"I think that they have a very good secondary, and I thought their ability to disguise coverages in the first half was at an elite level." - Texas Head Coach Steve Sarkisian
The Matt Patricia hire took many by surprise last February, as the longtime NFL coach seemed like a strange choice to replace Jim Knowles, having never worked at the Division I level before. But any skeptics were quickly quieted last Saturday, as the three-time Super Bowl winner put the 'best play-caller in college football' into a blender for three hours.
Steve Sarkisian's reputation is well-earned, having architected one of the most explosive and effective offenses in the long history of college football (Tuf Borland is still trying to catch up to Davonta Smith, probably). But Sark's game plan had so few answers for what Patricia threw his way that Arch Manning's Heisman odds cratered out of the top spot before the game had even ended.
"It's very different. We changed our fronts a lot," Ohio State cornerback Jermaine Mathews Jr. said after game. "We didn't really do that the last two years. So, we switched up a lot of fronts. We changed the looks in the back end as well. So I think the defense is very complex for the opposing quarterback to read."
Anyone who follows the sport has heard much of this already over the past week, but as always, we here at Film Study HQ want to dive in a little deeper and share not only what worked well for the Buckeyes last Saturday, but what it means for the rest of the season looking forward.
Here's what we go over in this week's video breakdown:
- An overview of the Penny and '33' fronts utilized by the Buckeye D
- How OSU changed the coverage picture post-snap for Arch Manning
- A continued reliance on gap schemes for the OSU offense
- Will Kacmarek's outstanding work as a blocker
Click the header photo above to watch the video, or head straight to YouTube.
