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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 RealPod Wednesdays. I'm Dan Hope, joined by Andy Anders, and also joined this week by Kyle Jones, our X's and O's guru over at Eleven Warriors. We had mentioned it on press coverage recently that we were going to have Kyle on the show soon to talk more about the new coaching staff, because Kyle certainly knows the scheme as well as anybody, you know, could probably talk in a little more detail about some of the schematic stuff these coaches are going to bring to the staff a little bit better than we can.
So really glad to have you on the show this week, Kyle. Before we get into the new coaches and how that could all look for 2025, we haven't had you on the show since the CFP. So first of all, I wanted to ask you just when you think back on that four game playoff run, just what impressed you the most about what Ohio State did during that run to a national championship?
[Kyle Jones]
Well, it's good to be back, guys. Good to talk to you again. It's been a busy last few months, so I hope you guys are able to catch your breath right now.
Things are going to pick up soon again, I'm sure. It's a great question. And candidly, like the answer I'll give probably won't do it justice because of how memorable that four game stretch was, I'm sure not just for me, for you guys and for all the fans, but there's just so much from a schematic perspective.
But to boil it down, I think there's two things that I'll really remember, first and foremost. And it really applies to both sides of the ball. The first two games and the second two games are two different stories.
The first two games, it was put your playmakers in space. It was like the dream scenario that we've been looking at when you build the roster. It's the video game numbers.
It's all that stuff where all season long you wondered, hey, why aren't they pushing the Jeremiah Smith button enough? And why aren't they getting these talented running backs the ball in the right situations? You know, why aren't they just hitting Emeka Bucca on third down, like just get easy yards?
And it felt like they really went for it offensively in that sense. And you could see the results where it was, we're going to be really aggressive and not, you know, try to force the ball to our second string tight end just to spread things around and break tendencies. Like this was not about breaking tendencies.
Now it was time to push the gas pedal. And I think you saw that full potential of the offense when it was time to push the gas pedal down and not hold anything back in those first two games. The second two games, you know, I thought situationally this team was excellent.
You know, they were prepared. It wasn't just that they executed because you get a lot of teams that they'll play really well. You know, they'll play really tough.
It's the Lou Holtz. You know, they held their water on fourth down and there were like, you know, this team had a couple, you know, goal line stands throughout the season and certainly in that Texas game leading up to the Sawyer scooping tour, like that toughness and all that, no questions asked. But like they were so well prepared situationally.
You know, you hear Day talk about the third and 11 of Jeremiah Smith, like a play that I think everyone will remember who, you know, certainly that was in the building that night or, you know, sober enough to be watching on TV at that point, shall we say. Um, but like they knew, you know, I think he said on Tuesday before the game, like they decided if we're in a situation like this, we're calling this play and we're going to go after, we're going to get one on one. It was about the leverage.
And I think personally, one of my favorite things that's happened in 2014 too, you know, we still sell a t-shirt that I helped make the diagram for, for 80, about 85 yards to the heart of the South. Right. I got an argument with smart football online about whether it was a pin and pull sweep or a buck sweep and all this and that.
But for me, it was great back then. It's the same now where we're talking about ball. We're talking about what happened between the sidelines.
It's not, Oh, well, Notre Dame only had 10 guys on the field. It's not, Oh, well, it's their NIL. It's not those things.
And so for me personally, obviously it was such a fun run to witness. Um, but I love the fact that like, you can talk to any Ohio state fan and be like, well, you know, it was the quarterback's leverage. That's what allowed that play to happen, that magical play.
And like, that's a dream scenario for a nerd like me to be like, yeah, let's talk about cover one leverage from a quarterback and how he pressed the hash marks to make that play happen. So that was probably the thing that I'll remember the most was just those, those situations that, and how well prepared this team really was to take advantage of those moments.
[Dan Hope]
Not to beat a dead horse, but what do you think it was that, that flipped from that Michigan game where the offense just looked broken to taking off the way you described in the CFP?
[Kyle Jones]
I think it's, I truly think it's the mindset of the regular season versus the postseason. They were playing and my cat's going to join the podcast. We've got a special guest here.
He's going to join in. We've got, yeah, this is Cosmo. Um, but you know, I think the thing to keep in mind here is you've heard the people, you've heard the team and day talk, but an allusion, they never said it directly, but you can tell it was, they knew they were getting in no matter what.
And I think with Will Howard getting dinged up in that game and all that, I think it was truly like, we don't, we can save some of our bullets in the regular season. And I think they felt that way that they didn't have to press the pedal down, like I said, and really go for it because they knew they had that margin of error. And also they knew that they had that all that football still left to potentially play.
And I think they were worried about that stretch run. And then when you saw the postseason start, the brakes came off and suddenly it was like, all right, no more, no, no more. Like we don't have this level of cushion.
And we've been waiting all year to get to this point. Now we're here. Now let's show everybody what we can actually do.
And I think you saw the players play with a little bit more, I wouldn't say reckless, but more like they were, they seemed freer and granted they seem more confident and pissed candidly, but they also just, you know, as my cat hears me on this show, but you know, like they, they, you know, you could tell like they were just playing so much freer and playing, you know, to win the game versus to get through the game, which you kind of saw at times.
And certainly in that Michigan game, there were stretches where you felt like those guys don't really love what they're doing right now. You know, they don't love that they're playing in this cold ass game, getting, you know, smashing the ball up the middle and hoping Will's okay. And I think that was that mindset shift, mindset shift that changed really that regular season versus playoff football that, you know, we're not used to the college game, but we're going to start getting more and more used to.
[Andy Anders]
I'm sure we could reminisce for hours about that playoff run and just how great that was for Ohio State, but kind of moving forward to obviously the coaches and kind of what is brought schematically by this. What were your initial thoughts when Ohio State decided to hire Matt Patricia? It's obviously been a little bit polarizing given some of his background, but what were your initial thoughts?
[Kyle Jones]
I mean, I think like everyone else, you go back to, wait, that's the guy who kind of bombed out with the Lions. And, you know, it kind of ended on a sour note, right? Not just like they lost football games, but, you know, you heard a lot about the relationship with players and things like that.
And a lot of that, when you, you know, if that's your only exposure and as fans, I'm sure, you know, I know there's a lot of Lions fans who live north of Toledo that are loving the fact that Ohio State is hiring Matt Patricia because they could not think less of him, especially with what Dan Campbell did afterwards. Right. You know, it was a total 180 with that organization.
So, you know, if you're a Maize and Blue fan, like you're loving this, but I think that's also missing a little bit of the forest with trees where that, that all the stuff that here you hear about him and all, and that was great. My initial reaction too, was all that stuff that has nothing to do with calling a defense. Right.
And Dan can tell you firsthand how good his defenses were for so long in new England. And I think anybody that also knew anything about those Patriots teams, it's not like Bill Belichick was calling the defense every week, you know, for a lot of those teams, you know, there's great, great famous stories about, you know, he would spend his weeks with Brady, getting Brady ready and worrying about, you know, this is what the opposing defense is going to do, you know, to you on the offense.
And he would leave the defensive coaches to go do their thing. So, you know, Matt Patricia is not like, uh, you know, cause I'm like Andy Reed's assistants, for instance, that have that stigma of like, well, how much work could they really do? You know, Andy's still in charge.
I think with Matt Patricia, you know, the goods are there. You know, this guy was calling his defense every week. He was doing all those things.
And, you know, I, I think that's, that's something that you're going to see cross over to Ohio state. And, you know, you hear him talk about ball. This is a guy that loves football.
I think that was the first thing that really stood out to me. Once I started digging into it, he's a, you know, he's an engineer went to RPI, uh, studied aeronautical engineering. He's a smart guy when you hear him talk.
And he's really interested, you know, and this is again, probably me nerding out. It's really interested in the history, you know, you know, in the past when Ohio state's hired a new coordinator or new staff member, I've written pieces for a lot more years where it's been, here's kind of the history of this system. Here's where it came from.
Here's how it started all the way back when, right. Here's how it's evolved over the years. He loves that stuff.
And you would hear stories from his players in the NFL. Talk about how every week you'd say like, Hey, we're going up against this system. You got to understand the base foundation and the philosophies.
And that's not to say, Hey, great. You know, Kenyatta Jackson's going to be a football scholar. Like that's not why that's exciting.
But I think it's a guy who he's not coming in married to a specific scheme. And I think that's the thing that I think was probably most appealing from Ryan day's perspective is this is a guy who he's, he kind of comes in with a fresh schematic point of view of here's who we're playing this week. Here's the tools I've got my, at my, you know, at my fingertips, what can I assemble in that space?
And I, rather than I need guys to fit in my scheme and no, I'm not subtweeting Jim Knowles by saying that, right.
[Dan Hope]
As you mentioned, I've, I've watched a lot of Patriots games. I saw a lot of games where, you know, this guy was calling the plays for Patriots defense and, you know, they had a lot of success. And so, you know, I, I think I probably have a more favorable opinion of this higher than a lot of people do, but I know for me, you know, one of my initial reactions and you and I have already talked a little bit about this off air, but what, one of the things that was always kind of a hallmark of a Patriots defense, I mean, not even just with Patricia there, but with Bill Belichick's entire tenure in general was how variable the defense was from week to week based on matchups. The defensive scheme could look very different from, from one week to the next.
And, you know, I know there was, there's a video that's been going around of an interview that he did recently with Julian Edelman. And even in that video, he talked about that, about the process of every week, you know, they're kind of looking at, okay, what do we do? Well, what do they do well, and then kind of building a scheme around, you know, each matchup.
And so my concern about that is, is how well will that translate to the college level? Because you get a lot more meeting time with your players in the NFL than you do in college. They're, you know, 18 to 22 year old kids versus pros.
And so it's, you know, I could just think back to, you, we've seen it over the years at, at Ohio state. I mean, I think back to when Jeff Halfley took over for Greg Shiano and the big thing that everybody talked about, why did the defense get so much better was because Halfley made things simpler and allowed the players to play faster. Whereas Greg Shiano was kind of running these very complex NFL style defenses.
Even this past year, after the Oregon game, one of the big things guys like Jack Sawyer and JT Tuamolo talked about with the changes that Ryan Day helped implement in the defense where we simplified things, we're, we're, we're playing faster. So my one concern is will Matt Patricia over complicate things to where players won't be able to play as fast. Do you share that concern at all, Kyle?
[Kyle Jones]
I think it's a fair concern. I think it gets, it's, it's a very technical question in the sense of simplicity comes in different forms. You know, like you can run four, three cover three, you know, like, you know, you, when you open your Madden playbook and you press, like, I want to run cover two, boom, go like, yeah, that's simple.
You're right. The simplicity does not come in the scheme you call from the huddle necessarily, or what you installed or the training camp. The simplicity comes in when you see something that you're not maybe expecting, or it's that one-off formation that you know that they do X when they line up this way, right?
It's the Jeremiah Smith changes his feet, right? Let's talk, you know, like everybody remembers and has heard that we're talking about, you know, the same thing from that week. They knew when Jeremiah Smith changes his feet, that means X, Y, and Z.
And as a defense, you've got to communicate it. And you could see that corner from, from Notre Dame jumping and screaming and shouting and trying to get, cause he's trying to communicate to all his teammates. That's when the simplicity comes is making sure that, hey, when something happens out there on the field where I can't listen to the coach, we're not all huddled up and we can just talk like this.
When I'm lined up across from my guy and something happens that I see, and I know, oh my gosh, my responsibility has got to change. It's got to change right now. That's where simplicity comes in and understanding the communication.
So, you know, I've always thought, you know, the, the schematic, yes, the schematic that Jeff Hathaway, you know, installed were simpler than the things that, uh, Greg Shiano and Luke Fickle were doing. That is true. However, they were doing things to make the game simpler for the players on the field when they didn't have the coaches able to communicate with them.
And I think that's the part where if you're Matt Patricia, and again, you hear about the way he's coached and you hear the way he just talks about football. There's a great video online of him at the Notre Dame, uh, high school at a Notre Dame high school coaches clinic, right? Ohio state has one every spring for the spring game.
Notre Dame has one in the middle of the winter, and this was probably seven, eight years ago when he was still with the Pats. Um, and he gave a talk there and doesn't really talk a whole lot about any specific schemes, but the way you just listen to him describe and teach football, you can tell this is a guy that communicates really well. Ryan day is the same way, right?
Where you can listen to Ryan to explain a concept and whether you barely know you, you don't even know what a playbook looks like. You can kind of follow along. You can kind of understand it's what makes the really good TV announcers, what they do and what makes Tom Brady, Tom Brady.
Right. And you know, there's, that's the difference is like those guys that are able to communicate. And I think Patricia is probably in that, but I think your, your concern is a fair one.
Dan, how much is he going to try to put out there? And personally, my guess, because I, again, he's not a zealot for a specific scheme. He's not coming in, trying to like make a name and show everyone how smart he is because he's going to win, you know, win some games at Ohio state.
The guy's got three Superbowl rings as a DC, nothing he does this year. Sorry, Ohio state fans is going to be higher than that on his resume. It just isn't right.
So he's not going to use this as a proving ground about how smart he is. What he's going to try to show is I'm able to adapt. I'm able to figure it out in this circle, you know, these circumstances, which means I can try to put a lot on Caleb downs, his plate, because he's a guy who's played a ton of football.
He's been in these big situations. He's a smart player for everything we hear. He's so instinctive.
I'm going to put a ton on his plate, but I'm not going to maybe do that to Malik Hartford. If that's who's starting next to him, right. The guy, you know, how can I get put a lot on downs and sunny styles or Kenyatta Jackson and not be making life complicated for Katie McDonald.
And I think that's the challenge that he's going to have to get through. And that's why you hire these guys before spring ball. Even as we know, spring ball is changing.
Like, that's why it's so important is not to necessarily install a playbook, but to understand what the tools are that those coaches.
[Andy Anders]
I think that leads well into the next question, because, you know, if you put your, your schematic hat on for a second, your Kyle Jones, DC cap on here with the multiple schemes that Patricia has in his background with all this, if you were picking a scheme for Ohio state to run next year, what do you think would fit the talent and the pieces that they have on the defensive side of the ball?
[Kyle Jones]
I think we're going to see a lot of cover too. And I think it's going to be a lot of things that put Caleb downs in the middle of the I think that is whatever happens down the road. I'm not even thinking about 2026 and Matt Patricia, maybe a one and done the same way chip Kelly was, right?
Like I would very much expect that if he does well this year and things go with the Ohio state defense, he'll be back in the NFL in some capacity next year. We're going to be having the same conversation about insert name as the new defensive coordinator for Ohio state. And that's fine because I also think that the scheme is going to change when you lose number two.
He is such a special football player and what he brings to the table. I know Dan does the top 25 or the top 20, you know, rankings and every, every week, this season, I would love to look back. Cause I bet I put Caleb downs.
Number one, every street. I mean, Jeremiah Smith's amazing, but Caleb downs to me is like, he's the football player that every coach would build in a lab. Like if you could play with 11 Caleb downs as you would, and, you know, especially on defense.
And so you want to feature that guy. You don't want to say, Hey, how can we cover up for so-and-so or how can we maybe get so-and-so some more sacks or, or no, you say, how can we make sure two has the biggest impact on this defense or on the game in every way. And so that's where I think taking a lot of the three high safety looks that we saw last year, which is why I think it's a big deal that Matt Guerrero is still around, even though he's the name that a lot of Ohio state fans may not know.
You know, he was the safeties coach last year and he's had a lot of experience with that three high look. I think it's just gonna be a lot of ways to get Caleb downs in the mix. What you don't want is him dropping 30 yards downfield to play center field.
Cause you're just kind of wasting that talent if you're having him play free safety. So that's really what I think schematically. I think that can take many different forms and that's where if you're a Matt Patricia, you know, in that interview, you talked about Dan, you know, it's an, it's a podcast to do with Julian Edelman and they talk about Patrick Chung for five minutes and, you know, Patrick Chung, maybe you remember, maybe you don't, but you turn on the highlights of Patrick Chung.
He's all over the place. You know, and I think that's what you're going to look and see from the defense this year from Ohio state. I think you're going to get different ways of getting into that situation where downs is can downs can be between the ashes and have his eyes on the football and not be turning his back and running, you know, 30 yards downfield with a slot receiver.
That's not helping Ohio state, letting him have his eyes on the ball, letting him beat allowing him to be fast and make plays and be an athlete. I think Sonny Stiles is also going to get used very similarly. They're going to try to do whatever they can to take advantage of those two versatile talents.
It's not a scheme. I'm sorry for not having a better answer there, but I think that's the, that's the philosophy. And I think schemes come when they're done in, when they're done right.
A scheme is the output of a philosophy. And I think the philosophy for this team next year will be get two and six as involved in every play as possible.
[Dan Hope]
You mentioned Matt Guerrero. I mean, I don't think any of us would be surprised if he is ultimately the insert name. Whenever Matt Patricia moves on one year, two years, whatever, I think we all expect he's going to have some role, you know, in this defensive schematics as well.
As well, Tim Walton, both of them getting promotions to co-defensive coordinator and passing game coordinator. Now, the other question is up front, there's always the rumblings. And I think the way things ended kind of validated some of those rumblings about the push and pull between Jim Knowles and Larry Johnson and not quite seeing eye to eye in terms of how they wanted that defensive front to look.
We've already talked about it. Matt Patricia is a multi-front guy. You, you would, you would anticipate a Matt Patricia defense is not going to be strictly four down all the time.
So when you think about how Matt Patricia will mesh with Larry Johnson and the rest of his staff, how do you feel like that's going to work out?
[Kyle Jones]
That's the biggest question I have on all this. I think that the back end with this, with the secondary is going to be the next seven really we'll say. I think the linebackers in the secondary will be fine.
I think there's plenty of toys for Patricia to play with there. I think it's not just four down versus three down or anything like that. I think it's the techniques.
And this is really where the question about Larry Johnson comes in. You know, one of the things that the Patriots always did, they were one of the few teams that kept playing what we call a two gap system versus a one gap system, meaning, or, you know, even a gap and a half was a thing that Vince Woolfolk basically invented, which means, yes, I have the B gap, but I'm also going to play, you know, and this guy over here has got the other B gap or the other A gap. And then together, we're going to play the middle A gap between us.
That sounds confusing and difficult, and it is. And it's really hard to do that kind of stuff. You rarely see that at the college level.
You know, you see it from the good Saban teams, the really good Georgia teams, right, that have basically what is now the Philadelphia Eagles front sevens. Like they would do that kind of stuff because they had freaks. And it doesn't mean Ohio State doesn't have talent up front, but you got to teach it.
And it takes a while to teach that kind of thing. So I think the real question is not just will he run it? It's not a question of will he run it?
It's can they teach it? And how much of Matt Patricia's time is going to be taken up teaching that versus the teachers that are already in the building, right? Is that something that they can trust?
Larry Johnson, a guy who's been a four down, one gap, get up field type coach for a long time, had so much success with it. But this is just a different style. And it literally means teaching and doing different drills and repping things differently.
That's the big question. Now, if Larry stays on, I'm sure he's capable of and understands how to do a two gap. There's no doubt about it.
I'm sure he could talk about it for hours longer than I could. But he's just never been asked to lead a defense that does that. And I think that that's really the thing is can Patricia trust him?
Or is Patricia going to spend a lot of his own time doing that versus looking at the broader picture? And I think that's really, we're not going to know until probably October, candidly, what the answer to that question looks like.
[Andy Anders]
It's funny because I played nose guard in high school, and we ran a 5-2 for a couple of years. So I was doing some two gapping back in the day, just a little bit. Not at the level that these guys can, certainly.
I don't think a 5-10 lineman is matching up our refreshment scheme. But you brought back some memories with that one.
[Kyle Jones]
I'm sure, I'm sure. The two gaps align well in a few random places. It pops up here and there.
And the high school coaches I talk to hate when they see it, because they don't see it very often. Because it's hard to implement because you need the right guys.
[Andy Anders]
Absolutely. But, you know, kind of wrapping up the discussion on Patricia, just how much carryover do you expect in what he's going to do with what Jim Knowles did? Obviously, a lot of the same coaching staff pieces are coming back around Patricia.
But you're replacing a whole wave of the talent of that defense outside of maybe the most important piece, like you said, Galem Downs. So how much carryover do you expect from the Jim Knowles scheme to the Patricia scheme?
[Kyle Jones]
Well, I think it's going to have to look different simply because of the players that are there. You don't have that same talent along the defensive line, at least not yet, that you can rely on. You know, as much as coming into the season, even up until probably the playoff, people would have said that front, you know, that defensive line for Ohio State hasn't lived up to its potential.
They certainly made good at the end of the day and really carried that defense through the playoff in a lot of ways, right? That those front four created so many problems, and they're all going to get drafted on day two, if not sooner in the draft as a result. And you're just going to have to replace those bodies.
And I think that alone, I think not having Latham Ransom is going to be a huge gap to fill. I think that he, as much as everybody knew about downs, I think Latham Ransom was maybe somehow an unsung hero on that defense. He just made everyone correct in the same way.
You know, everyone probably remembers him, just that pop he laid on Jordan James to come down and run defense again, you know, in the Rose Bowl that basically took Jordan James out of the game. You know, like that's a guy that you can't, you know, you can't rely, you're going to be able to replace. And so to answer the question, you know, I think you're going to have to look at the skill sets and you're going to say, well, we've got two corners who've played a lot now.
And obviously, Ibn Ossian and Jermaine Matthews has played a lot of football at this point. I think we can see the talent that's there. I wouldn't be shocked if we see a lot of man coverage, especially the first half of the season, because they're just going to say, we're going to rely on those guys that have played a lot and just let them go be them, right?
And let them do their thing. We don't know what kind of pass rush we're going to have yet. You know, Kenyatta Jackson's played a lot of football, but he hasn't necessarily had a ton of production.
I think he's a good player, but there's a lot of questions everywhere else along, you know, that defensive front. And then I think you can rely a little bit on the linebackers now. Reese played a good amount.
It's going to, obviously he's not Cody Simon, but you've got Sonny Stiles who can do a lot of different things. So, you know, I'm not answering your question directly, you know, saying we're going to see a lot more cover four or anything like that. But I do think that, especially early on, you are going to see a lot more man, just because they're going to say, let those corners do their thing.
We'll let the other nine deal with everything between the numbers.
[Dan Hope]
Now, as we flip it over to the other side of the ball, of course, a new offensive coordinator as well. As you mentioned, Chip Kelly, no longer at Ohio State. Ryan Day going with an in-house promotion for offensive coordinator this time around, naming Brian Hartline the offensive coordinator.
He is going to give him the keys to the offense this time. Brian Hartline was technically the offensive coordinator two years ago, but Ryan Day was still calling the plays. Now the plan is for Brian Hartline to call the plays.
Kyle, just what are your thoughts initially on that move? Do you think that's the right decision? Do you think Brian Hartline's ready for this?
[Kyle Jones]
Well, I think he's been around and I think he's certainly earned the opportunity. He's certainly been involved with the passing game, and they've got a core now there as well between Day, Hartline, Keenan Bailey has been there forever as well, and also one of those more unsung heroes, I think, of this system and getting them into the right game plans. I think this is one of those things where, what do we mean by play caller and what do we mean by offensive coordinator?
Because I think those are distinct terms in my eyes at this point, because I do think we saw in the playoffs, and I talked about a little bit at the beginning, the situational preparedness, being able to sign up. It's not like they just said, all right, hey, we've been trying to avoid throwing to Jeremiah. Now this time you're allowed to throw to Jeremiah.
It's not like that's the conversation. It was, we're going to scheme ways to get four of the ball. We're going to scheme ways to get a book of the ball.
We're going to scheme ways to get Trey and Q and all those guys. The ball in advantageous places, and that's what Ryan Day for so long has been so good at. You hear, I think Clatt has talked about it every single game that he's done for Ohio State this year.
Joel Clatt would say, he's the best play caller in college football, and he gave up calling plays. And it's like, yeah, he did. But you think he wasn't there to game plan?
Because I'm pretty sure he was still the one there Sunday through Friday, putting together the game plan and overseeing it, hence the very infamous, I'm going to go spend some time with the defense now. What do you think he was doing before that? What do you think he did after that?
Do you think he was just having tea and calling recruits? No, man, he was still running the offense. And I think that's what's still going to happen.
I think this is still going to be systematically the same offense, which now Heartline knows as well as anybody. And I think what the value is, is you can say, all right, Brian, you know how this system works. You know what the machine looks like.
You and Keenan can probably put together a game plan for some of the non-conference outside of Texas. You guys can just go do that. But what he's going to be able to do there is say, all right, when we are playing Texas, when we are playing Penn State, Michigan, those teams, you're going to probably see a little bit more of that Ryan Day flair, if you will.
We saw it again in the playoff. All those games where it was like, how is he so open? Well, you had a really good offensive mind coming up with, you know, helping with the game plan.
Whether it was Chip who was actually, and this is what I mean by the play caller, whether it was Chip who was on the radio telling Will Howard those things or Ryan Day is a little bit different, right? And that was one of the things I was argued about leading up to last season was, you know, Ryan Day needed to kind of get out of that literally being the one to call in the plays to have more awareness of what was happening in the game and game flow and game management, things like that. It didn't mean that I didn't think he should be involved in the offense anymore.
I don't think he's going to be hands off by any stretch of the imagination. And I think it also probably is a big reason why you saw Matt Patricia get the defensive coordinator job versus someone like Matt Greary just get promoted, right? I think that those two things are connected.
And it's so that Ryan Day can still be much more hands on with the offense and trust someone to handle the defense where he can be a little bit hands off when he needs to be.
[Andy Anders]
Ryan gave the indication that during the playoffs, he was being a lot more hands on. He was involved in those meetings. And to your point, I think his presence was always there and it was always still in many ways a Ryan Day offense that we saw in 2024, even if he came off the radio, so to speak.
How much influence do you think that had on the Brian Hartline hire? And how hands on do you expect Ryan to be this season with Brian coaching him up as it's his first time calling those plays?
[Kyle Jones]
As someone who's not in the meeting rooms, this is my estimation is in the coaches meeting rooms, right? Where they're talking about what do we want to run this week? What are we seeing on film?
What are the tendencies that we know? What do we know about this team personnel wise? Who are the people that we're most worried about?
I think those are the meetings where Ryan Day is still going to be running things where I think he probably takes a step back and allows Brian Hartline that space is when they get out on the practice field and someone saying, hey, we're going to run X, Y, Z play. We're going to run. We're going to spread from a trade look and we're going to flip the H and the Z in this and blah, blah, blah.
That's going to be Brian Hartline. It's not going to be Ryan Day. Ryan Day is going to be standing on the sideline, being the CEO.
And I think to the players, it'll feel like, yeah, coach Hartline's the guy talking to me. Coach Hartline's the offensive quarter. Because that's what you're, Will Howard talked about his relationship with Chip Kelly the same way.
I think that's what we'll see. But I think you'll also see that influence, especially in those bigger games where it's, hey, we're playing a really good defense. We're playing Jim Knowles in a Penn State defense that is trying to win a national championship.
We've got to bring our A++ game. Ryan Day is going to be involved in that game plan, like full stop. I bet my house on that.
[Dan Hope]
That's going to be a fun chess match, isn't it? Ryan Day versus Jim Knowles in Michoud in November. I think we're all really looking forward to watching that one.
Ohio State staying in-house with the offensive coordinator hire, but making one new addition to the offensive staff by bringing in Tyler Bowen, who was the offensive coordinator at Virginia Tech. Now he's going to be the offensive line coach and run game coordinator for the Buckeyes. Do you think that will have much influence on this offense in 2025?
Or do you think he's mostly just coming in to coach the offensive line?
[Kyle Jones]
I think it's probably more of the latter. Candidly, I don't see the system changing a whole lot. I mean, we saw a bunch of run game wrinkles when Chip Kelly came in, right?
And I love diagramming them the first, you know, half, two thirds of the regular season. And then they kind of went away. And it was because it was like, yeah, it's a nice to have.
But really what we learned is that, you know, this offensive line is much more about chemistry. It's about reps. It's about trust.
You know, and I've always believed this too, that like there's no right or wrong scheme from a run game. Yes, novelty for someone like myself who spends a lot of time talking about it. It's fun to talk about a center pulling instead of the guard and, you know, bringing a wide receiver to be a lead blocker.
That's fun. But it's not like one scheme is objectively better than another. And it's really just about how you're able to coach it.
And I think that's going to be Bowen's, you know, task here. You know, he does bring back, he's got a fairly, you know, full cupboard, I would say. I think the offensive line is actually gonna be a strength of this team this year, especially on the interior.
It's like weird to say just a few months departed from a point where we were all so, you know, talking about every week, like, can they get it together? And now we're going to be looking at it going, hey, you've got Tiger Shavola and Carson Hinsman and, you know, Luke Montgomery and Austin Sarahbold, which I don't know what you're going to do between, but between those four, that's a lot of games played with some good football. And suddenly you're going to be able to lean on that.
Plus the two transfer tackles. Like it's a really good situation for Bowen to be coming into, which is why I don't see him coming in and saying, like, hey, I've got all these different schemes in my special playbook. Let's change things up.
It's going to be, let's keep going with what's been working and make sure that we're putting, you know, whoever's back there at quarterback, probably Julian San, let's make sure he's got enough time to throw it up to number four, number 17.
[Andy Anders]
Yeah, we all know, I love me some offensive line talk, and I really think it is going to be the more important side of that is going to be the development and the recruiting for Tyler Bowen. When you talk about, like, getting that line to coalesce, and they don't have a lot of depth out there at tackle either. So they're going to have to figure it out with Onyongwa and Daniels, likely, unless Ian Moore makes a surprise run.
So that side of it does seem to be, I agree with you there, that Tyler Bowen is definitely more focused on just the position. Having said that, looking elsewhere on the offense, obviously, Jeremiah Smith and come back with the turnover on the offensive line. I think we'd all agree the backfield, as much as I like James Peebles, isn't going to be as strong as it was last year when you had two of the best in the country with Travion Henderson and Quenshawn Judkins.
Tight ends might be a strength, though. I mean, there's definitely some rotating personnel for Ohio State on that offense. Just how do you see what this team might tweak, what this team might change in its scheme, even though it will be the same system with Ryan Day?
It's going to be molded to the players, as he's done over his career.
[Kyle Jones]
Yeah, I think the biggest change is going to be the quarterback running team. I mean, everyone saw this year what a difference it made having Will Howard there and that big frame, even though he got eaten by the turf monster a couple times on those big runs. He was still so useful on short yardage, not just because he was big and hard to tackle, but because you could trust him as a ball carrier.
Then you got that extra gap. I'm sure every time they did that, Urban just smiled from wherever he was watching from on the big new set, right? It was JT Barrett all over again.
That's not going to happen with Julian Sand back there. If Lincoln Kienholz does somehow win the job, then maybe you see a little bit more. But even still, he's not 6'5", 240, the way that Will Howard is.
I think that's probably the biggest question I have schematically about this offense. There's so much firepower in the passing game as we just laid out. I think tight end is going to be a strength of this team with both Max Clair and Will Kaczmarek there.
That's a strength. You've got the other guys that are coming back. Running back, sure, probably won't be as strong.
I think it'll be serviceable. You won't have the home run hitting ability of a Trey Henderson or a Quinton Jenkins. But when you add a more veteran offensive line, it might balance out kind of in the wash that way.
But it is truly what's going to happen on third and two against that Penn State front. What do you run? The scheme is going to look different because you can't just say, we're going to run quarterback power like we did six times in the national championship game against Notre Dame.
That was a game changer. I think not having that in the toolbox is a big question of how do you replace it effectively.
[Dan Hope]
How do you think they get around that? Because I totally agree with you. That's one of my biggest concerns with this offense is potentially, I mean, you look at Julian Sane, he's not that big a guy.
And we've saw him in the past with C.J. Stroud. I mean, C.J. Stroud could run. They just didn't want him to.
If they take that same approach with Julian Sane, which they might, how do they make up for that?
[Kyle Jones]
I think this is the new schematic argument of football coaches on Twitter in the year 2025. For anyone who wants to join, it is the disappearance of what we call the quick game, three-step passing game, right? You watch those old 49ers teams.
You watch the NFL anytime in the 90s. It was quarterback takes a snap, three steps, boom, throws a slam, throws an out, throws a hitch, throws a quick pass right away. It's all timing based, right?
And that's why everyone started playing off coverage. They really started pressing up. It just changed the way the game was played.
Now, you don't see it very often. It's hard to teach at the high school level so kids don't run at a time, especially compared to RPOs, which is a lot easier to just say, should I throw the bubble screen or should I hand it off? Because especially at the high school level, that's pretty much the same.
And at a lot of college levels, it's about the same. And it's easier to teach, easier to run. It's a lot harder to get the timing, and it's a lot harder to run those routes.
But when you've got two superstars in four and 17, especially four, who cares what Lou Holtz says? Throw him the ball. Throw him a slant on third and two.
It's okay to throw him a slant on third and two. No one's going to question your manlihood or the toughness of the program when he's running through the secondary for a touchdown. That's the thing that I think this offense, and I hope the fans can get past, is like, I wish they would just hand it off to James Peebles between the tackles.
That's what Woody would have done. Yeah, maybe, but this isn't then. So Woody never had a guy like Jeremiah Smith.
Woody would have had him playing defensive end. So you have that guy. Use him.
You've got a five-star, number one-ranked quarterback, whatever Julian's saying. Use him. Don't just have him turn around and hand the ball off on a critical play.
Off my soapbox.
[Dan Hope]
That Kyle should have worn his Frove of Damn ball shirt for Viva's podcast.
[Kyle Jones]
Next year, yeah, man. Get back to it. This is a year for the Dwayne Haskins, CJ Stroud.
Why can't they just run the ball? Well, because they're throwing for 5,000 yards. That's why.
It is what it is. This is how it works. So I do see there being a lot of quick three-step drop, double slants, hitch out, things like that.
That's what will replace it. And once you start doing that, especially if you start doing that early on in the year and that becomes your tendency, what you don't see as much is nine, 10 guys in the box. Suddenly, you see seven or eight, and then you can hand it off to James Peebles off the left guard behind your talented interior offensive line.
That becomes a lot easier. It's all cyclical anyway.
[Andy Anders]
Very valid points made by the soapbox stand from Kyle. You have all these weapons. We've talked about it for years.
If there's no time to really sell out in the passing game the next year with a quarterback who's not going to run the ball as much and with not as highly touted backfield, I think we're in agreement with you there, Jones, that next year's offense should be a pretty passing-oriented one.
[Dan Hope]
Well, it's going to be a fun year to watch Ohio State football for sure. We're certainly going to be looking forward to watching all your film studies, Jones, and everything you're going to be doing, breaking down Ohio State football once again for us over at 11 Warriors. So thanks so much for taking the time to join us, Kyle.
We really appreciate it. Always fun to talk ball with you guys. Good to see you.
And for everybody else out there, we'll be back next week for another episode of Real Pod Wednesday. So we hope you join us then.