Saturday proved to be just what Ohio State needed, a dominating 52-14 win. Ohio State was without head coach and play caller Ryan Day. Ohio State was also without three starting offensive linemen Thayer Munford, Josh Myers and Nicholas Petit-Frere. Other players that were out include middle linebacker Tuf Borland, safety Josh Proctor and defensive end Tyler Friday.

Being able to prepare for this many changes to the staff and lineup is a very challenging task that requires a lot of moving parts. With all the moving parts, Ohio State’s coaching staff also had to game plan and prepare to play Michigan State. With all the chaos, the staff did a fantastic job game planning and executing vs. Michigan State and Mel Tucker's defense.

Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker got his start in the Nick Saban coaching tree. Tucker started his coaching career as a GA for Nick Saban at Michigan State. He found himself as the defensive coordinator at Georgia from 2016-2018.

During this time, Tucker called defenses against Justin Fields in practice for an entire year. He understands what Fields can do well, and also what his limitations are. Tucker stated that, “We knew we needed to contain him in the designed runs (referring to Fields). We didn’t do that. We knew we couldn’t give up explosive plays in the run game, and the pass game, and we gave those up”.

Michigan State bases out of a 4 down, 2 high structure. They will spin their safeties before the snap, a term used with Saban and his tree as, “Rip/Liz”. Saban prefers to spin his safeties weak, so he is protected to the passing strength, and inserts a box player to the boundary. Cody Alexander created a diagram to give a visual on what the spin looks like.