Skull Session: Ohio State Women’s Hockey Wins Another National Title, Jim Tressel Returns to Columbus For a Football Practice and Malcolm Jenkins Shares Life Advice With the Buckeyes

By Chase Brown on March 25, 2024 at 5:00 am
Ohio State Women's Hockey
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Welcome to the Skull Session.

At the start of the postseason, who picked Ohio State's men's basketball team to make a deeper run than the Ohio State women's team?

I know I didn't.

But here we are.

Have a good Monday.

 TIME TO GET REAL. The Ohio State women’s hockey team won its second national championship in three years on Sunday, defeating Wisconsin, 1-0, in the Frozen Four final to avenge its title game loss to the Badgers in 2023.

After the game, I sent a message to Ohio State president Ted Carter, athletic director Gene Smith and senior advisor Ross Bjork (none of them read it, I am sure, but I’ll share it here because I have conviction!): It’s time for Ohio State to expedite plans to build the women’s hockey team a new arena.

Since Nadine Muzerall took over the program, Ohio State has a 195-73-19 record. The Buckeyes have also appeared in six Frozen Fours and three national championship games, winning one over Minnesota-Duluth in 2021 and another over Wisconsin in 2024.

I will bold the next graph for emphasis.

A program of Ohio State’s caliber should not compete in an arena that the school’s intramural teams use on weeknights.

To be clear, Ohio State does have plans to build an “Ice Rink Replacement” near the Covelli Center, Ohio State Lacrosse Stadium and Ty Tucker Tennis Center. However, construction for the “Ice Rink Replacement” will occur over a two-year window from June 2024 to March 2026, according to an agenda item from a Board of Trustees meeting in February 2023.

I don’t know how long it takes to build stuff – I went to school for journalism, after all – but surely we can get this team into a new arena before the end of next season, right? 

… Right?

If it’s not possible, it’s not possible.

But I need Ohio State to at least try and get this program out of “the ugliest rink in collegiate hockey,” as Muzerall once called it.

The Buckeyes have earned it and then some.

 HIM TRESSEL. On Saturday, Ohio State football had a program legend attend spring practice at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. Some call him The Vest, others call him The Senator. But we all know him as Jim Tressel, the former head coach and 2002 national champion who collected a 9-1 record over Michigan in his 10 seasons with the Buckeyes.

After practice, Tressel – donning his iconic scarlet sweater vest – shared a message with Ohio State’s coaches and players:

“Carry the banner,” Tressel said. “Be proud. Because when you get old and come back and look, you’re gonna say, ‘I can’t believe God gave me a chance to be a Buckeye.’ Because there’s nothing like it.”

Tressel spent his winter in Florida but returned to Ohio to receive an award from the Ohio High School Sports Association for his athletic contributions to the Buckeye State. Along with Tressel, Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick LeBeau, former basketball player and coach Caroline Mast Daugherty and MLB umpire Jerry Layne were honored at halftime of a boys' basketball state semifinal game at UD Arena in Dayton.

“This is quite an honor, (especially) when you think about the state of Ohio and how important high school athletics are,” Tressel told Frank DiRenna of The Columbus Dispatch. “When you look at these towns, the whole towns are here at the state championships. One of the highlights of the year is being here this weekend and it’s an honor to join this group.”

Outside of his accomplishments at Ohio State (which are numerous), Tressel was a quarterback at Baldwin-Wallace before he spent over two decades coaching at Akron, Miami (Ohio) and Youngstown State, where he won four Division I-AA national titles with the Penguins in 1991, 1993, 1994 and 1997.

In other words, Tressel is goated.

Always has been. It always will be.

 MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE. About 48 hours before Tressel returned to the Woody, one of his former players, Malcolm Jenkins, made an appearance at one of the Buckeyes’ spring practices. After the practice ended, the former Ohio State defensive back shared some life advice with the coaches and players.

“The way you do anything is the way you do everything, meaning if you cut corners — even cutting the grass — and you’re OK with missing and not doing the whole thing, I guarantee that’s how you do everything,” Jenkins said.

That’s some solid advice. I like it.

A three-year starter from 2006-08, Jenkins earned a trifecta of first-team All-Big Ten honors and helped lead the Buckeyes to three conference titles and two national championship game appearances. He finished his Ohio State career with 196 tackles, 17 pass breakups, 11 interceptions and two defensive touchdowns. The New Orleans Saints later selected him with the No. 14 overall pick in the 2009 NFL draft. He went on to play 13 NFL seasons with the Saints and Eagles and won two Super Bowls.

Is that… good?

Jenkins also created The Malcolm Jenkins Foundation in 2010. According to the foundation’s mission statement, the non-profit is “dedicated to nurturing the potential of youth in underserved communities and committed to fostering positive change through education, advocacy and empowerment.”

Yeah, I'd say he has some valuable stuff to share!

 RUN IT BACK! You all have seen that one Big Ten commercial. You know, the one that goes: “I wanna live forever on a boat out in the seaaaaaa. I wanna build a happy home, a home for you and meeeeee. I wanna touch the silver lining we’ll be shining everywhereeeeee. I wanna live forever I don’t careeeeee.”

Since the 2023 college football season ended, there’s been lots of conversation about what the Big Ten will do with that commercial when USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington transition from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten this summer. Recently, the conversation has become so prominent that even Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck discussed it in a press conference last week.

I don’t know what will happen to the commercial, but I know what should happen to it.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

The Big Ten should keep the commercial almost 100% the same, save for a few changes. The commercial needs to start on the East Coast with a pop-up of Rutgers. Then, it scans across from east to west with pop-ups of Maryland, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue, Northwestern, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA, making sure that the final shot is the Rose Bowl, the trademark location of so many wonderful Big Ten memories.

Boom. There’s your commercial.

Too easy.

 SONG OF THE DAY. “Too Sweet” - Hozier.

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Oct 29, 2022; University Park, Pennsylvania, USA; Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin (right) shakes hands with Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day (left) following the completion of the game against the Penn State Nittany Lions at Beaver Stadium. Ohio State defeated Penn State 44-31. Mandatory Credit: Matthew OHaren-Imagn Images
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