Welcome to your Tuesday Skull Session, now under new management!
You may notice, sadly, that Danny is no longer your host for Tuesday skull sessions, so I'm afraid that you're stuck with me. I'll do my absolute best to still make you want to start your Tuesdays with 11W.
I actually received the news that I was stepping up to the big leagues of Skull Session-ing as I was climbing Mt. Baker, repping Ohio State as in the picture below.
Ohio State has that app that allows you to share your favorite OHIO pictures - have many of you submitted yours? If you have some cool ones, let us see them!
Anyway, on to our first item of the day:
FANTASY TIME Yes, we've made it to the final week before fall camp starts (!!!), so that means it is time for some fantasy mock drafts.
The Big Ten Network put together a mock draft of players from around the Big Ten based on several Big Ten bloggers' opinions.
Notably, the Buckeyes were well represented, with Braxton picked third by an Iowa writer, John Simon going fourth to a UM blogger (!), and Big Hank selected with the ninth overall pick by our very own Kyle Rowland.
Ohio State led the conference in the number of first-round picks, and I can't say I disagree with any of them. It's always a fruitless exercise to say who the very best player on any team is, but it's hard to argue with these three guys.
The O-Zone's Tony Gerdeman did his own mock draft a little while ago as well, even providing new destinations for these draftees. Interesting to see the differences between the BTN's first round and Tony's.
HAS HE DUNN ENOUGH FOR A MULTI-GAME SUSPENSION? Ok, that was a bad pun. The Dunn story first broke on Sunday night, but we learned significantly more details on Monday.
Dunn was charged with four misdemeanors, the most serious of which (fine wise) were for drug paraphanelia and possession of marijuana:
The drug paraphernalia charge, if convicted, carries a maximum fine of $250 and a maximum jail sentence of 30 days. If convicted of possession of marijuana, the maximum is a $150 fine. If Dunn is convicted of either drug charge, he faces an automatic driver’s license suspension of a minimum of six months and maximum of five years.
There is some precedent in Meyer's past treatment of drug-related law problems, generally ranging from a 1 to 3 game suspension.
O-H-I-Oing at the top of the (North Cascades) world IF YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM, COMPOSITE THEM. Everyone seems to have a favorite recruiting service between Rivals, ESPN, Scout, and 247, with arguments between fanbases and recruiting analysts over perceived biases and slights to their favorite players.
However, instead of championing the superiority of their own product, 247 Sports announced a new composite ranking system that average recruiting rankings along a normal distribution for the four primary recruiting services.
As Gentry Estes describes:
Basically, the 247Composite makes the line "Yeah, but the other site has him rated this way" obsolete, taking the rankings of all four major recruiting sites and running them through a complex algorithm using a Gaussian distribution formula to create the most comprehensive ranking on the Internet.
However, the scary-sounding "Gaussian distribution" is actually nothing more than a normal distribution, or bell curve. I have to agree with Luke's assessment:
"Yo dawg, we averaged some numbers. Please give us a cookie." #science
— Luke Zimmermann (@lukezim) July 30, 2012
No doubt that this will be useful, but doesn't it sound at least a little familiar?
#REDDWATCH2012. Though Penn State lost its first official transfer today, both Bolden and Redd made bigger waves as potential transfers away from Penn State.
Bolden appears to have been released from his scholarship and is taking a hard look at LSU of all places, which has been kind to transfers before (See: probable starting questerback Zach Mettenberger).
Some of you have to look at Bolden's stat line and question why LSU would want another guy who resembles Jordan Jefferson on the surface - mobile quarterback who appears to have some accuracy issues. However, at least one LSU blogger believes it is a good move, if not simply for depth chart security and leadership experience.
In our ongoing coverage of Redd Watch 2012, Joe Schad has the update:
Silas Redd leaving LA now. Solid lean to USC. Matt Barkley and Robert Woods spent tons of time with Silas.
— Joe Schad (@schadjoe) July 30, 2012
Sources are still trying to confirm whether Redd did in fact play ping pong and NCAA '13 with the pair while on his visit.
Redd will most likely make a decision mid-week after first speaking to head coach O'Brien.
LINK ALL DAY ER'RY DAY. Forgot Simon.. "Uh, coach, that's not my name..."... swimming and stuff...cool spider vid...iphone prototypes...oldest cave art?
