Clemson co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott sees something very familiar about Ohio State’s defense as the second-ranked Tigers get set to play the No. 3 Buckeyes tonight in the Fiesta Bowl as part of the College Football Playoffs.
The game will kickoff at 7 p.m. on ESPN.
“I think they’re very similar to Pitt,” Scott said. “In a lot of the ways they do a great job of getting an extra hat in the box in the running game and forcing you to be creative to find ways to run the football. And then they’ve got the skill level of Louisville and Florida State on the back end.
“They are very athletic guys that can really run and really come up and challenge your receivers and space.”
Q: Just having gone through this before with the staff do you guys do anything as far as the potential next game scouting those two teams even early in bowl prep? Do you guys do any of that or is it completely Ohio State?
Coach Scott: “Full time coaches don’t spend any time on that but we have some analysts and GA’s and those guys that have time to kind of do some of the work behind the scenes in case we’re able to win the game we’re not just starting from scratch. So those guys kind of do some work but our full time guys obviously spend all the time on this game with Ohio State.”
Q: So last year when you guys finished the semifinals what did you have ready?
Coach Scott: “Yeah really what you’re just talking about is the breakdown, all of the games. You have an entire season worth of games. It takes a lot of time for those Graduate Assistants and analysis to go through those games and break everything down. Defenses, offenses, just putting in down in distance, all the type of things so that coaches can go on and run cutups and do those type of things. So it’s just a lot of background work that they have to do more of. Really just entering stuff into the computer than anything else.”
Q: But as a staff do you feel like the time in between is enough for you guys to prepare?
Coach Scott: “Yeah I felt like last year was just right. We had enough time to prepare but sometimes you can have too much time and going through it last year I felt like they had the space in between the two games just right.”
Q: Jeff, what’s the difference this year? Obviously last year you were out here for a shorter period of time. This week it’s more of a bowl experience what’s some of the differences you’re seeing?
Coach Scott: “Yeah it’s been great. We really enjoyed out time out here last year. We were just here for maybe about 36 hours so whenever we found out we were coming back out here and get to spend a whole week here we were really excited about it. It’s a great part of the country. It’s somewhere that a lot of our coaches and players really have not had an opportunity to get out and experience and the people out here have been great. I know our players have enjoyed just the scenery. When you’re going into the practice fields it looks completely different than anything our guys have been around. Beautiful place and really enjoying it.”
Q: Ohio State’s secondary- good as you’ve seen this year?
Coach Scott: “Yeah very athletic. That’s something that jumped off of the video really quickly when you kind of turned over and started watching and breaking down video and watching the matchups. Across the board very athletic, not surprising because I’ve kind of kept up with them. One of the better teams in recruiting through the last few years so I knew that they’ve done an excellent job of bringing in talent but to see those guys out there on the field, they’re really very dominant defensively, overall, top five in total defense scoring defense in the entire country. Those guys on the back end are a big reason why.”
Q: Do you cross over with them in recruiting much?
Coach Scott: “Yeah we do. I think both of us recruit at a very high level so there are times where I know Deshaun and Raekwon McMillan those were two guys that we both recruited extremely hard for a long time and we got one of them, they got the other one. One of them is the leader of our offense and Raekwon is the leader of their defense. But yes we do. We run into their coaches on the road. Zach Smith their wide receivers coach, I’ve got a good relationship with him and see him on the road. There was one time this year that we were up in New Jersey watching a kid practice and enjoyed visiting and then the next day we showed up and I believe we were in Tennessee seeing the same guy the very next day without even telling each other. So I said, “Man we must be on the right guys.”