Ohio State offensive coordinator and former Oregon head coach Chip Kelly still remembers the Ducks deliberately placing 12 players on the field late in their regular-season victory over the Buckeyes.
As Ohio State pushed forward in the closing minutes, Oregon was penalized for having 12 players on the field—a tactic head coach Dan Lanning later admitted was deliberate. While the penalty cost the Ducks 5 yards, Lanning considered it a worthwhile trade-off to run additional seconds off the clock.
Chip Kelly’s comments reflect Ohio State’s use of their previous loss to motivate themselves for the Rose Bowl, where they defeated Oregon 41-21. It shows how teams can draw motivation from past experiences to fuel their performance in subsequent games.
“I’ll tell you what, it was a unique message with our players, you can’t stop us with 11. You had to stop us with 12,” Chip Kelly said. “You saw the final results of 11 versus 11. So that was a message to our team for the week leading up to the Rose Bowl that I think resonated really well with our guys.”
Clearly that messaging worked as Ohio State threw for 319 yards and three touchdowns in its rematch with Oregon. Will Howard averaged 12.3 yards per attempt in the victory.
As Chip Kelly said, it’s hard to stop Ohio State playing 11-on-11 due to all of its weapons.
“They can double anybody they want. But they can’t double everybody,” Kelly said. “If they do, it’s a penalty. They’ve got too many guys on the field. We saw that before against some teams sometime during the year.”
Chip Kelly is obviously confident in his passing attack, particularly with how well the Buckeyes have played in the postseason. But he is also impressed with the Notre Dame secondary and shared that Notre Dame’s DBs will provide a tough challenge.
“I’m impressed. Both corners are tall and long and they do a great job in single coverage. And then when you can add Watts in there as a safety over the top, he’s as good as a safety as there is in the country. I know Ryan Clark from — he played at ASU, so I faced him for three years before I got here,” Chip Kelly said
“And when you have someone like Kiser, who is a six-year player that I’m sure he has every answer to every formation check, and it’s just innate for him because he’s been there so long. And he’s that truly coach on the field. So I think the veteran leadership with Cross up front and with Kiser and Watts is special, but I think that secondary is really well-coordinated.”.
