Be following is a presentation of play fly sports properties change guys. They're trying to turn the goal line, but the hands pass upo up here comes the farding. Now the sidelight shown that I don't expect unconditional support from ever. That's not the expectations that I do have. There's no reason to think like that in my minds. It may be different for others. And I haven't
coached anywhere anywhere, college or pro or just been unconditional support. I have not coached anywhere, whether it's here in ninety seven ninety eight, or Mayas, Ohio, or LSU or Ohio State, or Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville, Chicago, Alabama, Georgia, Colorado. Here, I've never coached anywhere anywhere where there's been unconditional support. Powerful words from Michigan State head football coach Mel Tucker as he described no unconditional support from anyone maybe a handful of people,
and he doesn't expect that from anybody. This this is Sparta. I'm your host, Jason Strayhorn, along with my co host Otis Wiley and Jay Uchchu Culprit live with that love of jack on. How's everybody doing today? I get the false flag on a little lumberjack, you know, hopefully channeling and some you know, Paul Bunny, that's what he's trying to do. Getting
ahead of yourself a little bit. We know this is homecoming week, but first we have to break down the game that really wasn't the Ohio State game against Michigan State. Michigan State lose forty nine to twenty to the buck Eyes. And it was pretty good early on, guys, but it got out of hand pretty quickly, didn't it. Yeah, it definitely did. At the beginning. You know, Michigan State showed some life offensively and defensively, especially you know with that pick six. You know, what a great way
you know to tie the game up. Be in the game, get the crowd that were there supporting the Spartans into the game. But unfortunately we could not sustain that throughout the you know, sixty minutes. Yeah, we were both obviously everyone's there, but you look at we started with that drive. But you think about the noise and excitement. I think the buzz, the everything was there. When you're sitting on the sideline, it was all there.
Everyone's in the right mindset. But we talked about this last week was you gotta play perfect football when you're playing the Buckeyes, and so you're looking at we started off, we just we got to put points on the board if it's the field goal or you got to put them in the back of their territory when it comes to special teams, and you know, we start off, you know, hurting ourselves and so you know, it's just hard to catch up when you're playing this big time, Big ten football on the
Buckeyes. Well, when you looked at the ball game, you know, as Jay you said, you know there was that pig six early in the ball game. It's sitting at fourteen to seven, and it seemed to be a ball game. At the second score that came, I think was the Montory Foster. You know, you had kicking game issues again. And you know this this reird its head again this week. Missing the pat Michigan State sitting at twenty one to thirteen from the second quarter before things got out of
hand before the half. Yeah, that pat is huge and momentum. You can't play a team like Ohio State and go out there and leave points on the field. You can't do that. So you have to execute everything a few weeks ago, we heard coach Tucker talk about playing complimentary football, and that's comes from all three phases of the game, the offensive, defense, and the special teams. Everyone has to do their part to help, you
know, drive this team and momentum and success for this team. And we fell short in their special teams on that worshit of it on something that should be automatic otis I mean, Jay, you gotta let me speechless on that one. It's hard, it's tough. It's tough. It's tough because you want those guys to go out there and play their best, right. I talked about this. I was on Jack Evelin's little radio gig today and it was like, no one prepares to lose a game, Like when you prepare
all week, no one's going out there and want to lose. What type of competitor goes out there wants to lose. No one wants to do that. And we talked about this game. At the level of this game is playing your best because of the trajectory of what you want to do in the pros and the next level. This is a stack game, so clearly you're playing in the best competition, so you got to ball out and you know you're looking at you know, our next stat with Peyton Thorn is like,
you know, eleven of eighteen hund thirteen yards and one. TV just doesn't get it. Man, It's not a it's not even equal to all the other quarterbacks that's playing right now. And it's terrible because if we have a you can't even boil down what it is. If it's lack of o line play, lack of rushing from a running back standpoint, lack of the timing on the ball with the receivers. Is just nothing's clicking right now. And
it's tough because you know that we've seen it click. We've seen it where it's a magic of magical offense and it just goes out there and shows on Saturdays that we're judged by Saturday product. This is the game of football. So when you talk about coach Tucker saying he doesn't want any unconditional love, because you know, this is the this is what comes with being a head coach at a Power five or any coach in that standpoint that this is what
this is what it takes to get to that next spot. And you know we're playing against the buck guys, Man, that's our program. We want to get to that level, and they showed it what it takes to get to that level. And we're not there yet. We're not there yet. And as you said, you talked a little bit about the quarterback play. Right now, CJ. Strouss sitting at twelve touchdowns against the Spartans in two seasons with only eight in completion. Just an incredible stat line that I read
there. But right now we're going to go to the This is spart of game day stats presented to you by I Hop. The two by two by two breakfast combo equals one delicious meal. Enjoy two pancakes, two eggs your way, and two pieces of bacon for only five dollars only at ie Hop. Hurry in and enjoy this deal for a limited time, dying in only. Price and participation may vary. Restrictions do apply. Well, guys, you know, before we get into the stats, we're going to look at
the conditional support. And we have a nice picture here of what conditional support is at Spartan Stadium. And we talked about this last week about not selling the tickets and for the most part, you know, there's there was a there's about fifty to fifty. I said, maybe seventy five of the spartans on being very generous there did show up. But it was awful lot of red in the stands, wasn't it. Yeah, definitely, there was an
awful lot of red in the stands. You know, Ohio State travels well this, you know, boats well on them for you know, future Bowl game selection, you know, placement and everything like that. Uh, the committees look at things like that. But you know, Michigan State, you know, the fans say, you know, give us something to care about, but they have to be there as well. And I get it,
I get it. It's not the season that we all wanted. But that doesn't mean we just thrown a towel and and you know, take our ball and go home just because you pay for a season ticket. Yeah, yeah, you can do that. But I mean, I don't understand it. I don't understand why why you invest so much into a program, but when it's time you support them. You pick and choose when you want to support a team and when you don't want to support a team. It makes no
sense to me. You have to be you know, spartan dog through and through through the goods and the bad. I said that last week, and I'm going to continue to say that, and if anyone have an issue with the fact that I say that, then let's let's debate it. So I'm going to ask you, otis the comments that we heard today from head coach Mel Tucker when he says he doesn't expect people to give him unconditional support. What do you think of those statements? That statement right there from him.
I think it's from him. It's standpoint of we got to control we can control, and none of us, I mean, we could talk all till we're blue in the face here, but like none of us are in that locker room right now, right so anybody that's watching us or even going to the games, no one's in the locker room and seeing what's truly transpiring, what's happening, you know, to Jay's point, Like I recall, Man, and we were we were highly touted and Ohio State came in and it
was a sea of red. Same thing, man, And you know we were I mean we were I think we have one loss and Ohio State was undefeated, kind of similar you know to this, and they were there was more seal of red when we were playing in my opinion, and so you know, credit to obviously the people that came out. It was a beautiful fall day. But to Coach Tucker's point that that was the additional love is
there's no woe as me. Like you think Coach Tucker's gotten this far with worrying about the critics, you know, like I mean, it is what it is. He knows what it comes with this this territory. And then you know, we talked about this straight there was a bullseye on us because what we've done last year leading up to this season is that we were fully doing We were heavily recruiting, and we were like leading obviously the brand and
socially like we're in highly engagement in a football break right now. Right so eyes and ears are all on us. And so now that you know the season's crumbled a little bit from a standpoint of who can't find a way to win the game, it's good that he says that because it's it's all on them, and then he owns it. He's sown accountability. But like I
said, no one's in that locker right now seeing what's happening. And I think right now, boys down to are they gonna fold or they're gonna join for you know, join stronger ties together and get this thing going because we want to we want to see them win. Man. Obviously we're former s parton Dolls. We want to see our dogs, love the Dolls win. But right now it's tough, you know, honestly, Yeah, I mean, that's that's really what I'm thinking. When you hear those words from from
coach Tucker. What is he supposed to say. He's a leader of men, and he wants to grow these young men into what they need to become. And that's like, you got to be battle tested. You can't worry about what's going on on the outside. You gotta just work the next play and focus on you and what your assignment is and being there for your teammates. That's really what his function is. But as a former player, and all three of us are, when you see that, we know what it
means as a player. When you're currently on the field, you're never going to admit, man, I wish that the people would stay No, they're never They're never gonna admit that. They're never going to talk about that, but it is in the back of your mind you guys are still talking about the Ohio State game, and he came out and to see a rid You know, when there's boos, you know, as a quarterback, you feel those things and you should have. Look, there's not a quarterback that's playing
that hasn't been booted, you know. But Brady has been booed. Tom Brady has been I heard get booed when he was in any Russell Wilson getting left and right. Absolutely. The thing is this, though. The thing is this, I rather get booed by seventy five Spartan fans than at home
than sixty percent Ohio's visiting team fans. That's what I'm saying. Rather be in my home getting booed by my own crowd because they're that vested and that passionate about the product that we're putting on there, as opposed to the visiting team invading them, coming to their house, kicking them out of their seats, you know. So I rather have that. Yeah, that's a good point. I like that. I mean, listen, we can bake this all day long. And you know this is a rough patch. Obviously,
the Mischigan State is going through and the fan base is going through. Everybody's going through it, and obviously people some people handle things differently. But we'll continue to fight on and as we have homecoming coming up. But like when we look at the offense and you talked about Peyton Thorn's stats a minute ago, otis you look here where he opens up with a nice pass over the shoulder throw to Jade and Reid. I mean, the touch was there,
the timing was just right. And then on the very next play here you see Peyton and it's just the way too much on the ball, not enough air, overthrows the receiver and it turns into a turnover. Why the inconsistency? What is it that when you hear mil Tucker talking about we're not stacking enough good plays on top of each other right now, what do you think
that's coming from? Ju? The big thing is, you know the first play that we showed here with Thorn connecting and Reid's good, it brings optimism because you think Read's getting back to one hundred percent and you can hope that connection and that you know, communication between the two of them will start to show. But then you know, you go back and then the next play is something that's not good The reason I feel this is happening is because we
as an offense do not have an identity of who we are. Last year, we knew who the hell we were. We wanted to run the football and that's going to open up the pass game. This year, we don't know what we want to do. We're not committed to the run, and what we're donu is we're putting ourselves in bad positions to force us to throw the ball. We're putting ourselves behind the chain. It's tougher for an offensive coordinator to call third and eight, third and ten as it is to call
third and four, third and two. So we have to learn to establish who we are as an offense. You know, are we a team that's gonna try to go downhill and run the football and show some commitment to the run game, or are we a team that's just gonna say to hell with the run game. We're gonna throw the ball around the yard, but we're gonna do different things to get the ball in our playmakers' hands. Be it the screen passes, tunnel screens, jet sweeps, little pop passes to the
tight end. Do whatever you can to get the ball out of Thorn's hands quickly, quickly, so the playmakers can go out there and boogie and get and get plays. That's gonna get your offensive line going, that's gonna get the crowd into the game, and that's gonna build Thorn's confidence level because I always say, if you do a tunnel screen to to read, that's a negative pass. But he's running at sixty yards for a touchdown. At the end of the day, going through a sixty yard touchdown pass, you feel
good about that. So we have to form an identity before we can move forward. So, Jay, I'm gonna ask you this question. You brought up behind the chain and staying on schedule and playing you know, on in front of the sticks and keeping you know, you know that. What do you mean by that? Explaining that a little bit in depth when you talk about playing on schedule and playing by the chains. Yeah, So for an offensive coordinator, you have your play sheet. It's broken down to several different
different categories. In there, you have your first and tens. So you're thinking, that's an offensive coordinator. All right, I'm running this play on first and ten. I want to the goal is to gain five yards so I can call second and five. But in the back of your head now you're also thinking, okay, what if there's a sack and it's a loss of twelve. Now I'm looking at second and eighteen. That's putting you behind the chain. So now you have to, you know, come up with
a you know, a crazy play to help gain some ground. And what that does defensively is it makes you one dimensional. The defense knows what you're gonna do. If it's third and eight, third and ten, you know you're gonna either you're gonna throw the football, so the defense can sit back and wait and play the sticks. Play in front of the sticks, as Otis, you know this very well. You say, don't let them get
past you. If they get the ball and they catch five yards in front of you, make you swarm, make the tackle, four down, punt teams on the on the field and we're off. That's a win for the defense. So you have to, you know, make plays to keep to keep you on schedule. So Otis, I'm gonna ask you, as a defensive player, if a team is playing behind the sticks and you're getting them into second and long and third and very long situations, what is that mindset
from a defensive player versus third and one, second and two. What's the difference there for you? I mean when you talk about difference, I mean you can you can say you relaxed, right, but you also have you know that it's going to be a pass or it's gonna be some kind of half back screen or quick drawl. Is just get some positive yards. But when you're in that third and long pass, know, third to fifteen, third and tens, those are those opportunities to be like, all right,
let's rally the troops, let's get off the field. Like anything like the seven yard digs or whatever it's slanted that we can live with those, but like it's those those comebacks where they're right at the sticks that just irk you, man, Like those are like you just did two downs where you stop them for negative yards it's right there, and then you just give up this one where it's like we're this close. Like it's those like frustrating plays where
think about amount of turner or amount of possessions. If we got three and out, so we can get the ball back to Peyton, back to the offense to get in a groove, but like they have no chance to get in the groove because defense wise, we're not getting off the field, and then we're getting tired and it's just gas gas gas and plays and touchdowns and touchdowns, and it's just like, man, you're looking at it. I mean, that's when you start looking at each other like what is going on
here? Like what's going on? Like that's exactly what is like going home? Just I'm frustrated looking at it from a mindset of that is a hook curl like where's the hook curl coverage? Where's the where's the rerouts? Right? Where's the rerouts? Where guys are running free off the line? That
doesn't help us. Safety doesn't help anyone out where you can only truly cover somebody three seconds, three to four seconds, like and beyond that, I mean you got to be locked and loaded because quarterbacks are sitting there with no pressure. It's just picking us apart. And like I said, it looks
bad on all of us. Where As a secondary like you just get pissed off, Whereas we need to be off the field and that could have been an easy pass breakup, but we're not in the position to do a pass breakup, or we're just giving too much space where we're bailing off versus that's just to hit him in the mouth, slow them down to the front of the line, and then let's see what happens. I'd rather play that way then have these bells and you know we're pressing, but then we're bailing but
we're not getting no pressure, no bumper runs. I'd rather play press, coverage, cover two, man aggressive, and we live and die by it versus these zones. Man, these zones are just letting these receivers run scott free. Somebody's open because you can't cover too long. Let me give you up. Let me give you a scenario here, all right for the listeners. I know you guys know this, but for the viewers and the listeners listening to this, all right, So let's think about this. Right.
You're an offensive coordinator, all right, you have a bruising back. Let's just say you have Elijah Collins, who's who's our most productive back when he's in there. All right, So when you when he's in there early in the game, you know he's gonna get those tough yards. If we're staying on schedule, and you have a second and one and Elijah Collins come in now as a linebacker. Your thought probably you're creeping. You're creeping because you
you think it's a run up to middle. You want to make that stop. But this is why it's so important to have an identity to be able to run the football, because offensively, you can open up your playbook. Now you've got Jayden Reid out there, you can take a shot because you know on third and one you're gonna run the ball and get it if you don't get that shot, So that's why we have to run the ball.
That's why it's important to establish that run game, to get the linebackers on their toes buzzing forward thinking run run, run, oh no, you know that kind of thing. That's when you'll be a very lethal offense if you can do that. You know, bringing up what you just said, talked about Elijah Collins last week, we heard a lot about Elijah's going to get more carries. He's been doing all the right things in practice. You did
hear that? You know, there was a tweet, a cryptic tweet that came out from Elijah that said he was geeked and blessed he was on the video where they do the uniform reveal. Yet two carries for nine yards with a four and a half yard average per carry, but wasn't really in there for a lion's share of the carries. Mischiun State outrushed two hundred and thirty seven to seven yards on the ground. Yeah, that's that's a bad day at the office. It's yeah, you put your head, Yeah, it's
a bad day. You can't. Like I said, I don't care what level you're at. If you run the ball for only seven yards in an entire game, you're not gonna win. One hundred out of one hundred times, you are gonna lose that game. If you run the ball less than twenty times in a big ten game, majority of the times you're not gonna win. Because the same is run to win, run to win, all right, Stroud through the ball twenty six times. They ran more than that.
You know, you have to be able to run the football. You have to. Your offensive line wants that. I don't know why Elijah Collins is not getting the bulk of the carries. I don't know. I don't know. I want to know. It's bugging the hell out of me. The kid needs to tote the rock. He needs the ball more. But he's not getting it. That's gonna assert some dominance. I don't care if we go out there and run the ball four times and you know, come
up short, but we have to establish ourselves. The last time I felt Michigan State had a commitment to the run game was the first half of the Akron game. Yeah, and notice for you, I mean you see what Jayu compounded off of what he said, twenty rushing attemps at Michigan State, forty six Russian attempts for Ohio State. Ohio said only through the ball twenty eight times total, twenty six of those coming from C. J. Stroud.
What the commitment to run as a defensive player, it is. What do you see when you when you see a coach a team that is now struggling to run the ball, obviously and then completely bailing from the run, only giving off a twenty run attempts for the whole a whole ball game. I mean, when you play a well balanced offense. In my mind,
as you're preparing, you got to prepare for it all man. Like I think when coach d came in me personally, he allowed us to truly understand the offensive positions like it starts with the guard to tackle play, I mean straight, you know it, Like you can tell a lot from what's happening from that guard to tackle play with his pass and run. And so for me, I would study that more than anything because it allowed me to play faster. So I got my eyes on that quarterback and my eyes on the
front line. I'm looking at those tendencies of all right, this guy may have a twitch where it's so much, it's so minute, like so so detailed. That coach d was like, it's all in the details. It's all in the inches of game of inches. But if that tackle sets that foot quick gets to the kicks like it, oh pass, I'm gonna look at my number two receiver or check one'm I have my keys in my eyes.
Got to be disciplined with the eyes. And I think from a standpoint when you have to guess run pass and it's such an equal fifty to fifty that you got to go further into the book of studying study to sow that self approved. And my first two years I had none of that. My last two years I truly had to be a student of the game in order to pass the test on Saturday and so I think we got to be students
of the game. We got to learn want to learn our playbook. Two, you got to learn the opponent's playbook more than your own so that we can go out there and play fast and play strong, spartan defensive football because you know who you got and C. J. Stroud coming in. You know, this guy has been historically torturing us with his arm. He barely runs, so like we understand, like his run his last line of defense
or whatever offense is to run. He barely taps into that. So from my mind is let's focus on the other things that we can control is lock on your man being where you need to be at, trust the other guys to be at where they be at, and we let the chicks fall with him at. Yeah. So to that straight you said twenty were giving, we're being too generous. Here we have thirteen called run plays. I don't count the scrambles and different things like that. Thirteen called run plays. Two
running backs in an entire Big ten football game. That's not good. Thirteen called run plays. And you know I know that they there's a I guess an agenda out there that says Michigan State gets behind early so that they had to hurry up and throw the ball and kind of scrap the game plan in order to keep up. But this ball game wasn't out of hand that quickly. You know, when you looked at what we just talked about, it was fourteen to seven. Michigan State's still in there, and then there was
twenty one to fourteen or to thirteen. They're still in the ball game. No need to completely abandon all, you know, the playbook and start doing to start air rating the ball out there like your Western Kentucky from a year ago with Zappy who's falling out in New England right now. So look at that game, Look at that game in Michigan last week last year we were down. Did we go away from K nine? Absolutely not. We kept pounding, power, grim pound and mix it up because we didn't get we
didn't get in that desperation field right we got. We talked about control it, control the pace of the temple of the offense. The longer you're out there, and Jay brought the longer the offense out there, the longer I'm getting gatorade and I'm getting I'm getting I'm getting the gatorade field up right, So then when I go out there, or at least we get a field goal, or at least we get down there to their territory, we score or field goal. My my, my objectives to go out there and get
that three out. But I feel like there's none of that where we got in the desperation mode where we still like we were in the game. We were in the game, and I mean I think everyone was shot that we were in the game because last year we was like that first half was atrocious, so like we were competing with a pick six and a offenser touchdown by Red. But then what happened. We started pressing, We started pressing.
It reminded me to some of the John eladays where we will go into big games undefeated and just because we're playing a big time team, we're gonna change the entire offense that week, you know, just to play to stay the course. Coach D'Antonio said it the best stay the course. We are who we are. Do what got you to the dance, That's what we have to continue to do. But sometimes we get for we forget about that and we're like, oh that shiny thing and get impatient. We got to stay
the course otis hit it on the head. Michigan game. Last year, we stayed the course down fourteen, down sixteen. You stayed the course. You have to do that, Yeah, miss said absolutely did last year. You know you look at that ball game. The commitment to the run was there. You know, you have a star player, but as a offensive lineman, we know, like, look, the more opportunities, more called
runs you get. You know, Coach Tucker talked about it that there are a lot of check with mes RPOs that are being called in today's game. So what happens is, you know there's options where maybe the running backs are the the quarterback isn't on the same page. They're looking at what the look is. They're trying to run to the bubbles. They don't see that bubble there. Then they they're trying to throw the ball more than they should and
they're giving that power to peyton thrown. Maybe that's the issue. You know, that's something that Mel Tucker talked about. Maybe we need to do more design run plays right to Yeah, just because you know, if you live that chop life, you know that's what we're talking about. The more you hit guys, you know, it may be a two yard game in the first quarter by the ed to it by the third and fourth quarter. Those
are ten plus yard games. It's just the name for physics. So to see that more commitment to the run would be something delightful for all of us, obviously, and you would love to see for Elijah Collins to get more carries as Michigan State tries to get into the left column and get into that
win column this week as they go and face the Badgers. Now going to the defensive side of the ball, we talked about the bright side where you saw the pick from Charles Brenton. Let's show that pick right here early in the ball game, number zero. He's ready, And it seemed like there was some kind of a miscommunication between c. J. Strout and in Bimba, the guy the receiver number two. Here, he feels like he's going and c. J. Strout said, no, I'm throwing it to the
flat. We'll take them, take it, We'll take them. It looked like it looked like the receiver was supposed to Stroud thought the receiver was going to run a comeback or something along the outside there. That's why Brandley was just sitting out there in the flat there for that, and the receiver must have seen it. I don't know if there was something in film. If he's sitting, I'm gonna bend it and go inside. But there was just
a miscommunication there. And as the kids would say, Oski, somebody's watching out these. Yeah, we talked about eye control. This was a perfect example of eye control. Like he could have easily kept going with our receiver. But clearly you look at we were like you said, zone it out right. So he did his job where he squeezed him inside, didn't get outside that sideline. You silent. His friend saw j Stroud released that thing. And you know that's what we need to get right. We need to
take those pick sixes and convert on and score on defense. One thing that about this pick six it was great. It was great. Don't let me beat this wet blanket. But one thing that I did I did not see and I have not seen this year. I haven't seen that one person or a group of people on the sideline for spartans like getting them going, like like back in our day, the offense would be meeting otis on the field. We're going like this, hey hey hey jump, you know, doing
all that. I don't see it. I don't see guys getting on the bench getting the crowd into it. I don't know if it's the if it's that, if they're told not to do that, but I don't see that after a pick six like that, that stadium should be rocking. I mean it was rocking. It was rocking. Yeah, like our sideline should be rocking. You know, I didn't see that, and I didn't see that throughout the game. I don't see that one person like getting getting in the
getting in players faces and getting them going. Do you think that the neutral thinking, you know, to that point right there, Jayu and otis when they when mil Tucker talks a lot about neutral thinking, don't get too high, don't get too low, just get to the next play. Do you think that affects the excitement when things do go well? Yeah, definitely football. You're playing a game. You're playing a game. It's a game of
emotion. You play off emotion, you play you see otis when you guys played Georgia in a bowl game, right and you guys on the side like dancing, rock and music playing. That's the psyche side of it, now, that's the mental aspect of it. They're on the other sideline like, oh man, these boys they're not gonna quit. They're ready. That's that part of it. You need that, like you need that roller coaster that
ups downs. That's what it is. And the reason when it's down, that's why you have teammates to pick your chin up and say let's go. That's why it's there. You need that. And you think about this too, that last year's squad, like was that COVID squad right? Like classes you had to go do go in person, right, and you still was doing some virtual stuff like you had a lot more time to fully fokos on football the two seasons, you know what I mean. So I'm not making
any excuse. But also, like we already know, the requirements of what you gotta do day to day can truly weigh in toll you, like they can push you down where you're not fully freely thinking. But to man, look, we talked about Charles and we talked about Chuck. That man has a herder alignement, like right like the dogs about Charles Brantley for a minute, he's my favorite credit out there. We got to talk about Chuck because
I think from Venice Florida Venice High School. A lot of great athletes down there. He's related to Herb hay Good, another Spartan legend in the past. That that's coaching the head coach at mac donald Heights University right now. And he the smallest guy on the team as far as way is playing the biggest right now. He reminds me of He reminds me of DeMar Williams.
Right the Jamar them had that DeMar will talk the best trash with the best of them, and we'll back it up right powerful pound he was the smallest guy, great returner right legitimately has that body make of the Mount Williams. But he bringing that thump too, man like he he ain't. He's not backing down because he is one seventy five with you know what I mean, Like he's trying to put water you being generous, one seventy five. I know, Hey, I'm trying to put them stats up. I'm speaking to
existence. Look at the fight, Like, let's get this clip up here of him hitting tray Yon Henderson. He was I mean, he took him out. It was a clean hit man for about two hundred and thirty pounds and that's the thing. You got a guy like Brantley coming up and sticking big backs, being a form of being a big back all right in the film room when that film comes up, Hey, coach, I gotta go to the bathroom. Now you gotta sit your back there out there and chopping
him. He's going. You know that thigh board, I know it hurt. I mean it hurt. He ain't hit just that thigh board. He hit less because he got that boy on that it was good. I mean, first of all, if if if Jay you saw Bryant, he definitely gonna be like, right, he's about man. I guarantee he didn't know that Charles Chuck was coming with that thump. Yeah, that's the thing. If you now you're watching film and you see this guy coming sticking stick and
sticking that's a big back. Now you're second guessing. You're like, oh, man, I don't want to be that guy on film. So now you're now you turn into a dancing bear kind of trying to be a big bat, trying to make a move. And then what happens is supporter starts coming in all right, and and so you now you're in your head if you see that. So that's the thing is bear that building bear, that's
you to that point as a big back. That's the easiest way to tackle a big back when he's running sideline, the sideline and dancing around, right, there's no momentum. Yeah, especially you you corral that guy. You know, the pursuits coming inside out. So you know, you do your think and you're big back. Your mindset is you don't want to be another victim to Brantley because he's he has a few now and that we talked about
that Maryland thump. He right, oh yeah, you know, I know last year when he got hurt, I mean he was bringing the thunder. I think was that Purdue last year. I mean, this guy plays with a lot of hard and soul. Like you just want to see some of that energy, that fire coming out as the other players right now. I know we have talent on this team, but the team just not playing with a lot of emotion. I know, otis you You've got some plays here
where you see CJ. Stroud and he's out, he's surveying the field and throwing touchdown at the touchdown six of them to be exact against the Spartan defense, but I know you wanted to break down a few Yeah. I mean, let's talk about the first that first touchdown past twenty yards are going in that north end zone. You know you clearly see we're almost in a cover two man, right, and you know from a standpoint as a safety, you know you got some disguise and you're trying to say, hey, we
indep thirds, but we have cover two man. No one truly puts a hand on the receiver to give him at least a slow and slow and the reroute. We talked about reroute. So if you look at this play, I'm looking at odds where just he looks right, but he looks left quickly, and our safety covers up that slot receiver versus scraping over to helping Chuck out. Chuck's in perfect position. I mean just a few more interest where he looked. If he could look back further, that could be a PBu
or pit. But if the safety is reading it perfectly, that is eyes in the sky. You coming down like an eagle down, that's jumping up int grabbing that ball out the sky. Right, But you clearly like just locked on the number two where that's not a bracket, and I don't think it's a bracket coverage on numbers the number two receiver, So why are you holding on that where clearly the ball's released looking at the far end, that's the perfect look. I lick my chops when I see a quarterback trip.
Just load it, get a little bit of air I can go. Try to get it at least make effort to get it right. And then the worst part is when they celebrate like you know, everybody's talking about on his head like that. That gets me upset. Where I put me and coach, let's just slop it. I'll put the pads on. I'll put the pads on. But you look at that play and you just get frustrated because he's in great position. Bradley is a great position. Then you look at
the next play we talked about. Slot receiver peaks to the left, slot slot corner peaks to the left. What are we peaking at? Like we know to play? Like are we do we not communicate pre snap? We should know the play communication key. You run straight to the flat without even touching the slot receiver, just like turn him loose, Just turn him loose,
like here you go like that? You got to put a hand on at least an off hand jam, get to the get to the flat versus, or you can ride him out to the slot, to the hash to help the receiver, or to the safety to recognize that this guy's running the street, not just let the man run straight down the street and then it's an automatic touchdowns scheme. I want to ask this question to you. You're right here and looking at it right there, just so people can see this
is that scheme or is that a player mental error? That's a player mental error. And I can't put it on one guy because clearly he looked to the corner and when depending on how this this this defense ran, the safety truly calls the call like he tells the call like if it's no man on the island, but it wasn't. We got slot receiver, so we got to say that nickelback needs to know. You got to get a rerout.
I think about like that was my main concern. I got to get a rerout so I can help control the speed recognition for the safety that's in the backyard, because if you're going straight full speed, that safety's in like a whole heap of trouble. It's like if I don't get over here quick enough. I can't even disguise. I got to get here quick enough that ball's
already gone. I got a question for you, Otis. Yeah, you know, playing in the secondary like you did and watching our secondary now we see a lot of bail coverage and given a lot of that space, do you think it's confidence, I say, a lack of confidence. That's a tough question, man, That's the one. Like we asked Drew its like
like about the quarterback situation. I honestly don't know, Jayu. I think that we've getten we've've gotten beat so much in the secondary, that's just second guess and that now we're trying to scheme because of the lack of what with the holes that we have to feel like, honestly, we talked about DNA on offense, what's the DNA on the defense? Historically we've always been hit you in the mouth press. We've always been corners that can just press and
run pound for pound historically. So now you're seeing them drop off because you got to compensate on the loss of Xavier Himnis and who x was Darius Snow think about those turnovers that the bulk of those tournaments last year was those two guys could bind, right, So you losing that leadership, losing that communication factor where maybe we rely too much on those two guys to communicate and you're
seeing this loophole. We got young guys in the safety spot. Safety's got to communicate just like the middle linebacker does to the entire secondary of Hey we're here, hook curl. Like if I got to remind you about the hook curl, I got to remind you about the reroute. That means you're not communicating because that's automatic thing. Where hey, reroute, reroute, that's just automatic. That's be an automatic thing. And if I got a second,
guess, he looks at boss, now go ahead. So on that play that you showed, it was third and four and you talked about the slot corner, did not reroute as a safety? Are you yelling reroute? Reroute?
Absolutely? Okay, I mean I mean before even before, like, hey, make sure you reroute because I mean, if you watch the film, if you've studied, you shouldn't know that these are the tendencies between that third and four, right, And in my opinion, you get caught too far in disguise where you can't run that far to get over there in time, versus I'm disguising it. I'm in cover three. I need to get over here. Just all bad man, all bad all bad news bears.
I mean we also, Jason, we didn't talk about like it also starts in the trenches. We haven't even fully focused on the trenches of like the defensive alignment getting into that pressure. Did we even get into his face last Saturday? So there was one play, So so I did see a big fellow, Derek Harmon, and he got in there and got a hold of CJ. Put the big men on there was able to get him down. We'll pull up that highlight for Derek. That was a nice play. But
for the most part, you didn't see that. You did see plays early on where you saw pressure and it got the CJ. You know, CJ was a little confused early on that after the pick six, but leading up to the pick six and right after the pick six, he was kind of trying to figure out the coverage. There was some disguising going on. I saw single high I saw the cover twos. We love to run a lot of that bail coverage. But when there was some all out blitzing and CJ
was able to hit completions. I mean we went completely away from it, and there was just no one on one pass rushing ability to get off blocks and get to the quarterback in verse. On the offensive side of the ball, I saw a lot of regular four man three man stunts, just basic tackle in twist where three out of the four guys are getting home to Peyton. And so there were four sacks. Peyton was sacked four times. C J. Straddle was sacked one time, but out of those four sacks,
three of them. I mean there was multiple Buckeyes converging on to Peyton Thorn, and one of them he was I think he was a little skittish man. He slipped out to the right and show that highlight right here. He goes to the right and goes right into pressure. That was something that I'm sure he'll look at on film and say, hey, that was on me. Guys. But still guys like as an offensive lineman to pass off stunts, you talk about re routing from the defensive back perspective, it's the same
thing. You gotta get a jam, you gotta get your hands on the penetrating whoever that that defensive linement is that's angling. The first there's one guy that's penetrating, and then there's a loop around. And for whatever I mean, we are not I mean, I can't imagine coach Cap isn't coaching. That's that's like the only thing that you really work on in practice is passing
off games. So to me, when they're going out there on Saturdays under the bright lights, there's with that that rat trapping thing that's going on. Guys aren't figuring it out. They're not standing and doing what they're coach to do. Because you can't tell me that you're not being coached on how to pass off a twist stunt. While you're at Michigan State, a power five school in the Big Ten, playing against Ohio State. There wasn't any exotic
blitzes coming that was confusing. This was four man regular Milton meat and potatoes as mil Tucker likes to talk about rushes. And we couldn't block three out of four of the guys. That's unacceptable on so many levels. We couldn't open up holes on the run game. You cannot win with your trenches performing
like that. You know they Xavier Henderson talked about it. Guys in the preseason, like before the season started, and he said we're gonna go as far as the offensive line takes us suish statement probably ever, I mean, yeah, man, yeah, this is that that you can't you can't keep going when you when your offensive line is a sieve and allowing guys to to tackle and sack the quarterback, it makes them seat ghosts. It's bad for
everybody. Man. You gotta be able to run the ball, and you gotta be able to protect the quarterback, and you got to be able to take care of the football. So you know, I know that that there's a lot of bad that happened in that game. There was some good things
as well. Absolutely, you know, we're looking forward now to try to put this behind us and learn from this game so that they can prepare for the Wisconsin Baphs already started the week of practice and again one of the biggest things that I see is that this team has not started to end fight and things like that. They know they have injuries and they're young, and so what do you see like this for to wrap up this recap, what are
your final thoughts on us? My final thoughts is we got young guys who are getting prime quality time on the field, and we are going to take lumps because of our youth. But when the boys are mature, man, it's gonna be something scary. And so I think it's encouraging because you know, we played a top squad who snub in the CFP and you know, competing for a national championship, and so we measured up as best as we could. But the people that we had and you know, I think we
will be able to take a hard look at ourselves. And you know it's already released. I mean after Sunday man and things and the trash is ready to get to the next week. So as we prepare for Wisconsin them coming off of a win finally, and then obviously on our homecoming for this weekend, I just feel like we have nothing to lose. And I've said this before, it's a it's us against the world mentally. I think we got
to go back to those roots. It's always been to us against the world mentality, and a band of brothers got to bond together and praying that those guys are are are clicking more than what we see outside on that Saturday, because we were way more than judging on Saturdays, which we obviously this is what we play this game, and it's it comes with the territory of being judged on Saturdays. But we're way more than that, and so we'll win
the game during the weekend. We got to prepare properly. I think that's what they're doing this week. All right, well said Otis. You know, I know that our counterpart had to take off and leave for a moment because he has some husbandly duties to do, fatherly things to do. And that's okay. It's all about the kids, all about the family, right, you know, a great show. We look forward to breaking down the Wisconsin homecoming matchup in our next episode. This will put a boat on the
recap of the Ohio state game. One thing is positive that young people are extremely resilient. These guys are going to move on, learn from it and progress and hopefully get to w this Saturday. And for Otis Wildly, I'm Jason Strayhorn. This is Sparta. Have a good night, God bless and go Green, go wife. You know about time