What Ohio State OC Chip Kelly said about facing Tennessee

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 College football playoff (8 p.m. Eastern Time, ABC/ESPN):

Against Tennessee’s defense

“I think Tennessee is, I mean, they’re fifth nationally in both scoring and total defense, No. 1 third-down defense in the country, No. 1 red zone defense in the country. So we play a really formidable defensive group coming in here that’s really well coached and they’ve got good players at all three levels. So it’s going to be a challenge for us again this week and our players are excited about that opportunity.”

Scoring 10 points in loss to Michigan changes how Ohio State’s offense prepared for Tennessee

“I think this game is different. Every game gets 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 good. And how do we move forward? And so because it’s been so long between games, you’re not allowed to go on the road and recruit , after your last game, you are on the go and you is on the road and there’s a lot of different things going on. You’re actually only coming into January now with the new recruiting plan. So we’ve been with, 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 have a chance to compete for a national championship. So that’s been the team’s only focus since the game. I think you understand that we had two losses in the season with four points combined. But we still have an opportunity to finish the way we want to finish, and that starts with the game on Saturday against Tennessee, and every team that’s left right now in this tournament, is a really good football team, I think. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ has been a different result. And I think it is a different result, as the old system was, when only four teams got the chance to win the national championship. Now that there are 12, I think , it’s a little bit of a different mindset that we kind of have to embrace and then say, ‘Hey, what do we do now? And so the big thing for this group is that from the day we started our preparation from Tennessee, have they been focused on one thing, and it’s playing Tennessee. And we got a whole week of work to go through this week and be ready to play on Friday. I mean, Saturday night, eight o’clock.”

The need for Ohio State to have new wrinkles against Tennessee

“I don’t think you go into it to show that we have to show things we haven’t shown before. We need to show things that are productive. So I could line up some really crazy formations next Saturday night. But if they don’t get a farm, it doesn’t matter what it looks like. What’s most important is the productivity and are we getting positive yards? Are we efficient on first down so we can get into usable third down situations? And then continue to get the drives going? And I think with this group, usually once we get that first down, then we can start moving the football and start playing at our pace and our pace and kind of what we’re going to do to dictate the flow of the game . But changing personnel is part of it, and there are opportunities to do some of that.”