Happy Saturday everyone, and welcome to your morning Skull Session!
The worst part of May, other than the slowly dawning dread that you'll spend every waking minute outside drenched in sweat for the next three months or so, is that the offseason heebie jeebies start to set in. The nervous twitch in the back of your brain pan that tries in vain to trigger those most primal of endorphins that are only unleashed by the repeated viewing of what generally amounts to that federally sanctioned felonious assault we call football.
Oh, sure, you can try to replicate the feeling with baseball or hockey or the NBA if you're dumb, but we both know that by the end of June we'll all be staring sadly into space, trying to stave off insanity by recreating Holy Buckeye with kitchen utensils and sending singing telegram after singing telegram to President Gee demanding Gene Smith be fired/shot out of a cannon.
With that said though, we need to embrace this. We have a cool coach. Heirloom tomatoes are plentiful. The NFL team many of us root for has taken the bold step of drafting a starting quarterback who saw Weekend At Bernie's in theaters. Every simple, fun thing that we can find, we need to latch on to and make it our new focus for as long as we can hold out. A silly game, yes.
But there are worse games to play.
MARY SUE, STYLIN ON YOU Everybody makes mistakes. You, me, Michael Vick, everybody. And believe it or not, that even extends to the administration of the University of Michigan, and UM President Mary Sue Coleman admitted as such when she told a crowd of assorted sycophants, thieves, and possible communist spies that she felt Michigan made a mistake in hiring Rich Rod to be the head coach.
And it was. You know who they should've hired instead of Rich Rodriguez? Somebody with a solid record of success. Maybe a guy who led his team to three consecutive Top 10 finishes, or a dude with a BCS bowl win, or maybe even someone whose teams had three consecutive seasons of 10 wins or more. A guy who helped invent the spread offense. A hot young coach with a different approach. Rich Rodriguez.
My point is that Michigan made exactly the right hire with Rich Rod and that apologizing a year after the dude got fired is not only a little uncouth, it's also ridiculous. Michigan took a shot with RR. It didn't work out, and maybe it was never going to work out, but honestly more than an argument can be made that U of M never really wanted it to in the first place. And seriously, what are Michigan fans mad about; that they had to wait and extra three years for their dream coach, San Diego State's own Brady Hoke?
I hope Arizona meets them in a bowl and zone read-options them into infinity.
MONDO BUCKO After Dr. Jon Woods retired as the head of the Ohio State University Marching Band, that great organization was left with a gigantic hole that 27 years of having one director can often dig. Replacing a guy who left such a huge impact on both the band and the university itself is no small task, but Dr. Woods' mentee, Jon Waters, is going to try.
Waters seems to be extremely humbled and grateful for the opportunity presented to him, and as he points out, "one of the great things about the Ohio State band is that in 140 years of history, there have only been nine directors. It's the longevity of the folks that have come before me that have made this (program) so successful." That's an excellent point, and it'll be interesting to see what Waters comes up with to leave his mark. He mentions that he spent an hour talking with Urban about OSU's traditions and standards, and in that regard it will be fun seeing what the two men, both of whom have a long past with OSU, will do when given the reins of these great traditions that we hold near and dear.
Wow, smart move on that polo, Harv.WHITHER THOU, HARVEY UPDYKE? "Hello? Yes, police? Okay. This is a tree. Yeah. I'm here at the ballpark. Yeah. He's- he's right there. Oh God. I see him. Who? Updyke. Just sitting there, scratching himself. I don't know. He's sitting here, he's wearing jeans, but they're not jeans, they're like a combination of jeans and shorts look I don't know man you just gotta get down here! He's got all these cans around him, maybe pesticide maybe PBR I can't tell because I'm a tree. I just- what? No, I can't leave the area, I've got roots. No. No! No, literal roots, I'm a tree. I'm a member of the Aceraceae family, and I- OH GOD HE SAW ME. GET DOWN HERE, GET DOWN HERE! I'M TRYING TO RUSTLE MY LEAVES, IT'S NOT WORKING. HE'S A MACHINE. I GOTTA GO. JUST GET DOWN HERE HE'S COMING OVER GAHH-"
I REALLY WISH THE B1G WOULD ADD WASHINGTON STATE Just think, we were just one dumb stroke of luck away from having Mike Leach as the new Ohio State head football coach. I guess we'll be okay with the consolation prize of Urban Meyer, but part of me will watch Wazzu games this year with a wistful sigh, knowing what might've been. Leach was speaking at a banquet in Omaha this week, and had this to say about getting back into the coaching game:
"We had a real productive spring, got a lot of work done," Leach said. "Like everybody, we're looking for depth. We have a lot of work to do before the season starts in order to be real good."
Leach is installing his pass-oriented spread offense and is curious to see how it stacks up in the Pac-12.
He said he isn't concerned with having to prove himself again after being away from coaching for two years.
See, this is what I really love about Mike Leach. His hilariously amazing personality aside, this is a guy who never played football, got fired from his last job, has been out of the game for two years, and yet continues to retain his determination to make what he does work. That kind of resiliency is impressive, and it's hard to imagine that Washington State isn't going to improve by leaps and bounds with him at the wheel.
RABBIT PUNCHES Parks and Rec is back, YA HEARD?... DJ Jazzy Ali and his many ladies... Gotta do something in the winter... LeBron is gonna end up like Citizen Kane, except instead of a sled, Rosebud is an NBA championship... Slider, down and away... I Don't Know
