What Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly said this week about the 13-10 loss to Michigan three weeks ago and Saturday night’s game against Tennessee in the first round of the College Football Playoff (8 p.m. Eastern Time, ABC/ESPN):
Facing Tennessee’s defense
“I think Tennessee is, I mean, they’re fifth nationally on defense in both scoring and total defense, the No. 1 third-down defense in the country, No. 1 red zone defense in the country. So we’re playing a really formidable defensive group coming in here that’s really well coached, and they’ve got good players at all three levels. So that’s going to be a challenge for us again this week, and our players are excited about that opportunity.”
If scoring 10 points in the loss to Michigan changes how Ohio State’s offense prepared for Tennessee
“I think this game is different. Every game takes on their own identity. But obviously you go back through, either your last game, all the time, and then look at what you did well, and then what you didn’t do well. And then how do we correct that moving forward? And that’s part of the process. And so because there’s been so much time between the games, you’ve had a good chance, you’re not allowed to go on the road and recruit. Normally, after your last game, you’re on the road and you’re scrambling and a lot of different things going on. You actually don’t hit the road until January now with the new recruiting schedule. So we’ve been in, we’ve dissected the last game, understand what we have to do to play better in that game, because we didn’t play at our best. We didn’t put our players in positions … and that falls on us as a coaching staff.”
How to avoid letting the Michigan loss continue to hurt Ohio State
“We’re one of only 12 teams in the country that has a chance to compete for a national championship. So that’s been the sole focus of the team since the game. I think you understand that we got two losses on the season by four points combined. But we still have an opportunity to finish the way we want to finish, and that starts with the game this Saturday against Tennessee, and a really good Tennessee team. So every team that’s left right now in this in this tournament is a really good football team. I think it may have been a different outcome. And I think at times it is a different outcome, the way the old system was, when only four teams made it to the chance to win the national championship. Now that there’s 12, I think that’s a little bit of a different mindset that we have to kind of embrace and then say, ‘Hey, what do we do now? And then the big thing for this group is, from the day we started with our prep from Tennessee, they’ve been focused on one thing, and that’s playing Tennessee. And we got a whole week of work that we have to continue to go through this week and be ready to play Friday. I mean, on Saturday night, at eight o’clock.”
The need for Ohio State to have new wrinkles against Tennessee
“I don’t think you go into it to show we need to show things we haven’t shown before. We need to show things that are productive. So I could line up some really wacky formations next Saturday night. But if they don’t gain a yard, it doesn’t matter what it looks like. What the most important thing is, is the productivity and are we gaining positive yards? Are we efficient on first down so that we can get into workable third-down situations? And then continue to get drives going? And I think with this group, usually when we get that first first down, then we can start moving the football and start playing at our pace and our tempo and kind of what we want to do to dictate the course of the game. But changing personnel is part of that and there is opportunities to do some of that stuff.”
