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Dan Hope and Andy Anders of Eleven Warriors bring you inside the Ohio State beat every Wednesday with a podcast covering everything you need to know about the Buckeyes.
Note: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been edited for errors.
[Dan Hope]
Welcome into Real Pod Wednesdays. I'm Dan Hope. He's Andy Anders, here as we have reached the midpoint of the Ohio State football season, Ohio State coming off of its first loss of the season as the Buckeyes suffered a 32 to 31 loss to Oregon at Autzen Stadium on Saturday.
I was there, Andy, you were not. Therefore, you did not have the opportunity to be a part of our After Carmen show. And so I'm going to give you the floor to start this episode.
Had a few days now to digest that Ohio State versus Oregon game. What are the prevailing thoughts that are sticking out in your mind from that game?
[Andy Anders]
Well, when you lose, you have to start with what's bad. So I'm going to start with what's bad. Defense was not pulling up to its standard in that game.
And yes, as our own Kyle Jones is, you know, often quick to point out following some of these results. Offense has the advantage when talent becomes equated. That's the way modern football works.
And so I may be, you know, your initial reaction is to maybe give less slack than you should. That being said, I think Jim Knowles was a step behind in this game from a schematics perspective. Oregon came out and did some things I think Ohio State wasn't expecting.
You see Denzel Burke get burnt on a couple of deep balls after talking the way he talked during the week, the way it goes sometimes. Sometimes to cuss a little bit, you talk shit, you get hit sometimes. So that's what happened in that situation I think in a little bit.
But the more symptomatic thing of it is Oregon, what we talked about last week, offense predicated on quick passes, getting the ball in space to their receivers and their weapons. And I think they came with a more downfield oriented attack that Ohio State was maybe not ready for. And on the flip side of that, while there's some premium numbers on pro football focus that suggest Ohio State was getting more consistent pressure than Oregon's defensive front maybe, I still think you just didn't feel the defensive line's presence in this game, especially as Dylan Gabriel sat back in the pocket.
He had time to diagnose and find the right read and get the ball delivered. And you just didn't feel the presence of all the talent that is supposed to be on Ohio State's defensive line in this game. One major thing I think stock went down for me was the rushman package.
Putting defensive ends at defensive tackle, you don't seem to be getting the interior pass rush that you need on those obvious third and long type of passing downs to collapse the pocket that Tyleek Williams and Ty Hamilton provides sometimes. Now, I get you do have to rest those guys someplace. They rolled in Caden McDonald, Jason Moore at defensive tackle a little bit, and you could tell that the defensive tackles for Ohio State were getting gassed.
Oregon ran some tempo. I also think there was a lack of creativity up front in spaces, not mixing a lot of fronts, not doing a lot of stunts, just re-watching the film. And this is also something that our own Kyle Jones pointed out.
You just don't get the sense that Ohio State is scheming things up to change the looks for Oregon's offensive line in that game. And then again, on the flip side, you know the secondary, they gave up those downfield shots, and then once Oregon did opt for the short game, it was opened by that. So Oregon did a fantastic job scheming, and it just felt like the Ducks were a step ahead of Jim Knowles on the offensive side coordinating against that defense in this game.
Flip side of things, Ohio State's offense shot itself in the foot a few times. Saw the Quintron-Judkins fumble, obviously. Penalties hurt.
Overall, though, I think Will Howard was my biggest standout overall from this game. I think, you know, you sit back a few days later and say, look, Ohio State's goals are all in front of them, all in front of them. So you can take positives from this game and dwell on them for a little bit and say Will Howard played phenomenal.
I think 80% completions against that kind of defensive mind that Dan Lanning has. And obviously having receivers like Emeka and Jeremiah helped. Emeka, 10 catches on 10 targets, that's an awesome stat.
But Will showed he's ready for the big moment. It's just that the team didn't get enough to get – it's a one-point loss on the road to a really, really good Oregon team. And Will, of course, the counter to that is didn't make the best decision with the ball in the final moments.
Ohio State wasted a little bit of time after the offensive pass interference penalty. And that's – Will was trying to get the ball snapped, but they just didn't get it off and lost a few seconds there. The intentional 12-minute on the field penalty.
A lot of things at the end of that game that go wrong. And Will, I just think, miscalculated and didn't get to the ground in time to call a timeout on the final play. But that's one final play.
I don't take that and say I'm going to ignore everything else Will Howard did in this game. He played fantastic. So that's a positive.
Receiving court was elite. Offensive line, I thought, played pretty well. But I think the biggest negative you take from the offense in this game isn't anything they did on the field.
It's that you lose Josh Simmons likely for the season. And we'll dive into that a little more later. But I think more than any defensive concern I have coming out of this game, my biggest worry for the Buckeyes is how good is that next left tackle going to be moving forward?
[Dan Hope]
Yeah. I mean, later in the show we'll kind of talk about how this loss impacts our outlook for the rest of the season. And I think when I think about my outlook for the rest of the season and what changes because of this game, the number one thing that could potentially change my outlook for the rest of the season is the fact that Josh Simmons will not be playing rest of this year, assuming the initial diagnosis that it is a season ending injury is correct.
Because, I mean, we said it before of a year. I mean, I've said it outright. I think he was the most indispensable player on this team because I think offensive tackle was the weakest spot on the roster in terms of depth.
And now you've lost your best offensive tackle. Someone who just last week was named a midseason All-American by the Senior Bowl, who I think we both agreed was playing excellent football. That left side of the offensive line had really become a strength.
People were talking about him as a potential first round NFL draft pick. And now to lose him for the rest of the year, that's a huge loss. And that is the kind of loss that could potentially make or break things for this team down the stretch, especially in the biggest games of the year.
So I do think if you're looking like long-term outlook on this game, losing Josh Simmons is the worst thing to come out of this game. And we'll see what does Ohio State do to replace him. Do they stick with Zen Mahalsky at that left tackle spot?
Could they potentially move Adonovan Jackson outside? Austin Searville took some reps at tackle in preseason camp. Could he potentially move outside?
There's no great options. I'm sure with this being a bye week, I'm sure when the Buckeyes are practicing this week, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of experimentation going on with potential options at that left tackle spot. And it's something that they're going to really have to work hard to figure out over the next couple of weeks.
And whether Ohio State can find a satisfactory answer at that left tackle position could certainly go a long way toward determining whether or not this Ohio State team can achieve its goals, which are still all in front of it. All the goals remain on the table for Ohio State. Despite this loss, they could still win the Big Ten.
They could still make the college football playoff. They could still win the national championship. But losing a player of Josh Simmons's caliber at a position as important as left tackle certainly cannot be overlooked as something that could make a massive impact on this team.
That said, I want to get back to the defense for now because I don't think there's any question the point that you made is correct that when the talent equates, the offense tends to have the advantage. I mean, neither of us expected the defense to hold Oregon to 10 points or anything like that. I think did we both predict 27 points?
Is that correct, Andy, for Oregon?
[Andy Anders]
Yes, yes.
[Dan Hope]
So in terms of points, they only gave up five more points than we actually expected. Now, granted, Oregon left some points on the table. They botched the extra point on their first touchdown.
They then went for two. That didn't work out on their second touchdown. They missed a field goal.
They had the turnover on downs. So they left at least eight points on the board. And so the score does not fully reflect the poor defensive performance, but it was.
And I think there's three numbers that I really look at that really sum up why this was a bad performance for the Ohio State defense. Zero sacks, zero takeaways, eight plays of 20-plus yards allowed. That's a bad combination, especially when you think about the evolution of this Jim Knowles defense and what it's supposed to be right now.
Because Jim Knowles came in in 2022. There was a big emphasis on being aggressive and trying to make plays in the backfield, make sacks, force turnovers, even if that came at the expense of giving up some explosive plays. Then Ohio State gave up way too many explosive plays in the Michigan and Georgia games.
And there was a big philosophy shift last year. Okay, but now the number one priority has to be stopping explosive plays. And they did that.
They did a great job of that last year, became one of the best defenses in the country, did a great job of preventing those explosive plays. Now, you know, coming into this year, the hope has kind of been to marry that all together in terms of, you know, getting more sacks, forcing more turnovers, but still not allowing those big explosive plays. That's still being the number one thing on the top of a pyramid.
And so, you know, we've heard Ryan Day say it both times he's spoken since that loss. He's repeatedly brought up, we gave up too many X plays, X plays being explosive plays. That's the number one thing.
If you are going to restructure your defense so that it's designed not to give up lots of explosive plays, then giving up eight plays of 25 plus yards is unacceptable, no matter who the opponent is. That's a problem. And then when you couple that with the fact that you didn't make game-changing plays on defense either, it was not a good enough performance for the Ohio State defense in a game of this magnitude, especially when you think about what this defense is supposed to be, the amount of talent that this Ohio State defense has.
And to me, I think one of the most damning indictments of it, we both said this when we were talking over Slack during the game, is we were not confident when Ohio State needed to make a stop with the game on the line, we were not confident that Ohio State would be able to do it. They ended up getting half a stop. They did force a field goal, which gave Ohio State's offense a chance to win the game in the final moments, but they did allow Oregon to bleed a lot of time off the clock, drive the ball down to the one-yard line.
And the fact that we could see that coming kind of as it was unfolded, I think that's a damning indictment for how the defense played in this game, because this defense on paper is supposed to be dominant. And I mean, look, going into this game, Ohio State was ranked number one in the country in total in scoring defense. So, you know, the year as a whole, you know, there's, there's still reasons for optimism about what this defense can be going forward, but to give up 496 yards to be the reason, I mean, we, I mean, we both thought going into the year, I think even just going into this game, if Ohio State lost these kinds of games, it was going to be because of its offense.
And I think I would certainly say that Ohio State lost this game because of its defense.
[Andy Anders]
Yeah, absolutely. And you talk about 496 yards, again, 32 points in those eight explosive plays, all the most they've given up since the Peach Bowl 2022 against Georgia. And it beckons back to that game in some ways where you just felt like, oh, and that was, you know, end of year one for Jim Knowles, where they weren't getting again, those chaos plays that he was brought in to make.
I mean, his style at Oklahoma State that he then modified in year two at Ohio State was to give up some big plays in exchange for a lot of big defensive plays, those sacks, tackles for loss and turnovers. And in Georgia, you kind of got neither. And in this game, you got neither.
You know, you gave up explosives and you didn't make big plays yourself on defense as much. And so, or really at all in this game. So that is not a good combination.
If you're going to do one, like at least last year's defense, in most of these games, they were not allowing teams to have those big plays, forcing them to drive the field, maybe playing some bend, but don't break when they had to. The Notre Dame game comes to mind. Obviously, they were just dominant in that Missouri game.
People will bring up the Michigan game, and that was probably their worst performance, but I still think the defense didn't play awful in that game. This is, for me, the worst defensive performance Ohio State has had since that Peach Bowl. And so, this is a perfectly timed bye week for that defense to figure out where it went wrong.
Because like you said, this defense does have the talent. I firmly believe this defense has the talent to be the best defense in the country. Where are they coming up short on the schematics?
I think there's definitely some things that need to be looked at and considered. But it's also like personnel and who you're deploying in certain situations, and are guys the best fits for what they're doing? Some of that needs to be thought about, too.
Like I said with the Rushman package and other little details like that. Not to say there weren't any positives from this game defensively. Cody Simon and Sonny Stiles, for the most part, played well, I thought.
Coming into this season, all year, felt like the linebackers were the biggest question mark on the defense. The defensive line and secondary really were the two units that you sit back after this game and go, yeah, they didn't play well. Both Cody Simon and Sonny Stiles had career high in tackles.
Sonny, I thought, showed Oregon's first drive. Ohio State's defense got a stop, and Sonny made a really nice open field tackle to get him off the field in space, covering a tight end. That was the thing you questioned about him early in the season.
So it was interesting to see them answer. However, I will say, on the Blitz, they were not as effective as they needed to be. They had some chances to get home, and they just missed Dylan Gabriel.
So that, to me, I think they need to be like, I just expected them to be better Blitzers in some of those situations. That would be my one nitpick of them from this game. But mostly, it's Denzel Burke.
Caleb Downs did have a nice game. I thought Jordan Hancock played well, getting involved in coverage and helping to break up a few things. But when your best cover corner supposedly gives up eight catches for 179 yards, it's hard to win the game then.
Again, not to say he was the only issue with the secondary. There were some blown coverages elsewhere, but you can't have that. This defense needs to sit back and figure it out.
Denzel needs to sit back and figure it out because we both know he's capable of way better. I think it's just that soul search moment for the defense. Look, there have been plenty of teams in the past that have won national titles that lose a game and look inside and figure out the flaws and then reproduce better efforts later.
We saw it in 2014 at Ohio State when they lost to Virginia Tech early in the year. But it's a lot of questions that need answered in this bye week and then going into the Nebraska game for this Ohio State defense because guess what? After that Nebraska game, you've got to go to Penn State and probably win a top five game on the road that will.
This game didn't cost you your Big Ten title ambitions, but if you lose that, it's going to be really hard to get back to the Big Ten title game.
[Dan Hope]
As I watched that game on Saturday, I sat there and I wondered. I go, man, I wonder how many of our listeners are out there going, man, that idiot Dan Hope tried to tell me Denzel Burke was the best player on the team. I didn't disagree with you.
It was a bad night. I mean, we can't sugarcoat it. I think Denzel, being the honest guy he is, would be the last guy to sugarcoat it himself.
I mean, he was the worst player on the field, which is shocking because he's a guy that, again, I don't think one game should overshadow the good things he's done over three and a half years in his career. I still think he's a really good player. But he had a bad night, straight up.
I mean, if you go off of pro football focus numbers, he allowed eight catches for 179 yards and two touchdowns. Oregon repeatedly picked on him, and he had said it. He said, you know, I'm made for these moments.
He just didn't arrive for that moment. You know me. I hate singling out one player and saying, you know, this guy is a reason why Ohio State lost.
Because he's certainly not the sole reason. I mean, I think you can look at a lot of players and look at something. Even the guys who mostly played well.
Like you mentioned, Caleb Downs played well. But Caleb Downs basically gave Oregon a possession because he was not prepared for the surprise onside kick. Even though Ohio State had a formation on there, it made it clear they were expecting the onside kick.
Oregon kicked the ball off of him. He wasn't prepared for it. Oregon recovers.
That's a free possession. They go down and score a field goal. You know, that's a difference in the game right there.
Jeremiah Smith, we would both agree he played fantastic for the most part. But his offensive pass interference penalty, if he doesn't commit that penalty, good chance Ohio State wins the game. Will Howard, like you mentioned, played a great game, but made a mistake there last play of the game.
Quenshawn Judkins, he's been great all year, but he got the ball stolen out of his hands. That's a key turnover. And so there's plenty of blame to go around.
Players and coaches, you know, I don't think anyone should be blaming this loss on one player or one coach individually. I think there's a lot of people who could have done better. And if they had done better, Ohio State could have won this game.
And so it is certainly not a fall on any one player's shoulders, but it's unequivocal. There's no way to spin it. Denzel Burke had a really bad night.
And honestly, I think we were both sitting there watching a game going, maybe they should put Jermaine Matthews in. Like maybe they should take Denzel out of the game because it just, it felt like he just wasn't going to recover from it. And he never really did.
And so that's one thing I think if we just think about going forward, I do wonder if maybe it would be a good thing for Ohio State, even when Denzel's playing well, and Davidson's playing well, to start rotating Jermaine in there a little bit, get him more reps, because, you know, I'm sure the reason why they didn't feel confident throwing him out there is because he really hasn't played that much. But he's shown, you know, last year at Penn State when he got called into a big moment, he's shown that he could handle it. And so I think that's one thing I would like to see, you know, again, you don't have a, you don't have a ton of easy games here coming up here.
You go right into Nebraska and Penn State. It's not like the first half of a season where you get this big ramp up in the second half of a year, you're going to go right into it with competitive games. But I think that's one thing I'd like to see is start rotating Jermaine Matthews in there a little bit, see if he's up to the task of playing more reps, because then if you find yourself in another situation like that, you have a guy that you feel confident bringing it off the bench.
[Andy Anders]
We've seen it from Jermaine in the past. And I just think that it is hard in that situation because you want to trust your guy who's been doing it for a few years. But I agree with you.
And I think that it would have been worth the shot of, Hey, he's having a bad night. Everyone has bad nights, football players and, and, and other professions too. You just, sometimes you're just not at your best and it might've been better for the team to take Denzel out in that moment and get Jermaine on the field and see if he could have done any better.
And again, like not assigning blame to just Denzel because he gets burnt on some double moves, like to get a double move off, the quarterback's got to have time in the pocket. And so if the pass rush is getting home better, Dylan Gabriel isn't finding those big throws down the sidelines. It is truly a team thing, not pinning blame just on Denzel here, but it, it was a situation where you, I think you would like to see Jermaine work in that situation, see what he can do just because your star is struggling.
You did bring up Jeremiah Smith's offensive pass interference though. And I think that leads into another conversation that stemmed from this game and that's officiating. And some of the calls that were made down the stretch or some of the rules that were enforced down the stretch in certain settings, the offensive pass interference, Terry McCauley, rules analyst for NBC weighed in on Twitter, said he thought it was offensive pass interference, clear pushoff.
For me, hand fighting and contact is allowed to happen within five yards of the line of scrimmage. I thought most of the contact, which was partially engaged by the defender happened within that barrier at the top of Jeremiah's route. Maybe they're kind of outside that zone, but again, I just think he gets jammed by the defensive back and Jeremiah is a much bigger player than the defensive back that was matched up against him.
And so when he jams back, he knocks the guy backward and that's the ref sees that. And it just looks like a blatant offensive pass interference. I, I think it's definitely a debatable call.
I'm not going to stick my foot in the sand one way or the other because it was a pushoff, but I think a pushoff that comes as he's battling with the defensive back and was borderline within five yards of the line of scrimmage. So those things are, it's just like a controversy, right? That kind of feeds into this.
And if that offensive pass interference doesn't happen, Ohio state is right on like right in almost chip shot field goal range at that point, it set them back in the game. And then after that, you have this sequence where will Howard is trying to get the ball snapped and time runs off the clock and there's 10 seconds left. Oregon ends up calling a timeout on third and 25 now because they threw Howard through an incompletion after the, the offensive pass interference.
And they on the next play, run a 12th man onto the field right before the ball is snapped after calling a timeout and day and Dan Lanning's comments after the game have seemed to both confirm that that was an intentional thing because 12 men on the field is a live ball foul in the college game. And if it's on the defense and for whatever reason in the NFL, it's a live ball or it's in the NFL is a dead ball foul. So it stops the clock and you just get five yards and replay the down.
But that 12th defender coming on the field helped ensure that there was no big game for Ohio state and four seconds come off the clock. And now you have six seconds left and it's only borderline time for one more play right that now there were still receivers open on that play. As Ryan day pointed out, Ohio state still could have gotten where it needed to go in terms of setting up a field goal with the 12th man on the field, but it wasn't a little bit of gamesmanship there by Dan Lanning and maybe a rule the NCAA needs to look into because theoretically you could throw 20 guys on the field on defense in sure a hundred percent that nothing is happening.
Take the five and just waste the time. Now there, there is a, there is an exception in the rule book about unsportsmanlike conduct for intentionally wasting time in the game. But I think putting 20, I think putting 20 players on the field would have to put, they might qualify for that.
It might qualify for that, but it's still like you see how this, this rule could be bent in the future. The flip side of that is of course, if Ohio state had thrown a 20 yard completion and you get a dead ball foul for the illegal substitution, then it wouldn't have counted. But you would hope like a false start, like other dead ball fouls that the rest blow the play dead before it really goes anywhere.
When they noticed the 12th man, at least that's how you would hope it's enforced. If that rule change were to happen, but for now it was, I mean, it was a, what can you say? It was a brilliant tactic by Dan Lanning to just run a 12th guy out there, take the five yard penalty and try and ensure that Ohio state couldn't get too close to field goal range while wasting some time.
[Dan Hope]
Yeah. I mean, you got to tip your hat to Dan Lanning. It was, it was very smart use of exploiting a loophole that is likely going to be closed.
Ross Dellinger of Yahoo sports talked to Steve Shaw, who is leads the NCAA rules committee. And he said, they're looking into it because they know, I mean, everybody's going to do it now that we've seen it if they don't change the rules. So I'm sure some action is going to be taken here perhaps in time for this weekend's games to, you know, close that loophole you know, could be as simple as, Hey, if they do that, then you put the time back on the clock or, you know, we'll see.
I mean, so something's going to change because otherwise everybody's going to try to exploit that rule going forward. And so something is going to, to change there, but you got to give Dan Lanning credit. I mean, again, these are the things when you start talking about late game coaching and, and all that stuff you know, Dan Lanning won that battle there.
Dan Lanning won that battle. You know, he said it, we spent an inordinate amount of time on situations. They, they had a plan for that play and, and, and they executed it.
And, and Ohio state did not respond the way that it needed to. So you got to just kind of, you know, tip your hat to Dan Lanning on that one. It's not the, the officials called it the way they were supposed to call it.
It's just the fact that, you know, Oregon did something smart and Ohio state didn't respond. So, you know, you got to give Oregon credit for that. It's something that, you know, everybody's going to learn from the whole sports going to learn from.
I mean, I'm sure of it. If a rule doesn't change, every single coach is showing that clip to its team this weekend and saying, Hey, if we end up in this situation, here's what we got to do. I think probably a lot of things there on that last sequence are probably being shown in meeting rooms around the country this week.
Certainly the last play as well about, Hey, if you can't slide with one second left on the clock, because it's going to hit zeros by the time we get granted a timeout. So there's a lot of things to learn from there at that end of game. Sequence and, and certainly something that, you know, Ohio state, if they end up in this situation again, they've got something to prove here because, uh, right or not, Ryan day has a reputation of not being great in those late game situations.
And this only adds to that reputation. I don't know that I quite agree with that to the extent that some people have it. I mean, you think back to last year's game against Notre Dame, Ohio state was able to, you know, find a way to win that game.
So it's not like every time he's been in this situation, Ohio state loses, but certainly there there's been enough close games that he hasn't won. I think, I think based on my record, I did some quick math very late at night, be overnight. I think I'd have to go back and double check it, but I think he's four and four, uh, in one score games as Ohio state's coach, because Ohio state just doesn't play a lot of one score games, but four and four, I mean, it's not a great record, but it's not a horrible record.
So I think we're probably both in agreement here. We're not, we're not on the train of fire. Ryan day right now, because of this loss, it, it increases the pressure on him going forward to the rest of this season.
Uh, especially if those big goals in mind of, you know, beating Michigan, winning a big 10, you know, you know, winning the national championship, you know, those are still the goals. And if you, you know, don't go out and achieve those goals, Ryan day is going to feel some heat, especially that first goal. And you know, that second goal as well, but I don't look at this game and say, Oh, what a horrible game for Ryan day.
But I will say that he got out coached in the late game situations. I would certainly say that Jim Knowles got out coached, uh, with, with some of the schematic stuff that, you know, Oregon did and Ohio state just never seeming to find a response. And so certainly I think for both of them, uh, you know, there's a lot of pressure coming out of this game to, you know, again, whether it's Penn state, whether it's Michigan, whether it's any of the big games you'll play the rest of this year, uh, you, you, you've got to have a better response.
I mean, we, we, we've heard Ryan day say it before about, you know, when you get, you get punched in the mouth, how do you respond? Well, they've been punched in the mouth now, how do they respond? Uh, we'll, we'll see in the second half of this season, going back to the offensive pass interference.
I'm with you. I mean, I think it was a borderline call. I'm not going to sit here and say it was a bad call.
I'm not going to sit here and say that the officials have a reason why Ohio state lost this game, but I don't love the call on that situation because the DB did initiate contact. And, you know, there is some sense of, you want to let the players play in that situation. And it was a very consequential penalty.
I mean, without that penalty, very good chance. Oh, Ohio state kicks a game winning field goal and wins this game. And, and, and the narrative is completely different about Ohio state right now.
So it was a very consequential penalty. And I, and I do think a, a tough one, even if it wasn't, you know, 100%, a, a wrong one, um, for, uh, Ohio state in terms of a way it was officiated. I do think another question that comes out of that though is, you know, you mentioned the peach bowl.
I mean, that's another one of those games that gets cited as, you know, an example of, you know, Ryan day, not being able to win the game in, in crunch time. And you do wonder if the way that game ended with a missed field goal by Noah Ruggles, if that seeped into his mind at all in that situation, because, you know, once you, once will Howard makes what was a great photo Mecca, Buka gets Ohio state down to the 28 yard line. Now you're in field goal range.
The safest play would have been to just, you know, kind of run the ball up the middle and set yourself up for that field goal. Instead, Ohio state's passing a ball down the field. You know, when you pass the ball, there's a bigger chance of, of bad things happening.
Not to say you couldn't get a penalty or a tackle for loss on a run. And you were kind of at the edge of that comfortable field goal range. So I'm not necessarily saying Ohio state shouldn't have passed the ball in that situation, but you know, everything looks clear in 2020 hindsight, you could say, well, you know, maybe Ohio state shouldn't have been putting the ball in the air there.
Maybe Ohio state should have just been running the ball, playing it safe to preserve it. It's field goal position, knowing that you only needed those three points to win the game. What is your thoughts on that?
Andy?
[Andy Anders]
I, I don't think I would agree with that only because, like after the Georgia game, everyone was mad at day for not being aggressive enough, trying to get a closer field goal, 45, 46 for a former walk on kicker. That's what the field goal. If you're at your 28, if you're at Oregon's 28 yard line, it's going to be a 45 or 46 yarder.
That's for me, that's on the outskirts of his range. Yes. Makeable for Jaden fielding.
But if you can make it 30, then go do it. Make it a chip shot. Like why risk it?
You know, or in that sense. And yeah, you, like you, you pointed out, you take a risk throwing the ball, but I think we've lauded day for playing aggressive in certain situations. This year.
I think a lot of the public has lauded day for being willing to go for it on fourth down in some situations where he clearly wasn't willing to last year where everyone was calling for him to go for it last year.
[Dan Hope]
And so now.
[Andy Anders]
Yeah. In this game, he went for it in some, you know, borderline fourth down situations and to then flip it on him and say, oh, you should have been conservative. Just, it seems like, like, how can he win?
You know, because if he had run the ball and it gets stopped for no gain and fielding kicks a field goal wide ride from 45, everyone is mad for the opposite reason. So I like the call to keep pressing it. After that pass was completed to Jeremiah, it was, you know, going to be like more in the 40 yarder.
Maybe you think about it. Then, um, you know how to say it was going to have to get on the ball because he was tackled in bounds or, or, or call a timeout. You know, there was still some late game management to be had if the OPI flag isn't thrown.
Um, but it's, as far as running a pass in that situation, I like it. And this is a tangent, but you, you've heard me get on this soapbox before. I think the criticism of day on the final drive of that 2022 Georgia game is completely unfair.
Most of it stems from one run, one run he called when Ohio state was five or six yards away from field goal range. And the pass wasn't working on that drive. People forget Marvin Harrison jr.
Was out of the game. Well, they don't forget that, but they forget that because he was out of the game, Ohio state, wasn't throwing the balls effectively be with Georgia, doubling a Mecca, Ibuka. And they just didn't have Jaden Ballard loves Xavier Johnson, but he's just not the same caliber of player as Marvin Georgia.
Secondary was able to blanket him. CJ scrambled for 30 or 40 yards to get them that close. It wasn't a pass.
It was a scramble on a passing play. And then they run the ball in immediately after that, throw two more incompletions. The run was the right call in that situation, even though it didn't work, because if you fall forward for five or six yards, when the entire stadium is thinking pass, you're now kicking a much more makeable field goal, but get tackled for no gain.
And everyone ridicules you after, because you know, the execution wasn't there. It's not on day. I don't think so.
I've always, I've always pushed back on the 2022 drive against Georgia being on him. It's a tangent. It's not that important, but for the, for the sake of this, to me, there were faults in how we handled this late game situation, specifically after the offensive pass interference, either not getting his offense really on the ball quick enough or calling a timeout right after the fly was thrown.
You have to know that's a live ball penalty. Like the, the offensive pass interference, you wasted five or six seconds there when you could have saved it because you, you didn't snap the ball quick enough. Will Howard screaming at him to hike it, et cetera.
So there were, I feel like this one was a little more mismanaged than that Georgia one overall, though, again, Dan Lanning, it was just a great tactic to the 12 men on the field thing.
[Dan Hope]
And I don't fault Ohio state for passing in that situation before on the offensive pass interference, something I've thought about a lot, a lot the last few days is just how much micro analysis there's been of like a 22nd sequence in game time. It like all this is happening so fast. And then we have like days to digest it and say, what should, what should Ryan day have done?
What should Ohio state have done? It's a lot easier to make these decisions and decide what should happen when you have time to think about it, when you have the, the, the hindsight of what actually happened on those plays than it is when you're trying to make a decision in that split second. So again, that's not to absolve Ryan day of any blame here, because to, to your point that you just made, there were certainly things that Ryan day and Ohio state could have done better in that situation.
I mean, they, they, they definitely needed to be more prepared to run a play after the offensive pass interference. You know, you had made the point before about how a lot of times the ref will say, but clock will start on. You're ready to play.
He did not do that in that situation, but it's Ryan day's responsibility to know what the rule is in that situation, especially now that he's not the one calling the offense plays. This is, you know, a bigger part of his job is just managing these situations. It's his responsibility to know that and clearly communicate it to his players, which seemingly didn't happen.
You know, it's, it's his responsibility to make sure of six seconds left that you're telling will Howard, Hey, you got to get, you know, the ball out of your hand quick, or you got to go down with at least two seconds on the clock so that we can call a timeout. Again, it's a lot easier for us to sit here and say this, you know, sitting, sitting at our desk on a Tuesday afternoon than it is when you're in the split second in the heat of battle. And you're, you're trying to figure out how to win the game.
So, you know, I, you know, I think, you know, a lot of people probably think they could do the job better. It's a lot harder when you're actually in that situation. So, you know, I, I think that context is important to remember, but certainly, you know, there are things Ohio state needs to learn from in this game.
And when I think, I think that, that Dan Lanning quote, hearing him say that quote after the 12 men penalty, if we spend a lot of time on situational football, you hear him say that. And then in contrast of Ohio state losing the game, because of that, it almost kind of hearkens back to before of a cotton ball and see, seeing Ryan day sitting next to Eli Drinkwitz and Eli talking about how he had to put his ego aside and then hired an offensive coordinator to call the plays and become that CEO. And then Ryan day going out and doing it.
I think now Ryan day kind of has to have a similar response to that and Ohio state, especially in a bi-week like this really needs to drill down on those, you know, situations and making sure they're prepared to execute in those big moments. Because as you said before, when we talk about the big picture of this season, to me, like, I know it probably doesn't feel this way to Ohio state fans right now, but if we're really talking to big picture of this season and the big goals, you get a Mulligan, like this is the Mulligan for Ohio state, like Ohio state. If it wins the rest of its regular season games will almost certainly be in a big 10 championship game.
The only thing that could potentially keep Ohio state out in a tiebreaker situation would be if Illinois runs the table because Illinois would then beat Oregon. And I don't know, I haven't done all the math yet to see how the tiebreakers would work out. But if you'd got to that point of, you know, identical records and then you're comparing common opponents, you know, Illinois would have a win over Oregon vote.
Ohio state would have an over Penn state. So I don't really know exactly how it works. I don't know exactly what the math is.
I'm probably going to do it at some point this week to try to figure out what would happen if Ohio state and Illinois were both tied as, as one loss teams, but most likely Illinois is not going to beat Oregon anyway. So until that happens, there's not really much reason to worry about it. The other teams that have one loss or fewer right now, Penn state, Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio state plays all of them in the second half of the season.
So if Ohio state beat all of them, it would have the head to head tiebreakers over them. So for all intents and purposes, I think we can say that Ohio state still controls its own destiny to make the big 10 championship game. If Ohio state can win its remaining six regular season games, Ohio state will play for a big 10 championship.
Most likely it would play Oregon again in Indianapolis. And if Ohio state won that game with winning out for us to the rest of this regular season games, Ohio state will be a number two, a number one or number two seed in the college football playoff with a first round by, I mean, I think with Ohio state being ranked fourth in the eight people, Ohio state could probably still lose another game and make the college football playoff as an at large team. But that's certainly not the way they can afford to approach it because the big 10 title is, is a, is a big goal.
Getting that by is a big deal. And the margin for error for making the big 10 title game that is now gone. If Ohio state loses another regular season game, it's very unlikely that it would make the big 10 championship game.
And so that puts the pressure on here going into the second half of a season as like you said, Penn state is, is just a couple weeks away. You know, Nebraska is not going to be a total pushover in that next game. You know, you've gotten Indiana as a team.
You can't overlook now that you play them just a week before Michigan and the way they're playing still undefeated. You can't overlook them. And then of course you have the game at the end of a regular season and you've, you've lost to the rivals for years in a row.
So you certainly cannot look overlook that game either. So you've got really, you know, we talked about it that first half of a season, it was all kind of a ramp up to Oregon and that was going to be the first real test. But now in the second half of a season, you know, I think you've really got four tests there that you've got to, you've got to clear those hurdles.
[Andy Anders]
The second half of the schedule gets so much tougher than the first half on the whole. When you talk about just the consistency of quality opponents and that Nebraska game, that Indiana game, that Michigan game, even if you know, Michigan hasn't looked great lately, the it's still your rival and that's still going to be a hotly contested game with a lot of emotion and you haven't beaten them in three straight attempts and that it's going to weigh on you. The second half of the season, the pressure is there.
Like you said, the Morgan is gone. The margin for error is gone. That's the result of this game.
Big picture wise for Ohio state is yes. All your goals are still in front of you, but they won't be. If, if this happens again, if you lose again in the regular season or well, at any other point, I guess, because if you, if you want to win a big 10 title, you can't lose the big 10 title game.
You want to win, you know, college football, you can't lose a college football playoff game. So you, they have to, they can't lose again. If they want to achieve all three of those goals that, you know, they spent so much money in the transfer portal to get to a place and, and all these seniors came back to do.
And that's the thing that we haven't talked about too much yet, but is going to play to Ohio state's benefit in this situation. They do have a lot of senior veteran leadership on this team. That's been through some of these fires before that's had to handle tough losses.
And how does that unit get themselves and get their teammates to respond and address the issues that are present with the team and propel them forward to obtain all of those goals. But again, Circling back the number one issue that Ohio state needs to figure out on the field in this bi-week and then leading into the Nebraska game is what you do at left tackle. Again, we talked about it earlier.
Josh Simmons, I think was playing at all American level, almost left tackle for Ohio state thus far this season doing fantastic in the run game, a really powerful blocker with great athleticism, who was, who was a wall and just able to be so mobile and lateral in the past protection that he was an anchor. And to me, you know, Ryan day complimented Zen Maholsky after the game. And I think Zen played given the circumstances and played well, but there were some plays where you could, you could tell, you know, his guy kind of got affected.
Will Howard on a pass rush. And like, is this going to be your guy moving forward? Zen last year was supposed to be involved in the offense.
Offensive tackle competition after Ohio state lost its two starters from 2022. And he was kind of like rumored to be in that mix in the heading into the spring. And then by the end of spring, he was kind of out of it and they went and got Josh Simmons.
And he just totally faded from the conversation at all, which is never a good sign for a guy who was then in his third year. Now in his fourth year, where is he at? You know?
And that's going to be a test. Is he the best solution to, with that left tackle position? I think you got to give Austin Sarah Bell to look just based on how he's played at right guard, given his opportunities at left guard, given his opportunities tackles much different, but he plays that spot.
Some in preseason camp. Do you give him considerations there? George Fitzpatrick might be an option who seemed to be their backup right tackle, but now that you have two weeks to kind of battle and figure it out, maybe he gets involved.
Donovan Jackson. It's always been said he could kick out, but he's really never tried that to this point in his career. So I wouldn't expect that because it's a big switch to make.
Although I think the conversation is then, who are you more comfortable with? The left guard left tackle combo. If you slid Donovan out to left tackle would then mean plugging Sarah Belden at left guard.
And that's the argument, right? Is maybe it's some combination of those two specifically who who's better like tackle guard combo between Sarah Belden Jackson, right? One of them tackle one of them guard.
That's another option. So lots of this to discuss and it's for the coaching staff to figure out. Justin Fry has shown he can develop players.
I think just by the way, the offensive line has progressed the first half of this season, but it's a real test of that tackle depth and the development there here in the second half because what a big loss and we have said all season that depth wise tackle was the most concerning position and now it's you lost your best one. So that answer will be provided over the next week is Senate will probably be the number one storyline to watch with this offense. Just how that next left tackle holds up.
[Dan Hope]
Justin Fry is in a tough spot because we've talked about it going into the season. His job is on the line this year and now this could make or break his job. Can can he find the right option to replace Josh Simmons?
That could determine whether or not Justin Fry is still Ohio State's offensive line coach in 2025. So a lot on the line for him. I do think that's a good point.
You make about Jackson and Searvelt because we do hear Justin Fry. You hear all offensive line coaches say it a lot. It's about getting that best five up front.
And I think based on what we've seen, if you were going to pick who are the best five up front. Okay, it's Donovan Jackson. It's Seth McLaughlin.
It's Josh Fryer. It's Tegra Shibola. And it's Austin Searvelt.
So if the object is to get your best five that you have healthy now on the field, you would think Austin Searvelt will be the next man up. And I personally would feel more comfortable with the idea of Donovan playing left tackle and Austin Searvelt playing left guard. That said, that's more just a hunch that while Donovan's athletic enough, he has the skill set that you think he should be able to play left tackle, but he's never done it in his college career.
So you really don't know if he can make that transition. It's a lot harder than people might think. I mean, you can attest to that having been a lineman yourself.
Moving from guard to tackle, it's not just like sliding one spot over and playing the same position. It's very different playing tackle versus guard. And so whoever he can do that, whoever two weeks is really enough time to ramp that up when it doesn't seem like he practiced there much this off season.
He did some last off season, but not as much this off season. So it's a challenging spot for Ohio state to be in, but they have to find the answer because unfortunately for Ohio state, there's no mid season transfer portal. There's no waiver wire in college football.
You can't just go in and pick somebody up off another team and plug them in. You've got to roll with the guys you've got. And so Ohio state has to find an answer.
And that could very well make or break whether Ohio state can win a national championship this year, which is what we predicted before the season. Both of us predicted before the season that Ohio state would lose to Oregon before winning out and winning the big 10 and national championships. And I do agree with your point about as a whole, the second half of the season, the second half is tougher than the first half.
But I think you probably agree with me that we both agree that Oregon is the best team that Ohio state will play in a regular season. Is that correct?
[Andy Anders]
Yeah.
[Dan Hope]
So I am still confident that Ohio state will win the rest of its regular season games. I still think Ohio state will get to the big 10 championship and I think they will win the rematch against Oregon. They only lost by one on the road after a long road trip.
So I like their chances of winning on a neutral field, much closer to home for the Buckeyes and a building where Ohio state has had a lot of success. And so I still, even with this loss, even with the defense not performing up to expectations in its first big test of a season, even with Josh Simmons going down, I still like Ohio state's chances of winning the rest of its regular season games and winning the big 10. I think it's when you get to that winning the national championship stage, that's where I'm maybe not as confident anymore because of the fact that you don't have Josh Simmons sit here right now.
I have to say, do I, do I still think Ohio state will win the national championship? I'll say yes, but it's, it's a more hesitant yes than before the season. And the biggest reason for that is because Ohio state no longer has Josh Simmons.
[Andy Anders]
I think that's a good assessment. I would still definitely pick Ohio state to win the big 10 title. I think get them on a neutral field against this Oregon team and a rematch.
I think they win that game meaning and all they have to do to get there is went out. Right. Again, talked about that national title wise.
I think I've downgraded to an, I don't know. And for me, it's yeah. Obviously Josh Simmons is out.
We've talked about it. The rest of the college football, like who's good. Texas, Texas is good.
Who else? And Oregon's good. Yeah.
Oregon's good. I think Ohio state beats Oregon in a rematch. Like I said, Georgia lost Alabama who lost to Vanderbilt.
Not that transitive applies in that sense, but we'll learn a lot more about both Georgia and Texas this weekend. Yes, that is absolutely true. It's, it's just, I think college football across the board, this happens every year where you come into the season with so much hype behind so many teams and then reality hits and college football fans realize how crazy this awesome sport is.
And I don't know, I don't even know who I'd pick to win the national title right now. I think Texas, maybe, maybe Ohio state, maybe Oregon, maybe Oregon beats him again in a rematch. I just, I don't know.
That's where I'm at, Dan.
[Dan Hope]
No, that's, that's very much how I feel too. And I know our Garrett Codgers made the comparison. This kind of feels like the 2007 season where like Boston college was number two at one point and Kansas was up there.
It was like, it was just, I don't remember all the details, but it was just a wacky season where like, There were a lot of teams up there in the top 10 that were like, not teams that are typically up there. And, you know, somebody up near the top would lose every week and it was constantly changing. And it, it, it, it, this does feel like that kind of season and I think there's so much discourse on the off season and we kind of forget about it when the season starts about NIL and the transfer portal and realignment and how those things impact college sports.
And I don't deny that those things have had their drawbacks on the sport, but I also think all of that is a big reason why this season has been so fun because like the sec and the big 10 are more loaded than they've ever been because you added these other teams into the conferences. I mean like the big 12 is certainly not as good as it used to be, but it's a lot of fun because it's like, who's going to win this conference? Like eight teams can still win this conference.
So like BYU is somehow look the best out of everybody. It's fine. Like, like the team that wins that conference is going to be a four seed.
The CFP that should not be a four seed. And that's a conversation for another day. But like, it's fun.
It's wild. And I think, you know, the other thing that like this season is showing us is like, there was, you know, a lot of talk when this playoff was expanding about like, it's still just gonna be the same four teams at the end of the day. Well, you see the, the, the crazy results that are happening already in this college football season.
It's like anybody can beat anybody. Like let's assume Boise state is obviously like with the possible Heisman trophy winner at running back. Like would anyone really be shocked if Boise state won its first round game?
Like I wouldn't be like, I think, you know, so I, I, I think, you know, this playoff is going to be a lot of fun. I, I still feel very good that Ohio state will be a part of that playoff. And we both agree that we, we picked Ohio state to win the big 10.
Like I said, if I have to pick right now, I will say Ohio state wins the national championship because that's what I picked before the season. And you know what? I've been beating myself up the last three days, but I did not stick with my pick on Oregon because my gut was telling me all week, Oregon was going to win that game.
And I let myself get talked into picking Ohio state. So I don't want to go the other way on that now. So I'm going to stick with what I said before the season that Ohio state's going to lose to Oregon and win the rest of its games, but it's not going to be an easy road.
There's plenty of challenging games coming up for Ohio state here, just in the second half of a regular season. And they've got to clear those hurdles before we can even start talking about post-season and college football playoff and, and national championship and all that. But, you know, I'm looking forward to watching some of these other college football games this weekend, you know, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Indiana, Nebraska, like that's become like a fun and actually like very meaningful big 10 game all of a sudden.
So Michigan, Illinois is going to be very interesting. So I'm looking forward to watching some college football this weekend. Andy, I understand you're going to actually be playing some football this weekend.
[Andy Anders]
Turkey bowl. My friends. I didn't get to do it last year, but my, some of my hometown friends and I do an annual Turkey bowl and just we draft teams and it's just backyard football against each other.
I usually catch a few touchdowns, you know, it's a, cause I'm a very competitive person, but that'll be a lot of fun. And then I'll sit the rest of the day and watch college football with some of those guys. I'm really excited for that.
I can't lie. Maybe even more excited than I I've been for the regular college football games out there. It's there's a lot of there's a lot of, you know, what's the word bragging rights tied up in, in, in this Turkey bowl.
Right. And I'm owing to in my career playing in it. So I gotta, we gotta write those wrongs, Dan.
And there's been, there's even been some diss tracks that have gone back and forth with, with, with, with, with a few of us.
[Dan Hope]
This is like your personal Michigan, man. Like you gotta, you gotta get that monkey off your back. You got to turn the tides in this rivalry.
[Andy Anders]
And the thing is the captain of the other team played for a rival high school who beat me my senior year and they were one in nine and it was their own. And it's been held over my head for nine years. And so it's a little chance at revenge, I guess.
What's what's the line for the Turkey bowl this weekend. The line for the Turkey bowl. I, I will say, I think my team is considered the underdog, but I like being the underdog, Dan.
I we're probably, I think we're, we're probably getting seven, you know, we're, we're getting a touchdown. If you, if you, if you place a bet on us, it'll be smart money.
[Dan Hope]
You like that bulletin board material. Nobody, nobody believes in you. Everybody, everybody, everybody's doubted.
[Andy Anders]
It's rejected.
[Dan Hope]
It's time for Andy and his compatriots to go prove the doubters wrong as he will enjoy the, the bi-week with some football of his own. I will not be playing any football this weekend, but I'll certainly be watching a lot of it here on the bi-week. And then we will get back into it for the second half of the Ohio state football season as Ohio state plays Nebraska at Ohio stadium, noon on Fox on October 26th.
And we will be back next week to look ahead to that game. So we hope you'll join us then.