Good morning, Buck Nudders. Welcome to the Buck Nuts morning.

Welcome to the Buck Nuts morning 5 here on Friday, April 8th, 2022. I am Dave Vittel. I am joined by Patrick Murphy.

J-Book fans, don't worry. We haven't had J-Book on the show last couple weeks. Last week we had Card-A-L and Brand Shot and Steam this week with Patrick.

J-Book is just a schedule and conflict. I know J-Book has a lot of legion of fans out there. J-Book will be back next week. We appreciate Patrick jumping in.

We love having Patrick on the show. A lot to get into my friend. Let's start with expectations for this Ohio State Secondary this fall.

We're going to get a chance to meet with the secondary here in about an hour and a half. Buck guys are having their 11th practice of spring right now.

We're going to meet with the corners and the safeties today looking forward to that. Let's just start with, you know, we're going to get into specifics.

But just, are you bullish on this group overall? The coaches, the talent, the fit, the depth. What do you think overall? What are your expectations, Patrick, of this Ohio State Secondary in 2022?

Well, first of all, my expectations are not that I will replace J-Book in any way. So I don't want anyone to think I'm here trying to do that.

But in terms of the secondary, I think it's got to be better, right? I mean, I thought the corners actually played pretty well last year.

Denzel Burke obviously playing for the first time in college football as a true freshman.

It was more the stuff in the middle where teams really attacked the buck guys in the passing game.

And that included the safeties. You lose Josh Proctor early in the year. That's a huge issue. And you got a lot of young guys playing in it.

Denzel Burke was one of those young guys, but Ronnie Hickman, you know, the list of young guys in the secondary was large.

And I think that's going to be a big difference this year is that those guys have played a full season of football.

You know, even a guy like Cam Brown, who had been in the program for a long time, hadn't played much because he got tours of killies two years ago and was out for the rest of that season.

So there's an opportunity here for this secondary to take a big jump, not only because the scheme will be different and they're being coached by new guys.

And I think that will certainly improve, but just the fact that they have the experience of playing a full year.

They know what they're doing now going through this spring practice. It's it's year two for a lot of these guys as starters or main contributors.

So I think that's going to be a huge factor. And then we can get in the scheme. We can get on to what Jim knows defense is going to look like.

But I think that'll make a big difference. I really like what they've done with with the two coaches in Perry, Aliano and Tim Walton, Tim Walton, especially just he's a buck guy.

He wants to get this defense right, especially in that secondary where he played once upon a time.

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