1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Barry Thompson (QB Coach at Fairfax Academy) - August 27th, 2025

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Barry Thompson (QB Coach at Fairfax Academy) - August 27th, 2025Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-a-ticket and the ticketfm.com. Here is your host, Derek Pearson, brought you by Canopy Street Market. In your face. In your face. In your face. It is Husker footballee. Husker footballie.

Yeah, let's get in and let get all the, got to give the rock, the goosebumps on the forearm. You got to give the sign to let them know you're feeling it. 4-024-6-4, 5-6-8, 5. If you have questions, you want to be a part of what we're doing, hit me with the what's up, and we'll include you in the show. You're on the stream, so greatly appreciate you hanging out with Royals.

We're currently up for 1 in the A's inning. unfortunately Mariners won two so they will gain no ground there the Yankees also won green green green there that's just hey man got to play through could be worse they're going to lost yesterday too

well yeah one hit redsock also won so they will gain no ground they will gain no ground today but the 11 one offensive the 12 one 12 runs today's impressed uh harrison arins what's set the tone would you please

The autumn wind is a pirate Blustering in from sea With a rollicking song he sweeps along Swaggering voicelessly His face is weather-beaten He wears a hooded sash With a silver hat about his head And a bristling black mustache

He growls as he storms the country a villain big and bold and the trees all shape and quiver and quake as he robs them of their gold the autumn win is a raider pillaging just for fun he'll knock you round and upside down and laugh when he's conquered and won

I wonder if John Fissenda did a mic drop after he did that like he in the studio he knew he hit it he says boys that's a wrap I'm gone I think what we've missed is that that bass, he wasn't using his hands. The late great John Fessenda was just setting it off. He was setting it off. No need to drop the microphone.

You know, I don't know much about him, but I see him like all day with the overcoat, the slick-looking hat, walking on the studio, has some unfiltered cigarettes, says, give me the copy. He was a post-Berry, Barry. He was an O.J. That's what it was. Before it was that he... And you could imagine if he was in a restaurant.

They said, you know, you seem to be drawing a lot of attention. He goes, who are you? He goes, I'm John. I'm sorry. He would just say, you know, the other wind is a raider. And everybody would just applaud. They would just applaud. Tom Jones had his sick, what do you call it, routine?

And I think John Frienda had his too. Oh, he would just call out ready for Barry Thompson. Pretty cool along the way. Barry, it is Football Eve. It is Husker Football Eve. And some would say that the horses are in the barn. Hayes in the barn. You can't do any more than you've done.

It's time. But talk me through this. that what is tonight like if you're everything and it's nothing right that that's the that's the thing about the college football season it seems like every every game is everything and then it's nothing right you know you you win this game and it's just the nature of football it's like okay you should have beat Cincinnati who's next right and then everybody comes in and you know dissect the performance and everything else and then it's the next game even if it's a non-conference game, it becomes everything or nothing.

You beat them. Did you beat them by enough? How do things look? I think that's the thing about the college schedule is that every week, it seems like it's everything or it's nothing. So, yeah, I mean, it's important to get off to a good start. You do not want to start O&1. Maybe, you know, Texas, Ohio State, LSU, and Clemson, maybe they have a little excuse.

But everybody else is like, you know, you win that first game. So there you go. go. It's everything, but it's nothing, right. Barry, let's go through the, let's go through this night before. Yeah. Walk through, right? You get to the hotel. Yeah. And there is this thing about elite quarterbacks and coaches. Mm-hmm.

That something in them, you're looking for something. Anything. Yeah, yeah. Could have been missed or that may be an advantage. which way do you look? Are you looking within your group? Are you looking within your quarterback? Are you looking within your opponent?

Where are your eyes in your brain? Well, you got two types of quarterbacks. You have the one that's just trying to make sure that he executes his job, right? That guy that's kind of worried about that. And then hopefully you have the second version, which is a guy knows how he's going to perform. And he's just trying to figure out within his team, right? you know, which parts is he going to use to win the game, right? What does he need to win down to win tough parts of the game?

And a guy that has a feel for that, for his teammates, for, you know, his linemen and the backs and a feel for what the coordinator is calling. That's the guy that you want. You want that second guy, right? Because that second guy is going to have the ability to kind of summon a performance and deliver. You know, quarterbacks have a lot of managing to do. a lot of emotional and manage it.

If you just think about the normal interaction when you get up to, let's see you finish the series, right? So that series ends without a touchdown or a kick. You're going to feel some way about the series. You come off the sideline. You're going to get hit by a coach, right? It's just coaching, right? Coach is going to say something to you.

A teammate passes by. That's your third emotional interaction that you have to manage. And then, you know, somebody wants to talk to you upstairs. And so you have to deal with that. And then finally, nowadays, you get that little iPad in your hand and hopefully you get a space by yourself and you finally get to get your thoughts together about what's going on, what was said, what was truthful, what do you have to ignore, what's coming up next. So it takes a lot to load the CPU just, you know, from a technical standpoint. But that emotional thing that group quarterbacks manage, it's a really overlooked part of the game. game. And that's if things are going kind of okay. You know, let's, let's say you just

throw pick six or you made a boneheaded read and you knew you made a boneheaded read. You know, then how are you reacting from that? So you want that second quarterback, that second guy, knows his job, knows what he's going to do, right? And it's just about managing these pieces. And how can I work these things to go win a game? Through all of it, we jump forward, but we need to start the beginning. Okay. that that July camp takes you into a space. And no matter in this day and age, it's not like you,

like the GPS has an origin. You just where you are. Yeah. And every program, every player is in a different place. That the install with new coaches, new defensive coordinator, new offensive coordinator, new quarterbacks coach,

new tightings coach, new, right? There's a whole bunch of new things. You have to agree on what this thing is going to be before you introduce it and install it. So talk me through that first meeting, Barry, of offensive coaches. Right, right. Because the head coach will tell you what his belief system is. Right, right.

and that he picked the coordinator to facilitate his belief in what the offense should be or could be. Could be. In that room, man. Yes, when you laid out, it brings you back to that term about there's jimmy's and joes and X's and O's, and you shouldn't draw an X or an O without a Jimmy or Joe. So you can amass these pieces. You can evaluate talent. You can, you know, posit what you think this could be.

but you never know until you get out in the field and you start to work out that premise. And a lot of that working out the premise is really finding out what players cannot do or what players, what they don't know, right? And so you may assume some things about a player, especially nowadays, but then you get them on the field and you realize he doesn't really know that. And so then there's a decision point. The decision point is, are you going to run to coaching? or you're going to run away from coaching at that point.

You'd be surprised in coaching, maybe some of the listeners would be surprised. And we've had this experience. We say, hey, that guy needs to be in the game. And the response comes back, well, he can't get in a stance. I'm like, you know, we can't teach him how to get in a stance. And I go, look, I had it said to me the other day about a guy who's pretty skilled. He's actually one of the backup quarterbacks and does pretty well. And I said, you know, we need to, there's points where we have good receivers,

but there's points in the game where he could go in. And the response was, well, you know, he has to remember where to line up. I'm like, he runs the offense. You know what I mean? So the guy didn't mean anything by it, but those types of things pop up. And so to get back to your question, it is the working out of the premise of what you think it could be. But it takes an understanding of what these players don't know and what is it that they can and can't do. and then it goes from paper to reality.

Once the identity, or at least the North Star, like the direction of where the offense is going to go, you then have to say, okay, but here's where we are. Here's where we are. And if you're in Nebraska where you say, okay, I've got a, I had a freshman quarterback, true freshman quarterback, who through 13 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, top 10 freshmen in yardage, we won seven games. That's where we are.

That's how we got to where we are, and that's where we are. We also have to identify. You know what? We took some shots along the way because we don't have the receivers that we had last year. We don't have all of the runners.

We do have one of the runners. We have new tight ends that have different responsibilities, returning assets. And then, oh, by the way, we picked up some passengers along the way. Yeah. Passengers.

Now you have to reset the GPS and say, here's what we know. There's not talking about the outside. I need a little bit of talk about the inside. You know what I mean? I need a little bit of talk about the inside. And, you know, are we going to be able to, you know, run scat protection where the backs out and we put pressure on with five and create more stretches? Or do we have to keep people in?

You know, is this? quarterback to the point where he can kind of pick up when they're going four week and he can shift or the lineman or you're asking the center to do that do you have the type of center you can call that protection take care of the quarterback those are the nuts and bolts when you're trunk in the high level and you want to throw the ball so yeah we can get all these guys on the outside but if we don't have that framework inside you know the time to get that ball off that's just the part that shouldn't be skipped shouldn't be skipped and I'll tell you this You know, and I'm speaking at the high school level,

high school coaches are fond of putting linemen into the weight room, and they should go into the weight room. But sometimes there's a lack of understanding of the athletic development that linemen need to play the position. And I'm not, you know, I'm not there in their training development, but man, they need to move their feet, and they need to be able to communicate and slide and all kinds of stuff in a short time frame to really make this thing go.

So if you don't track, but you need to talk about those guys. If I asked you to build an offense, some would say let's start with the QV. Some would say start with the coordinator. Some will start to say you need to start with head coach because he's going to pick the coordinator. But you and I have had this conversation. If I don't win in the middle of the field, I'm not going to win outside. I'm just not going to win outside. So I've got to win.

win, snap of the ball, handling of the ball, destination of the ball. Yeah. Center, quarterback, tailback. Yeah. You go right down the center of almost any team sport. If you think about it, right, the key to defending it and making scoring tough is pushing things to the outside, right?

So if you can disrupt the middle of any team sport, it's hockey, basketball, or you think about baseball, right? catcher, pitcher, center fielder, second basement sometimes gets over there, right? So you've got that lineup. Those are generally your better players and they're there for a reason because it forces teams to play to the outside, which limits the type of things that you have to defend. So yes, you need to be able to control the middle of the field. How do you do that in the install, right?

You have a center. Do I have a smart? do I have a smart guy? Yeah. He's also a physical guy. Yeah. Because he has to validate and confirm everything that dude that standing behind him sees or needs. Yeah.

And some people don't understand how in certain offenses, when you look on TV and you see that center in that weird spot and he's pointing, he's, he centers, real good centers, they're like quarterbacks except they work backwards. They look up and they spot safeties and they start coming down. in the box and they have in their head a kind of picture of what everything's aligned and they count backwards where as a quarterback you can get to the point where you can understand how your guard your two centers are covered up right how they're being defended then you can kind of start to understand that the alignment and the coverage behind it the centers look straight down the

field the good ones do and they work backwards in the box they look left look right and then they come down and then finally they have to figure out okay. I got a guy on me. He may be a little superior to me. How am I going to minimize risk on this play that we're calling? So that guy is really key to doing it. And the great thing about centers is they don't have to come in that 6'7, 315 pound frame.

They can get away with being a little smaller, arms a little shorter, but man, do they have to be whip crack smart? Barry, it was once described that the center is the bouncer of the club, the quarterback is the DJ, the running back is the party starter who's going to get it going. But if no good club, no good club exists without somebody in the middle standing there that keeps the bad people out. And when you talk about looking forward,

the bouncer has to see both ends. He's got to see up the middle. Where are my threats coming from? Yeah. And just like a center, he needs to talk with his hands up because you never know when that problem's going to come. Center with his hands, hands down, center down. Now you really, that could be the space. So the install portion of this thing, right? Because you've done the introduction and the identify identification that tells you this is what we're going to try to be. Then the install portion of it where literally all those, when you said, like, you know, Mike Tomlin saying it's amazing how many coaches run away from coaching.

Right through coaching and run away from it. But that's when this is. Teaching. Yeah. The mental side of it, knowing where to be and what to do. Right. And the teaching part, because of the constrictions of the time frame that you have, you know, this is the area.

And it really begins in high school if you really want to be good, is that the time is flipped. That is that you're spending. way more time off the field preparing than you do on the field playing. And so the teaching and everything that the layers in which things are taught, how things are organized and put together, the amount of film that coaches are watching before they get to meet and then how they organize things and then how they are communicating everything

to the players because you happen in the meeting. Everybody knows now you need to have a very active meeting, right? You just can't have guys sitting back. But you've got to present that. information to them in a way that, you know, holds their attention, that's viable for them, explaining it, showing it, demonstrating it, all that needs to have about four or five layers to it before the player gets to the field, because once you get to the field, the practice time is limited. So the teaching and all that stuff needs to take place. And so while you're looking

at talent, right, we're talking about this July thing, which I think in college has really moved up into, you know, January, because they're installing spring. They've got it. So it's taking place then. But, you know, when you get to that point and you're doing those different layers, you're getting, you should be getting feedback as to whether this guy is, one, is he putting in the, look me for this way. When you're coaching at some point, it gets down to this. Either a player can't do it or he won't do it. And if you're asking a player to do something he can't do, you're a bad coach. You need to adjust. But if you're asking a player and he won't do it, you got the wrong person, right? And so through those layers of watching this,

go through this teaching and everything else. You know, is he picking it up? Now, if it's a player that you need, right, then, and you've done all those stuff, and the onus is on the coach to let me find out how this guy learns, right? Because he seems capable. I did my checklist here. It's not happening on the field. So now I'm not going to run away from the responsibility of coaching.

I'm going to figure out maybe has a communication or processing issue, and I got to figure out how I can make this work, right? You just can't do checklist A, B, C, and D, and then say, coach, I did A, B, and C, and D, and he's, he's not worth it. No, you got them. We can't, you know, we can't, we don't have a free agent, drive. We can't cut people loose in September. We've got to make this work. We're going to make this work. Yeah, it's a space. We're going to break. Royals just one, so we're going to reset, and we'll bring everybody into the conversation. Barry Thompson, DP, Harris, and orange one-on-one one.

You're listening to One-on-One with DP, brought you by Canopy Street Market, on 93-7 the tickets and the Ticketfm.com. All right, welcome back in a one-on-one with DP. We got Coach Barry Thompson, but before we get into segment number two, once you quick point out some new things that are going on right here in Lincoln, Lancaster County. Right now we got credible mind and overdose awareness. The Lincoln Lancaster County Health Department has launched Credible Mind,

a free confidential online platform to support your mental well-being. You can find it anytime at myhealthmind.crediblemind.com. Here's why it matters. An overdose can happen right in front of you and you might not realize it. Blue lips, slow breathing, pinpoint pupils, joking sounds are unresponsiveness. These signs can be deadly. at credible mind you find tools, resources, and guidance to be ready before it happens. Take charge of your well-being to help protect those around you.

So keep that in mind. And again, we'll be shouting that out over these next few couple days here again. The Lincoln Lancaster County Health Department has lost credible mind and it is a free confidential online platforms. Definitely utilize that if you need to do so. All right, D.P. Barry Thompson, we got to the install. Yep. and in the install, it is the things that you will run the most, the best.

Is that a fair assessment of how teams identify in their install, what the priority and focus should be? Yeah, if you're establishing an identity, yes, and I think you're really good coaches do teach depth, not with, you know, so it's not necessary to carry a large volume of offense into a game. And, you know, one of the things about being offensively kind of limiting formations, there's an argument to be both ways. But when you limit what you're doing from a play caller standpoint, you begin to understand and players can begin to understand, there's only so many ways to defend from that particular personnel group.

Right? That's the depth of understanding, right? that if I line up in a certain personnel group, you know, over and over again, I can change the picture on them with motions and shifts, but that personnel group is only going to be defended so many different ways. And that kind of builds a little speed and a little familiarity into what you're doing. So, yeah, there has to be a decision about how much offense you're carrying, what is that you do well, and what you're going to do all for that.

Barry Thompson, it is always the question. you and I bang our head against the wall with offenses on a regular basis. That in determining what your offense can be and should be, how many coordinators do not focus on getting their best player, the ball the most? Too many. We've been around too many where it's just not that focus. You know, I think coaches in general are getting better.

You know, you hear a lot about systems. you know, they run this system or they run that system and they do that. And it's not the system. It's how the players function within the system. And then also really, you're a little more limited at the high school level. But you're still constrained a little bit at the college level because you can't always get the idea player for your, quote, system. But you do have players that deserve the ball more than others. And that's okay.

And the other guys have to understand that too. It's like if you think about a run play, if you have a run play, just a run play that you do really well. You're going to pound it, you know, 20, 25 times, and everybody knows this particular running back is going to get the ball. Well, at some point, the defense has to really kind of cheat to stop that thing. And when they do, that sets up the other stuff that's going to be available to you, which makes the defense. defense react and you can get back to what you're doing. So there's some simplicity to getting the ball to one guy over and over again. Yeah, you can try to defend them and take them out,

but they're just simply guys that deserve the ball more than others. And your offense should kind of reflect that. The play that you run the best most often, or the play that offers you the most readily opportunity to score, points. Well, now you're talking to that. See, I know where you're kind of hidden, right? So you could run buck, and that might be your best play.

But if you don't have a home run hitter, that's not going to offer your opportunity to score points. I think the air raid system, I'm a little exposed to it the last few years in our alma mater. And it just does a great job of creating horizontal and vertical stretches through most of their patterns. And so it's a simple kind of understanding of how things are being defended and you go get the ball to somebody. Those types of things, you know, can provide big chunk plays and scoring opportunities. But if you add something to it, right? If you add something to that, then now you have an offense that's really truly tough to defend. Most defenses, I think I've said this before, if they have one thing they can stop,

the coordinators are out there, you're going to run up against a team, that they're going to be good enough to stop that one thing. But if they have two things to defend, then it becomes a little more problematic for a defense to stop that offense. Through that,

if you're in Nebraska, you're trying to figure out a certain number of things in play. One, what do you want to force the defense to defend the most? and then two what is the one thing that they cannot take away in Nebraska's offense what thing will Nebraska have available to it the most yeah if you can't protect the whole thing goes down the drain sir I mean it's really simple when you play design pass design you're going to get guys open you have answers for man you have answers for zone you have quick game things that those are things that built in you have a quarterback to kind of execute those things so the way one thing that that squashes it all is what we talked about a few minutes ago. If you can't protect and they don't have enough time to get there, then you got an issue, right? And if you can't protect, typically it goes that you can't run the ball very well. So that one factor has a leveraging point. If your front is getting beat up and getting abused, then, you know, you could have all

the play design in the world and fastest receivers you want to, and it's going to be a long. on debt. What happens, is there a number of possessions that offensive coordinator has in his pocket? At least he thinks he has it is available, right? Because, you know, some will say, hey, if we hold the ball 35 minutes, you know, that'll hold the possessions down. And Cincinnati has made it known that, you know, they think in order to win, they get arrested the ball.

They need to hold the ball. They need to possess the ball 35 minutes. Barry Thompson. What does that say? Is that a run thing? Is that a passing thing? Is it a combo thing? I don't know.

It doesn't seem like a point to think. I did a little digging and I'm in D.C. And it sounded like a little talking out both sides of the mouth. Yeah. I did see the 35 minute. But then I heard the quarterback talking. And he talked about all the receivers he had and we want to get them in space and they're going to make people miss.

And so I'm like, okay, well, that sounds like two different things. What matters the most in modern football is that when you have the football you score. You want your possession to end in a kick. That's it, right? Either it's you're kicking off, you're kicking next point, or you're punning, right, for good field position. And for an offense to be productive to score,

you need a defense that gets the ball back to them many times, right? And so I guess you can think logically if you're looking at Nebraska's an opponent, you say, okay, defensively, we're going to give up some chunk plays, they're going to score, blah, blah, blah. Then you start to think, okay, well, we think we can prosecute an offense, a quick game or a short game or meat red team against this defense, which will kind of prolong things and keep the ball in our hands a little bit longer. But it doesn't solve the problem. You still need to score.

If you're going to concede that they're going to score, then when are you going to score? Holding the ball doesn't mean you score. It just means you have the ball for 35 minutes. Yeah, that whole scoreboard thing. I mean, in 35 minutes, let's say this is going to be a four-score game. So in 35 minutes, you're going to score what, every eight minutes? What's the math on that? Four times eight minutes, you're going to score the ball?

And that's how you're going to win the game? It just doesn't sound right to me. Harrison, Barry Thompson, I've been in rooms with coaches, where literally one of us, why ask the question. How many points a game do we need to score to win? And it is amazing how many coaches do not have that number. That do not have that number because that number, what does the number dictate? If you say to me, we need 27 points. If we score 27 points, we're going to win the game.

Because there's a coordinator that'll tell you, yep, or nope, that's the thing. The number, the number is 40, right? The number is 40. Modern football, number is 40. You may fall less than that. You may have a tough defense, but the ideal is that you asked a great question a long time ago, right? You sit down and say, how many first down plays do you have in your offense, right? Everybody talks about, hey, we want to win first down, but very rarely just somebody think it's first and ten, where's my ten-yard play? Where's my ten-yard play?

And they love saying, hey, I don't know if you have a, I don't know if you have a third. I'd be 10-yard flight on first and 10. Why isn't that your best play, right? Yeah. You brought that up. I never thought about that before. Go ahead. Because I wanted to understand, like, Barry was working, he was running a quarterback.

I'm working receivers. So in my head, no matter what coverage they were in, and no matter what personnel I had on the field, I needed for him to understand that there was a, there were several spaces in the defense at 10 and a half yards that I could get my receiver pretty quickly, pretty consistently. And hey, Barry, whether it's man coverage or zone,

I can get to that spot and not put your quarterback under duress. And that let Barry. Yeah. No, and it's funny. So, you know, and again, you can draw these things up on paper, but you have to have the ability to execute it. But, yeah, it's an interesting offensive thought. You know, is our first play, is our best play a 10-yard play

that we could run consistently on first down, right? I mean, how cool would that be? And somebody's going to figure out how to do it. I generally look at games knowing that defenses are giving up at least five yards somewhere. And so, you know, what are we doing to attack that space on any given, on any given rep, right? And those five downs, you know, you get it on first, you get on second, and that's a way to turn first downs. And you start to change things, right? The defensive coordinator, any defensive coordinator said, yeah, we'll give up those five yards.

If he can do that 10 times in a row, you know, good to him. And they don't feel that way. You do it two or three times, and they're starting to yell at somebody or clamping down or taking a risk or changing the coverage, that type of thing. It doesn't take much to get a defensive coordinator to change if you're consistently prosecuting the ball. They tend to try to catch up with what you're doing, but as long as you have an answer going back the other way,

you're off and running. Take the layup. That is always like it's just take the layup. The numbers from the Cincinnati side was that Cincinnati ran, man coverage less than any Power 5 in the country. At least in that in that proximity that there were fewer than a hundred plays offensively last year against Cincinnati where they ran man coverage. So they ran they ran zone cover.

That number matters because on the other side Nebraska's Dillon-Raeola against zone coverage was in the top 10 of all, not top 10%, top 10 of all quarterbacks in the country against zone coverage. That tells me a lot. What's in the game plan, coach? Well, I tell you, so you can look at this either way. Let's look at it for the defensive side first.

There was a Michigan defense coordinator several years ago. Things have changed, but it was several years ago. And all he did as defenses were changing and trying to adjust the spread is he played 4-3, whatever it was. He didn't care. He didn't shift, and he didn't. So the argument was that his players knew how to handle anything out of that one formation. And, yeah, you could get some stuff out of it, but they would coach the heck out of that. And, you know, they got to the depth of it, right?

So there's that, right? And you look in this day and age, you look at it, okay, where can I get value? Can I really go get a lockdown corner? I can't. But can I get some good zone guys that can be stable and have me a solid defense. So you can see where they may do that and do that really well, right? So that's that argument. On the offense event, in order to be that successful against zone on a consistent basis,

you need receivers who understand where those spaces are and how to get to them. Because as a quarterback, you can go back and look at those holes, but you need receivers who are looking up and understanding the coverage as well as you do, and they're getting to the holes in that that zone whatever you're looking at right and then you've got of course you'll come back to the line it's going to be my theme we've got to have a line to give you a little bit time to get it there all right i i say this and this is the thing i would wish but barry hey man i'm going to beat them off the line scrimmits throw me to green uh i'll go like listen we we can overcomplicate you literally can do the matrix number scheme and try to calculate what this is.

But ultimately, if you're better than and you have a plan, you're proactive in the plan, hey, hey, Barry, three step drop, get it out of your hand, throw it to green, my side of the field. Hey, listen, I have a three, I have a young crew of high school quarterbacks now. And I think one, two, three, three of my young guys, they did exactly that. I said, no, four of them. They did exactly that. They sent me their little highlights.

They all had all had good games. One's a freshman playing JD, the other. And they did that. There was a guy out there. They saw them, boom. They got the ball up. It wound up in the end zone. You were to laugh.

I'll send you those clips because they're all four of them. We'll crack up because there's four shots that are exactly the same. Amen. Two different levels. Harrison, they can complicate it. Listen, man. He'll tell you, Barry, tell you, beat him off the line. Got them.

And if they start running with you, if they start running with you, keep running. Yep. I'll throw you open. If they stop running. I have four clips where you will crack up because these are my guys, man. You said, you know. And look, if you run through traffic and the car stop, you stop. We'll close out.

We'll go back. We're very tough. You're listening to One-on-One with D.P. Brought to by Canopy Street Market on 93-7. the ticket to the ticket fm.com. The final segment with Barry Thompson, BT, kind sir, Cincinnati running the 335. Yeah.

Mainly zone. They will do some tricks and stunts up front, right, to change the timing and tempo. But, but, but, but in the 335, you're really holding to. different zone options. If you're Dylan Marilla, what are you looking for it? You're looking for opportunities to check runs, good runs at the line of scrimmage, which will force it.

And you're looking for kind of spaces and gaps between the before you get to the fight, right? And I don't know if they have this in, but if you're motioning and you're shifting, you're also forcing communication and identity. Switch routes can also be pretty helpful. You know, slot choice is another good one. You have a good receiver here that can kind of understand and get it going.

Those are the things you're looking for. And then, of course, when you get your matchups, you're looking to exploit those things. But taking care of the ball, looking for opportunities to run. They should have a good run that they can check to against us. Those are the things that will kind of, you know, make the defense have to adjust a little bit. Barry Thompson. RPO game.

RPO game. So 335. What do we look? Option routes in the slot right in front of the young quarterback? Well, there's that. But you're really looking at the opportunities when they add. So the play calling from that goes to you're attaching RPO's to run. right, because it really helps you from a play caller standpoint.

You don't know exactly what you're going to get every time. So then now you're leaving that decision-making up to the quarterback. And that's why I said checking to good runs is really what's important because the good runs will really help set up your RPO. And then you're going to have to get some RPS to add a third, right, because they're going to be a little bit more protected to the inside. How do you punish stunts in the 335? That's your linemen.

They have to be mean. Right. You know, the linemen have a phrase that you look for work. And when you look for work, you want to punish and you want to punish people who come in there. You know, if you're a 300-pounder and there's somebody that comes in there that weighs 250, you want to tell them, let them know in every respect that this is big boy territory. If you come in, the big boy hits it. It's kind of underestimated about how violent,

Offensive linemen on. I heard it once described that the type of people that if you were in church and they sat behind you and you felt somebody smack you on the back of the head, when you turned around, they would be the last person you would suspect. So they get their licks in. They get their licks in. But do you want some offensive alignment that are mean?

Would it be safe to say that the team, the defensive secondary that tackles the best will have the most success? They're going to cover it all, right? Listen, it does come back to blocking and tackling, right? It just does at the end of the day, right? Somebody's going to miss a tackle. Somebody doesn't tackle well out in space. Those are big points.

Also blocking downfield. You know, the receivers, when you talk about chunk yards, they only come from receivers, you know, that they somehow get into a space and you get them the ball. That's a chunk yard. Or they are blocking down. downfield. And if they block down field, that also creates long plays as well. So receivers can have a big say in this before it's over. I would say this as well that as a receiver, I don't even need blocks downfield. I just need you to occupy people. Yeah. Yeah. Just get in

way. Just get, just be there as a nuisance. Yeah. You make a defense. You make a defense. under and this same thing for linemen too sometimes linemen are responsible for getting up and getting you know if your gap team you know getting backers and it's a whole art to running to where the linebacker's going to understand where the point of attack he really is but as you're doing that just making him run over instead of under you may not touch him but man that's a block you know Hey, look, I've pushed more than my share of linemen in the back. My handprint is in the numbers of some very big dudes. Virginia, like, no, no, no, I ain't even going to tell you.

Go, gone, pushing it. It is a thing that in this space, that Nebraska has the opportunity to have a special season or go left, and I think those things, you said blocking, tackling, are in port but Barry Thompson the ability to finish you know right to me that's everything right I continue to say finishing is one of the hardest things of doing sports and you know over the years right the last several years there's been an issue with finish right having opponents there so yeah for this crew that's going to kind of hover over them until you prove that you can finish.

And then that brings you back to the principles of the game, right? We can throw the ball around. We can do RPO. We got to design stuff. But at some point, we need to control the game. And we need to get off the field. And we need to close it out, right? And that's a whole another thing.

You know, at the end of the game, when you have a lead, those possessions aren't just ordinary possessions, right? And, you know, I suspect that might. be the tough part of this game is whoever's up trying to close it out. Knowing how to finish and who will finish is an important thing. Do not turn the ball over late in ball games. You can run the clock out by throwing it to the backside of the back field. It doesn't have to be what it is.

Barry Thompson, thank you, kind, sir. This weekend, once we know how this thing played out, baby. We're kicking off here in Virginia, 3rd. Thursday night. Hey, man. Go get him. Go get them. Yeah, yeah.

We've got an O'Connell, a little Arlington matchup to kick him up. Ooh. Ooh. The Eric Metcalfe. By the way, check your text. I sent you those four shots.

Go get up, brother. Appreciate you. You love your great time. So that's it for us here. We'll have some replays. I think we just replayed the previous two hours. We really could. I know it's Whiteboard Wednesday with Jay.

Yeah, there we go. I don't know. That's pretty good stuff today. All right. Appreciate you guys listening. Don't go anywhere though. D.P. mentioned it. More ticket coming up your way next right here. 37 tickett ticketfm.com.