Well, that happened.
Clemson winning wasn't shocking. Urban Meyer getting buried in a shallow grave in the Arizona desert next to Jim Tressel... that was shocking.
Feast your eyes on our new overlord, a coach named "Dabo" who is still fascinated by diamonds on a trophy:
Put Dabo next to James Franklin on the shelf of "coaches I can't trash until my team knocks them."
At least that juju died in 2016. I spent Sunday in my local team memorabilia (I'm not one of these fans "embarrassed" by a bad performance) mourning the loss.
Today, I moved on. Unfortunately, we still have to sort the wreckage and catalogue the dead.
WHEN KEEPING IT REAL GOES WRONG. When I saw Savage Tiger's "NBC" video, I could've left it at posting the video, making a few "get a load of this guy who may have killed a man" jokes, and ginning some money to keep me off the mean streets of Piqua.
Unfortunately, I went big game hunting. And when you go big game hunting, sometimes you're going to get got.
I got got.
I also promised Savage Tiger a "crow video," as they say in the biz.
Here is seven minutes of stream-of-conscious rambling into my laptop camera in the early hours of New Year's Day. God forgive me and my alien fingers.
Sunday morning, I woke up to three sober voicemails from Savage. This was his last transmission (warning: profanity, obvii).
What happens at the end there? I listened 50 times and couldn't decipher. Did he suffer a psychotic break while laughing at my yankee misery? Did he have a stroke?
More troubling: He didn't return my texts yesterday. Which means he's dead, incarcerated, or splicing video of our interviews to nuke me.
Either way, I'm worried about him. He did try to warn me, and I laughed in his face. He's 100% right about that. I can't deny facts. The only "L" he took was betting $100 there'd be "at least" 50% Clemson fans at the game.
But he needs to stay alive until Ohio State draws Clemson again. (Speaking of which, scheduling a home-and-home series with Clemson better be Gene Smith's New Year's Resolution.)
CHANGE IS COMING. Urban Meyer left the door open to offensive staff changes. At this point, him not making changes would be like me waking up from a bender handcuffed to a hospital gurney and telling the detective, "I lead a quiet life, actually."
Rock bottom can be good, though. And there's no doubting this was rock bottom. (Hell, it better be rock bottom.)
From si.com:
There were plenty of play calls to second-guess, as Ohio State seemed so intent to force-feed the ball to Curtis Samuel on the perimeter that it ignored the quarterback run game. The Buckeyes offense spent so much of the night flowing east to west, it never really gained any traction moving forward. Receivers struggled to gain separation, and as the Buckeyes lack a deep threat the Clemson safeties spent the night crowding the line of scrimmage. As the offensive line faltered and execution mistakes piled up, the end result was embarrassing inertia.
Unfortunately for the Buckeyes, the final identity of this team will be one of utter dysfunction in its biggest game. The ineptitude started with the offensive line, which yielded 11 tackles for loss. That really wasn’t a surprise though, as Penn State also pummeled Ohio State 11 times in the backfield and Michigan compiled 13.
Given the results, I foresee "Touchdown" Tim Beck moving elsewhere. Unsure about Ed Warinner.
No matter what Meyer does—the offense is his baby. (THEY TOLD ME HE WAS GOOD AT OFFENSE!!!)
And that's why I'm thankful for the ass-kicking. It will force the necessary changes to shakeup an offense that's been stale for two years.
THAT LINE THOUGH. Meyer always says Ohio State is an offensive line driven program. But we got a glimpse into OL depth problems when Michael Jordan injured his ankle.
From cleveland.com:
Jordan missed the next series after the injury. Demetrius Knox took his spot. After an attempted return, Jordan sat again in the second quarter, unable to move the way he wanted on that injured ankle.
On Knox's first snap, he held up decently on pass protection. On the next snap, his man blew by him and stopped a Curtis Samuel jet sweep in the backfield for a loss.
Ohio State recruits well enough that when one player goes down, there shouldn't be a drop-off to the next guy. Especially on the offensive line, where the Buckeyes' have signed a handful of players in the last couple recruiting classes. But that depth never developed to the point where Ohio State liked it, which is why Jordan was starting in the first place.
I was stunned when they replaced him with Demetrius Knox, who broke his foot in late September and missed eight weeks.
It was easy to see why Jordan earned that starting spot over him. But again, a freshman should not be starting on Ohio State's offensive line unless it's Orlando Pace.
Talent, recruiting evaluation, and/or development: One, two, or three of those things are ailing the offensive line right now.
The good news is we have some beefy 2017 blue-chip mammoths en route.
PEOPLE LIKE TREY WIESMAN ARE GARBAGE. We all saw (and felt) the deflated look in our team when Tyler Durbin missed those kicks. It sucks, but I still tip my cap to Durbin for shouldering responsibility like that. That takes stones.
What doesn't take stones is looking up a player in a student directory and sending him trash like this.
Shared by the Buckeye Specialists' Twitter account:
Please don’t come back to Columbus. Stay in Arizona. Hell, maybe Clemson will take you in. The fact you transferred here to suck THAT bad actually hurts my soul. Thank fucking Allah that you’re a senior and can’t harm your team anymore. If you can’t kick, why do you even take a spot on our roster? Why did you take the responsibility if you can’t kick at all? Trash.
I really want to know if the rumors that you’re taking money to shave points is true. How the fuck do you miss those field goals? You tried your hardest to blow the Michigan game. I prayed for you that we would win so you wouldn’t be torn another one. But after today I can’t believe you aren’t throwing these games. After you missed TWO FUCKING kicks our team looked defeated. It was over.
I hope you aren’t getting a scholarship. If I found out my hard earned money that I have to pay tuition with is going to pay for YOU to come here, I may get cancer.
I hope you don’t believe your parents saying they’re proud of you for that trash performance. They just have to say that. They are embarrassed. Just like the other 50,000,000 proud Ohio State fans. Your parents wonder why you transferred here just to dishonor our name, just like we all wonder. Think of your poor dad having to go to work this week and everyone will laugh at him. You’ve shamed your family forever.
Thanks for nothing. You are ass.
Trey Wiesman
Actually, Trey, you're ass. Durbin would put your sorry-ass in a trashcan, just like everybody else who doesn't give your twerpy little ass the respect you crave.
I hope he finds the happiness and satisfaction his life obviously lacks, but he wouldn't deserve it if he did.
NO. 1 HOCKEY CITY. WHO'S READY TO BANDWAGON SOME HOCKEY AND SHOW THESE CANADIANS HOW US SOUTHERN BOYS PLAY HOCKEY? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THIS BLUE JACKETS TEAM IS FULL OF—SOUTHERN BOYS!
Accurate. pic.twitter.com/2DnEV6Qhqx
— 1st Ohio Battery (@1stOhioBattery) January 1, 2017
THOSE WMDs. With wearable tech deals, new player data is up for grabs... Giving my past self advice on Facebook... French law giving workers "the right to disconnect" goes into effect... Your parmesan cheese could be wood... Attorney disability fraud hurts Eastern Kentucky.
