2022 Peach Bowl Recap (Ohio State vs Georgia)

[Captain Buckeye]

They did exactly that.

1. First Down, Hayden was stuffed for a 1 yard loss.
2. Second Down, CJ threw a slant to X that was broken up by Ringo.
3. Third Down, Egbuka was briefly open on an out route, but CJ was pressured almost immediately and had to turn it down.

Said it in the Peach Bowl thread. It was just tough to move the ball on the #1 D with a depleted skill corp. MHJr wasn't just a mismatch himself, he created mismatch for others. Thought it was a miracle that we even got into FG range, and it should have never came down to that FG to begin with (e.g. @RB07OSU's point 5).

Always easy to second guess everything now that the game is over and the initial calls didn't work but...

I wanted the offense to hurry to the ball and for CJ to take a shot at the endzone. CJ was locked in and feeling it after that run. Maybe we surprise them and hit the TD. I didn't like the run call though because although we had time outs. We needed to throw to save as much time as possible.

Still sick about the game and dammit will this be a long 242 days until kickoff.

 

[Captain Buckeye]

Pretty sure the play where Eich was trailing the WR down the middle was a Tampa-2 defense.
Means that Eich owns the middle deep of the field (not man on the WR).
One could argue that we shouldn't run that defense; but if it's called, it's Eich's job to get deep. That defense is a 3-deep (LB in middle and two safeties fan towards the outside).
Really shouldn't be beaten deep.

I assume the other receptions on Eich were also zone coverages but don't remember them. I don't recall any plays where he was in man coverage, but I'm also not going to re-watch.

Have to give props to the Georgia OC and their QB - they went after our weaknesses - attacked any safety with man responsibilities and, I guess, the LB in zones.

The funny thing about this...

Tommy isn't on anyone if it's zone. Just way too much man and when you don't have the skill to play man that's what happens. Not to mention offenses can isolate matchups they want.

 

[RB07OSU]

This.

With three safeties, one must have the ability to play man on a WR. In our defense, it was supposed to be McCallister but often was Ransom. Ransom can cover most TE, but not most WR.

For next year, we should have Styles as the run enforcer, Stokes/Ransom can compete for the deep guy, and we need to find a "Shaun Wade"-type for the third Safety.
Jyaire would be a good candidate for the third safety.

Seems like a good plan to me. My only concern is that I think we had good safeties this year and couldn't make the defense work at the end of the season. Maybe it just took a year for the scheme to resonate with the players, but having Hickman, Ransom and McCallister should have produced better results. It did look good until about Maryland, but then broke against 3 good offenses. I think the overall defensive scheme can work, but I just wonder about the coaching at the position levels at CB and S...seems like several guys stagnated or regressed.

That said, I am excited about Styles and Stokes, two rangy safeties with a ton of upside and plenty of eligibility left. Could actually be an improvement at the safety position.

 

[TenYearBore]

The funny thing about this...

Tommy isn't on anyone if it's zone. Just way too much man and when you don't have the skill to play man that's what happens. Not to mention offenses can isolate matchups they want.

I remember the play, but I haven't gone back to watch it on replay so what I'm about to say might not apply here. Factually however, modern zone defenses use a lot of pattern matching systems to avoid ever "covering grass" as it were. I'm still learning more about this myself, so I don't want to pretend I can explain the whole concept here, but a big part of it is that when you're playing zone, and a guy comes into your area, you start playing man on him until he leaves. Neither Georgia, nor Michigan's defense would really work without this and I was super disappointed at how many times Michigan guys were just standing around covering grass versus TCU.

Is it possible Tommy Two-Thumbs was in a pattern match coverage and the guy who hit his zone just happened to be the fastest dude on Georgia's offense?