Good morning, fans of the Scarlet and Gray. It's my pleasure to bring you the final Sunday Skull Session for a while, because next weekend we'll have—woo!—actual game coverage to deliver.
But that doesn't mean it's been an uneventful weekend for past, present, and future Ohio State players. High school football kicked off, and while I'm far from a recruiting expert, I noticed that Twitter was blowing up on Friday night about Jalin Marshall's performance. Against St. Xavier, the Middletown QB ran for 322 yards and three scores and threw for another TD.
The class of '13 recruit, who committed to Ohio State as an "athlete", sounds like the kind of playmaker Urban Meyer will enjoy utilizing.
In the NFL, the preseason provided good news and bad news for former Buckeyes. Cornerback Ashton Youboty, who has been in the league since 2006, was cut by Jacksonville yesterday while Terrelle Pryor showed that he's still an athletic dude and he still hates Michigan.
During the second half against Detroit, the Raider QB came in for a typically interception-happy Carson Palmer and displayed some of the moves that made him so difficult to tackle when he was at Ohio State. He led Oakland to the win and finished the game with three touchdowns. However you feel about Pryor—and I don't begrudge you if you're bitter, or if you simply wish him well, or if it's a complicated mixture of the two—watching plays like these certainly brought back memories1.
As for current members of the football team, RB Bri'onte Dunn became the ninth freshman2 to go through the black stripe removal process. Apparently big brother Carlos Hyde didn't watch, but rather he was the one to take the black tape off of Dunn's helmet. This happened yesterday morning, hours before the Buckeye Kickoff, when students gathered at the Horseshoe to practice Quick Cals with the captains and form an awesome Block O with TBDBITL.
CRISIS ALERT. Of the five captains, the least well-known is nose tackle Garrett Goebel, and both The Plain Dealer and The Dispatch decided to spotlight the fifth-year senior. However, unless you're a digital subscriber to The Dispatch, you're only allowed to read 10 articles per month, so I'll link to Doug Lesmerises' piece.
Urban Meyer admitted to not knowing much about Goebel at first, but his strong, silent type of personality won over the new head coach. John Simon also raved (as much as John Simon can rave) about his fellow captain:
"What he does every day, just coming in and putting his head down and going to work, he's a lunch-pail guy. He does what he has to do, and does more than he has to do. He's [a] selfless person and does what he has to for the team."
As a part of the 2008 recruiting class, he didn't break into the starting lineup until last year. He started all 13 games in 2011, and Luke Fickell, a former nose tackle himself, referred to Goebel as "an unsung hero." Although he won't lead the team in tackles, his work ethic and experience should help the youngsters on the wonderfully imposing defensive line.
OH NO, BE STRONG, WALK ON. On the heels of linebacker Stewart Smith earning a scholarship, Doug Harris checked in with walk-on Rashad Frazier. The defensive end, who transferred from Purdue, will have to sit out this season, but he's still eligible to play for three more years.
A lifelong Ohio State fan, Frazier moved back to Ohio from Maine to play football during his senior year. Even though the last time he had played football was in the third grade, he ended up being recruited by schools like Michigan State, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.
He never got the OSU offer he wanted, and now, he's trying to work his way toward a scholarship. According to the Frazier:
"I'm grateful they gave me the opportunity to be here, and I'm going to make the most of it.
"But I'm not going to sit back and be happy with (just being on the team). I'm going to be competing for a starting job."
This is not Garrett GoebelHis efforts have received praise from Urban, who said, "I love him...He's kind of raw, but he's got a big body. Plus, he's a nice kid" while Goebel added, "He never gives up on a play."
BRICK HOUSE. Next season, Ohio State's first game is at home against Vanderbilt...at least, that's the plan.
Although it's unlikely to be dropped, Vanderbilt athletic director David Williams doesn't seem fully committed to the idea due to the SEC schedule and his preference for opening the season on a Thursday instead of a Saturday.
The Tennessean's Jeff Lockridge quoted the AD:
"My gut reaction is everything holds the same (with Ohio State), but I can't say that for sure," Williams said. “Clearly there is a desire from our TV partners to have more opening-week SEC games, and that has not been a tradition in the SEC."
This season, the Commodores reworked their schedule when the chance arose to play South Carolina in the opener. They will have to replace one of their nonconference opponents in 2013 in order to fit in eight SEC games. After the home-and-home series against Tennessee and Georgia were cancelled, it'd be a shame if another SEC team declined the opportunity to play in Columbus3.
B1G EMPTY. Down in SEC country, Jon Solomon of The Birmingham News decided to pick on the Big Ten's lack of big wins lately. Against top-5 competition, B1G teams have been defeated in nine consecutive nonconference matchups, starting with a certain national championship game that most of us, Urban excluded, would rather forget.
In that same time period, the conference's record is slightly better against top-10 opponents (6-16). Granted, it's not pretty either way, but the article fails to mention that in most of those nine games, the Big Ten representative was the lower ranked team and if you're good enough to be ranked 1-5, you're not going to lose many contests at all.
Although this season isn't looking to be a strong one for the B1G as a whole, the caliber of coaches means it probably won't be too much longer until the conference has a resurgence on the national stage. That would please Jim Delany, who's most likely plotting in vengeful fury because he's only considered the second most influential figure in college football.
50/50. Switching gears, ESPN counted down the top 50 basketball programs in the past 50 years and landing at #15 was Ohio State. If the rankings were only based on the past 10 years, they'd be a little higher, but there were some lean years before then.
Even though there's probably some debate about the starting five picks (Mike Conley Jr., Evan Turner, Dennis Hopson, Jim Jackson, and Gary Bradds), it's hard for me to disagree with their choices for the three best OSU teams since 1962, which included the 1991-92, 2006-07, and 2010-11 squads. Only the second one made it to the Final Four, and while the others were talented enough to have done the same, they weren't lucky enough.
ISN'T SHE PRETTY IN LINK? Tragedy fuels Ohio State commit Tracy Sprinkle... Other coaches like Tom Izzo but don't care so much for Calipari... The rise of BTN... A profile of Bill O'Brien... RIP Neil Young Armstrong... Moon baseball prophecy... Floor plans of TV homes... Breaking Bad remix.
- 1 Don't tell the NCAA that I didn't vacate those. ↑
- 2 Joining Devan Bogard, Noah Spence, Tommy Schutt, Taylor Decker, Adolphus Washington, Warren Ball, Cardale Jones, and Joe Burger.↑
- 3 I would also be disappointed if I didn't get the chance to drop Nightshift references next season. ↑
