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Game Thread Tulane @ Ohio State - 09/22/18, 3:30PM (BTN)

FILM STUDY: OHIO STATE KEPT THINGS SIMPLE AGAINST TULANE IN ADVANCE OF A BIG TRIP TO STATE COLLEGE

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"It was a lot of single coverage all over the place." - Urban Meyer following Ohio State's 49-6 victory over Tulane.



After blowing the doors off two Power-5 teams in Oregon State and Rutgers and passing the difficult test presented by TCU in Dallas, nearly everyone expected Ohio State to easily cover a 38-point spread over a 1-2 Tulane team. Unlike years past, the Buckeyes didn't rely on a devastating run game to put away the Green Wave but rather attacked through the air, tallying 419 passing yards as 14 different receivers caught a pass.

While such an aerial outing may sound as if the Buckeyes were the aggressors, trying to show off in advance of next week's matchup with division rival Penn State, the reality was quite the opposite. OSU hardly showed anything in the way of new concepts or schemes, relying instead on the same base play-calls that we've seen over the course of the past two seasons.

Though Meyer's offense began the game with the same uptempo attack seen from both teams the week prior, the ingredients were quite familiar to Buckeye fans. Tight zone reads with attached bubble screen reliefs were the main flavor of the day, with quarterback Dwayne Haskins choosing to throw quickly to speedy wideouts like Parris Campbell in lieu of handing off into a loaded box.

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Knowing Haskins was an unlikely runner himself, the Tulane defense played single-high, man-coverage almost exclusively throughout their trip to the Horseshoe, looking to add an extra body to the box in hopes of slowing down J.K. Dobbins and Mike Weber. With a command of the passing game not seen from a Buckeye quarterback in years, Haskins picked apart the one-on-one matchups that littered the field.

"As a defensive coach, you know, when you are a dual-threat quarterback that presents problems," Meyer noted after the game. "If you don’t have a dual-threat quarterback, you better be extremely accurate and make that be legitimate, or it’s going to be hard to run the ball because they’ll load the box on you."

While the running game was relatively quiet for the majority of the game, Dobbins was able to break a few runs for big gains on a gap-run that has been appearing in OSU game plans more and more in recent weeks. The GT-counter is a staple of Oklahoma's explosive, RPO-driven offense under Lincoln Riley, asking both the backside guard and tackle to pull around, forcing the defense to fit two additional gaps on the fly.

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After seeing it be so successful for the Sooners in recent years, the Buckeyes have incorporated it quite a bit more frequently this season. The back simply reads the lead of the pulling tackle, waiting to see a hole pop up on the edge.

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When Haskins looked to throw on traditional drop back plays, the recipe was a familiar one. Coordinators Ryan Day and Kevin Wilson leaned heavily on the same Mesh, Snag, and Saints concepts we've now seen countless times, simply disguising them with different formations and personnel groups.

Against so much man-coverage, though, the play-callers did dust off one concept that is rarely seen in Columbus. Though All-Go (a.k.a. Verticals or Verts) concepts are extremely popular, especially among coaches with Air Raid roots, Meyer's staff has rarely relied on them in the past.

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Entire article: https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio...ane-in-advance-of-a-big-trip-to-state-college
 
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