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Jan. 14—COLUMBUS — Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly and defensive coordinator Jim Knowles took questions in a press conference on Tuesday about OSU’s national championship game match-up with Notre Dame, its 28-14 win over Texas in a College Football Playoff semifinal and a wide range of other subjects.
Some thoughts from Kelly:
… ON NOTRE DAME’S PASS DEFENSE: The Fighting Irish’s pass defense, which ranks second nationally behind only Ohio State, will be a challenge, Kelly said.
“They’re one of the best pass defenses in the country and it shows. You look at how much man they play and the reason they do it is because they can. They all can cover. It’s not like stay away from this guy and you can throw at that guy. They try to keep the quarterback guessing,” he said.
… WHAT DID TEXAS DO TO JEREMIAH SMITH?: Texas limited Ohio State’s freshman wide receiver to 1 catch for 3 yards. He had caught at least three passes in his first 14 games and had 70 catches going into last Friday’s game.
“They rolled some things to Jeremiah to try to take him away, some bracket coverages and had an inside and outside guy over the top. Will (Howard) did a great job of diagnosing what they were doing. Carnell (Tate) had a huge game for us. The beauty of what we have here is that we have more than one weapon,” Kelly said.
Kelly said Smith has not shown any signs of being bothered by not having more catches.
“He’s been great. We practiced yesterday and he was flying around, excited about the chance to go play in the national championship,” Kelly said. “He’s always a forward-looking guy, what’s next, what’s the next challenge.”
… MONTGOMERY’S FIRST START: Luke Montgomery started at left guard against Texas and played every snap after being in a rotation with Austin Siereveld and Tegra Tshabola at the guard positions in Ohio…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/kelly-knowles-confident-heading-national-003400382.html
Author : The Lima News, Ohio
Publish date : 2025-01-15 00:34:00
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