Ohio State head coach Ryan Day will take part in his weekly radio show Thursday beginning around 12:00 pm. He will provide some updates on his football team and also look ahead to this weekend’s match with the Nebraska Cornhuskers. This is going to be a significant road test for the Buckeyes and there will be plenty for Day to talk about. We will provide live updates throughout the hour, so refresh for the latest once the show gets underway.
+ They have been talking about this game since February. When you’re a heavyweight champ, you’ve got to bring it every week. “Our guys are kind of showoffs, they like this kind of stuff.”
+ There are Chip Kelly influences in Scott Frost’s offense, as you would expect, but the further removed you get from being an assistant, the more things of your own you add to your offense.
+ Defensively, Nebraska mixes it up with fronts and in the back end. It’s different than what they see in practice. The Huskers will do a lot of 3-man fronts, but can go with four DL as well. They have big, athletic defensive linemen. They aren’t trying to get penetration on the offense, they’re just looking to clock the gaps, so you have to stay on those blocks longer.
+ The Nebraska offense is good and they have good skill guys. They have tight ends as well. Early on, they got a little too “scheme-y” early on, but over the last few games have found what they do well and stuck to that.
+ Day spent time in Fresno recruiting Adrian Martinez and got to know him. Never got to see him throw live because of a shoulder injury as a senior. You could tell he would be a great leader, but they couldn’t offer because Day is very particular about offering a quarterback without seeing him throw live. But he’s a very good quarterback and is playing well and can do a lot of things.
+ Luke Farrell is one of the unsung heroes. He does a lot for the team and is very smart. Tight ends have to know everything and do everything and he can handle it at a high level.
+ The offensive line didn’t grade out as champions last week. They didn’t grade over 80% and they could have played better.
+ Mike Yurcich has come in in short order and really built that room up.
+ The backup quarterbacks continue to pick things up. They are preparing well. Chris Chugunov made some great throws last week. He handled himself well and ran the team like you’d want. It was cleaner than it has been in the past.
+ How good is Justin Fields doing? Still too early to say. Wants to see him tested and play four quarters. “We haven’t even seen what we don’t know yet.”
+ The senior receivers have provided critical leadership, but they’re going to need to step up even more as the games get closer. They are going to have to make plays on third down.
+ Binjimen Victor has a “giant catch radius.” He has a 7-foot wingspan, so he gives his quarterbacks a big window.
+ Garrett Wilson has great ball skills and body control and timing. “How he caught that one, I’m not sure.” He’s learning how to practice.
+ “We knew Jameson (Williams) was fast.” They didn’t know how tough he was. His first game against FAU, they showed a couple of his blocks to the entire team and they went crazy. “We’re gonna keep going” in terms of playing him and building up his playing time.
+ Sevyn Banks’ punt block was another team effort, but he did a great job getting skinny and sneaking through for the block.
+ Jeff Okudah is very, very talented and you are seeing his experience show up. He’s learned how to play and learned from his mistakes, but most importantly he is embracing the technique that Jeff Hafley is teaching.
+ There is good depth on the defensive line. Larry Johnson does a great job with that. “We’re looking to get some of those guys back this week.”
+ Having the ability to put the Bullet in the game against fast spread tempo teams gives them flexibility. Nebraska’s offense limits what a defense can do regarding personnel because there is limited substitutions with their up-tempo attack.
+ When you call plays, you do try to get the defense running from one side of the field to the other to get them worn down, but that’s not the most important thing they worry about. They still have to get first downs.
+ OSU will have to be ready for Nebraska’s tempo. They will move fast. They have to be able to handle it as a defense, which isn’t foreign to those guys, but they’ll still need to get lined up.
+ Bunny in Leesburg asked how the team prepared for the crowd noise this week. They piped in music and crowd noise in practice, but so much of what they do is hand signals, but the quarterback still has to be loud.
+ This has been a good week of practice. Not perfect.
+ The offense was helped last week by the short field from turnovers and stuff like that. Then you bring in the tempo and you’re able to overwhelm a team like they did in the second quarter where they scored 42 points.
+ They didn’t spend a lot of time looking at last week’s film. The first team watched the first half and then went on to Nebraska. The second team watched the second half and then moved on to Nebraska.
+ We haven’t played 60 minutes yet. We haven’t played four quarters yet.
