There's another one below it too. I think this one you see them hit to so they bring the nickel on this one. Yeah, it's in little tin. They do hit the tight end for a small game. Yeah, which is I've said, they're willing to do that.

39:41They can cause a little bit of trouble. But they haven't they have to be willing to do it. And then the tight end has to actually hurt you. Like they like Texas state did this and they scored seven points. And there's a difference between one play doing this is a high-estate going to do it 12 times. Yeah, you know, that's a major factor too. So it seems like you're pretty confident here in this and the defense first in Texas or a high-estate offense. Is that correct? I think that must-champ has been preparing his guys to do this for since he got here. What do you think the key to? I think this is gonna be the plan all year. And we'll we'll see it. What do you think of our run game? Oh, how states? It looks bad. It looks like worse than normal. I'm not ever really that afraid of the high-estate run game. I haven't seen I've never seen an Ohio State team with Ryan Day that could go in against a playoff defense with future NFL defensive lineman

40:43and actually impose their will in the run game. I don't think I've seen that ever a single time. Maybe the Dobbins team and Clemson adjusted and played the flyover and shut it down. They're like confused to crap out of them. And then the other 25th run game was very good with jetkins. Not against Michigan. They scored 10 points. Yeah. They were decent against Michigan. They were decent against us. Not enough to win though. Not enough to win. Not without their own defense like obliterating the opposing offense. How do you feel overall about this offense compared to former Ohio State Offices? I think the run game looks worse than normal. I think the protection and the line look worse than I expected. Maybe they'll get it in a better place for this week than we saw against ball state. You need to anticipate that. But the challenge level is so high

41:49because of like Simmons and Biles and everything must jump is going to do. So those things look pretty rough to me. The level of skill and the passing game when they can actually get into their stuff that they want to do seems like it's for sure better than last year. I think McCurran was a really smart addition. He looks good. Yes and no. Like I think if Henry was as dominant as I thought he would be that would have been scarier. Sure. And then when you just move McQuinn to slot. Let's see here. 23. Who did they have in 23? They had freshman Smith and then they had... I'm thinking 24. They had freshman Smith and they had... 24 was good. I don't think they're going to be that good. They had Will Howard.

42:53Was it Tate at that point? Tate? No, I don't think so. I was Tate. Was there number three or something then? Yeah. They had a Buka, Jeremiah Smith. They had the Travion Henderson, Quinchon, Jenkins, combo. They had Will Howard. That's not going to be that good. I haven't seen a lot from Innis with them. He's in this lot a lot but I haven't... he was clearly like the number three guy out there by a large margin. Yeah, I saw him. Yeah. It sounds like... Arthur Smith wants to get big and run the ball. Which honestly, if they could actually do that, that would make McQuinn and Smith almost impossible. But I don't think they can actually do it. That's another thing. In this game, if Ohio State is like, we're going to play in 12 personnel, get you to spend a safety down and then we're going to

43:53throw it deep to Smith and McQuinn on one-on-one. Do not fall for it, Miss Champ. Stay in Nekkel. Stay in too deep. Make them prove they can actually run the ball. Play a big nickel and... Yeah. I just hope that they don't leak the one explosive and that changes the game. They're before half-screen or like their Cornell tape. I just hope the margin is not that thin. What? You can tell from Sarc's presser that he knows like, we've really let them off the hook by letting them score early and take control of the game. Yeah. And on Sarc's end, it's going to be like, we have to score early. If we can score early for once in this game, we can put this team in a real bind. Yeah, we can make him chase. Because that's what Dale do. He'll get up and then he just hangs out for the rest of the game. And Sarc said in the presser that like, we have to be aggressive early. We have to score early. I think that's a big factor. I just don't want it to be where like,

44:56because they had a few explosives all in the second half. But those guys can move, man. Legend Bay, man. Did you watch his highlight? He had some of the great... Yeah, Legend Bay. He's the third string back, but he was a quarterback at... Where was he at, guys? Mesquite? He's in from Texas. He had a lead short area quickness, man. Like he has remarkable short area quickness. So you got to watch... Oh, yeah, I don't know. Should check him. You're so interested. I don't know, man. They have the explosivity in the run game. And so it's just figuring out if they get one of two or two of those, is that change the whole outcome of the game? 40. That's kind of my big focus and key there. But they weren't consistent down to down. That's for sure in the run game. I've never been afraid of Ohio State's run game. I'm not going to start now. No, I'm not afraid of it. I'm saying if they do get the one or two

45:59explosives, does that change the game? You seem very dismissive of Ohio State's offense today. That's why I'm trying to figure out why it's kind of like, yeah, whatever. I think they're going to... I don't think they're as good as last year though. Maybe that's where it's coming from. That's just the same thing every year. Yeah. It's kind of like... It's honestly, it's kind of like brinventable's defense where it's like if you cannot clear the hurdles, you're going to have it. You're going to die. Yeah. But if you can, like the formula is out there. You can win. You can... It's been done many times. Yeah. Let's hear a quick word here from Drew. If you're running a business in Texas, could be real estate construction, manufacturing, things like that. You need to talk to fellow Longhorn Drew Smith at Hub International. So most companies outgrow their insurance, never realize it, never go back and update it until a claim gets denied or a gap costs them. Then you notice,

47:00Drew builds those tailored programs. So not generic quotes where you just blast it out to everybody. You get emails for the rest of your life. And he's gotten denied claims paid in full. He saved one real estate portfolio nearly $500,000 through his smart restructuring program. So rates are shifting right now. If your agent's only answer is it's a hard market, AKA I don't need to do anything for you. You need to call Drew Smith. 2103938382. Make sure you guys go and talk to Drew before you're running a little not after. That's a big, big key. All right. So let's flip the sides of the volume. Texas offense versus Ohio State defense. What do you like there? What do you not like? I need to think about this one more, but I mean Texas is very similar in that it's like they want to run the ball, but they really only want to run the ball because they know they have to. They really want to be circularly wants to be throwing it. And he knows that the run game has to be

48:04real to allow them to get away with it. All the stuff that he wants to do. But I think Sark is more multiple in clever than day is. I think day is a little more like I'm going to do a few things extremely well with elite athletes and you're not going to be able to stop it. And Sark is like I'm going to do like a million things. All right. I'm going to catch all right. I'm going to catch you with some of them. I kind of think day's method is almost a little better. Except that they like they accept that it's so contingent on running the ball effectively and then they just don't do it well consistently. Whereas Sark has two trump cards that make me feel really good in this matchup. One is that his passing game is a little more varied and it's hard. You can't just be like like with Ohio State is I've been saying it's like we're going to play too deep. We're going to

49:04bracket everything deep and you can either throw underneath or you can run. And they're like well we're going to run and then you stop it and then that's it. Sark will throw it. Sark will spread you out and throw it underneath from a lot of different formations in a lot of different ways. And he will he's he's not going to let your linebackers just play linebacker all day. He's going to make them cover in space in a way that Ohio State just doesn't do. And so that's a big advantage having that spread card to play. And then he has this other unique advantage this year which is like how many people would be shocked if we wake up in the morning and the newspaper is archbanging running for a long touchdown on the cover of the statesman. Yeah especially in games like that man. Like you can run arch 1015 times in this game as just to take things up a notch and then all of

50:06sudden you have a run game in a different way and what are they going to do about it you know it's really hard to stop that when you're already worried about so many other things. So sugar probably says we won't be able to run I feel it in my bones. Probably not. Yeah. Probably not. But what you do is you run now and then to make them to force them to respect it just so they know what can happen. Like you did in Tuscaloosa in 23. Like since this did not run the ball well in that game they ran the ball at the end of the game when Alabama was totally gassed to run out the clock with a lead. But they didn't run the ball efficiently at all in that game before that. But they did it enough and the passing game was good enough to be able to like mix in those runs and as long as you didn't get like huge negative plays or fumbles you could stay on track Texas needs to do that. They don't need to run they don't need their running backs to go for 100 yards. You just need to do that you get a couple big you and then you just

51:10get a couple game changers from arch either a really long explosive scramble or keep or touchdown in the red zone. And either of those things in your golden as long as the passing game is not you know shoot up and spit out in the case. Yeah because we've seen what happens in the big games when our run game falls apart but can the past game make up for that. Is there been a game where Texas's run game fell apart where the passing game wasn't also bad. I know that's what I worry about is like the somehow the passing game is so tied to that fundamental bedrock that once you take it away the passing game actually doesn't work. I also I don't know if like we've talked to pack a lot about this. Ohio State's past defensive personnel is a little bit upgraded in skill enough letticism but I don't know if it's upgraded enough for this. Didn't Texas run wild last year

52:14against them so they gave us the run last year schematically. They also didn't run wild. We ran like they didn't run wild they had a good yards per carry but really is because they they would just between the 20s they wanted to focus on the pass and then as soon as we got into the red zone they would go okay now we're playing run defense. Oh this is true didn't Ryan owns Liberty Hill. That's true. I played ever. I don't think ever. Didn't Ryan is in a different weight class. Friday, Vandergriff comes up here to play Liberty Hill and I promise you this it's going to be a shootout or a blowout. Yeah but Liberty Hill is not going to stop Vandergriff. Yeah. So it's going to be a fireworks kind of game. I don't know we had to play Lake Travis in this state championship and Lake Travis just beat the hell out of us dude. That wasn't even close man that was that was a rough one

53:14but it is true. Shout out to in Ryan. So what do you what if Ohio State does the same thing here where they're like between the 20s man do whatever you want you can have your running backs we're going to shut down the red zone what do we have to be able to do still running the red zone maybe not so Arch needs to be able to get uses legs and Cam Coleman has to catch her fade. Yeah. There's a lot of things Texas can do. They have tight ends that can pick their receivers near the goal line. They can I'm mildly optimistic that Texas can run when they absolutely have to because of the tight ends. I don't think that there's going to be there's not going to be like said Benson controlling a game with 31 carries for 160 yards. That's only that's going to happen this year unless it's against a bad team but I think explosive I don't see that happening running backs are far more athletic. I mean there were sometimes where Trey Weissner

54:15you know had an opportunity against the safety not Caleb Downs and he just wasn't fast enough. I think if we get like two or three explosives I don't care if we run for a yard but if we can get two or three explosives too I think that changes the calculus. I think I think something will slip somewhere in Texas is going to get big plays off on Ohio State just somewhere. They have so many weapons all over the place. I feel like it's like inevitable that every team is going to have a mistake or two that results in really brown doing like some stupid celebration in the end zone. I love I love the celebrations go go have fun. It could be a run it could be a screen it could be a deep pass it could be a short pass. So is this game in your head of slog or is it going to be you know 35 31. No I don't think so. I can't see Ohio State doing that to this defense.

55:15I kind of feel like it's going to be like Tuscaloosa 23. What was that 24 10 or something? Yeah. I think Texas is kind of going to grab control this game and like put him away. You're confident man. I don't I don't I really I have to see this game like I've been thinking about all week like having to do predictions and stuff like that. It's like I just have to see this game man like I'll know what I think of Texas after this game. But I like your confidence. The thinker 6141 says Michigan was cheating. Yeah he said Michigan beat Ohio State because Ohio are Michigan knew their place. I have three rebuttals to this. Okay he's prepared. 2024 was after all the Congress Stallions stuff. And Michigan came out and did the same thing and it still stuffed him. So were they still cheating? How are they still cheating? What are they doing? Second we're Indiana and Miami also cheating.

56:19So it's just everybody's cheating when they play the buck guys and the buck guys lose. It's because they're cheating. Is that why Texas held Jeremiah Smith to nothing in 2024 and 2025? Because they were cheating. It's playing two deep safeties cheating. Third. Ohio State absolutely cheats. They every people talk about it all the time. That Ohio State has like sign stealing operation and everything. There's like like Coach Voss has talked about it openly. Where he's like consulted with teams and they'll talk about building defensive game plans for Ohio State. And like one of the things is like we know they have our signs. They have everybody's signs. We don't know how but they have everybody's signs. So gotta anticipate that they're cheating in that regard. So he has not buying it. Yeah. I hate man. I like your confidence dude.

57:22I don't have that level of confidence yet. I just I know because I don't trust the Texas run game and I don't think immediately it means that the Texas past game will pick up the slack. Even though I love our receivers, I just don't know if that that happens. And then with the defense, I'm still like I just need to see more from the defense. You don't think you're going to see it like in the Canstale Bamberman 23 where they just made it. But that's our one example of that happening. And then every other one. So we want to Michigan in 24. Yeah, I don't know. Michigan. What did Michigan end up ranked that year? I'm talking about like the really big matchups against like the top five. Oh, the big matchup when it happened. When it happened. But that doesn't doesn't matter. It was week two. I'm talking about the guys that we know ended up being really, really good. But they've made so many of those games. I know. We played what played five or six or something like that. And one of them has been Alabama. So they and they want. I know the other five times we look like we had never played offense before.

58:28So it's like trying to figure figure that out. And we were for like 2.1 yards of carry. They did some good stuff to Washington in the playoff game. Yeah, they passed our in reverse Washington. It's mostly Ohio State in Georgia. It's just not apples to apples when they played Ohio State in 24. Golden got injured during the game. And Quinn was not archvading. Yeah. And then it's 25 like arch had the yips in the personnel sucked. Yeah. And they started. Why are we still? I'm just saying we thought last year that this was a thing of the past. And it wasn't. So it's just we saw one of the worst performances we've seen. So it's just that's why I just don't have the projectable confidence of like, therefore, Texas will look really good on offense. I just not there yet. And then with the defense too, I just want to see a little bit more of us in man coverage,

59:31how that looks. I want to see the bullets packages, how we get to saying all that stuff. But yeah, I just don't have that level of confidence. I need to actually see the game. Then I'll know exactly how I feel about the rest of the season. So that's nice to have that week too as well. All right, everybody. Any final thoughts Ian, forward, get out here. There's an Ohio State or somewhere saying the same thing on their side. Yeah. Yeah. We and there's an Ian on their side saying the same. Yes. Of course, but I'm just I don't have the the raw confidence here, especially dude. They were doing really good and intermediate. So it's like, our pass rush has to be there because it's not going to be purely chasing the deep ball. No, the team with Colin Simmons has to rush the passer. No, but it's not. Can you even imagine a imagine a possibility or that they get it out? I have to see how the match looks because if they're able to get it out quick, then they can solve for it. So it's like, can Colin Simmons get there in two seconds? And are we covering down well to where they

1:00:32can never get it there in two seconds? If Ohio State's wide receivers are wide open within two seconds on a consistent basis, then this will be a bad day for Texas. I agree. All right, everyone head over to inside Texas. You can read all the analysis, recruiting, all that jazz. And of course, this was brought to you by Academy Sports and Outdoors. Stay locked in for rest of the shows coming at you today. See you later.