Happy Tuesday everybody, welcome to your morning Skull Session. As of this posting we are 61 hours and 30 minutes from the kickoff of the 2010 season, which leaves precious little time left to determine exactly what kind of debauchery you plan on getting into after the game on a Thursday night in Columbus (mill around aimlessly for an hour, go home and drink a glass of warm milk, fall asleep to the sound of an Andy Griffith Show rerun).
Anyway, read this stuff!
Jim Tressel Weekly Press Conference Transcript And Video As per usual, Tressel said many, many words without actually saying anything particularly relevant.
In regards to the OSU/Michigan possibly changing dates: Blah blah blah company line, what's best for everybody, you know the deal. Nothing controversial from the Vest, and certainly nothing that would go against Gene Smith or Gordon Gee.
Marshall: Same deal, Marshall is a good team, can do a lot of different things on offense, Snyder was a good coach and good evaluator of talent (picked up on Santonio Holmes before anyone else) and Marshall often finds good overlooked athletes, etc. The usual pregame opponent deferral.
Personnel: Nate Williams is out, no surprise there. Chimdi Chekwa might be limited due to his hammy issue. Orhian Johnson and Devon Torrence should be good to go. Jordan Hall and Jamaal Berry for kickoffs, and Hall plus Philly Brown and Devon Torrence for punts. Get pumped, because all of these guys are capable of hitting warp 9.
"...and so forth" count: 8
Kirk Barton Hangs Em Up I always think it's crazy how some of the guys with maybe-not-quite-NFL talent get bounced around from training camp to training camp, just hoping to hit the lottery and for a team to sign them to a contract. I don't know how they put up with being jerked around and the constant push and pull on their personal lives, and apparently Kirk Barton doesn't either. He says he's "90% sure" that he's done, and that
“Right now, I’m enrolling in graduate school... The program I want doesn’t start until the summer, though. It’s a master’s in education in one year.”
As someone who did this exact same thing (and possibly in the same licensure area, since I believe that Kirk was a History major at OSU), I wish him the best of luck. It ain't easy, but if anybody can juggle its demands, it'll be a former OSU football player.
The 10th Annual Herbie Awards Kirk Herbstreit has come out with the 10th edition of his Herbie awards, with several OSU players appearing on his lists of top national players. Pryor appears numerous times, our favorite hedgehog on crack makes a surprise appearance, and Herbie makes a few nice attempts to appease the haters who say he doesn't remember his roots (he totally does, by the way; keep in mind that this dude could be spending his summer eating fish tacos on a beach somewhere instead of living in horribly hot and humid Ohio and organizing great events like the Herbstreit National Kickoff Classic).
I, For One, Welcome Our New Fashion Overlords Michigan State has some new uniforms and helmets. Make of them what you will, but please remember that Sparty gets/is forced to wear these all year, whereas whatever will be unveiled for the Buckeyes on Sept. 1st is only for one day. I actually kind of like these but don't tell anybody.
Because Moving Pictures Are The Devil's Work Here is a handy list of the Ohio State football game broadcast affiliates, in case you're dumb and find yourself stuck in a car/a cave in southeastern Ohio during a game. True story: you know Holy Buckeye, right? I was actually listening to that in a car as it happened, and after the climactic throw I was convinced that the noise after the play was the Purdue fans celebrating, so I angrily turned off the radio and didn't find out what happened until an hour later when I got home. See, now I'm the dumb one (in my defense I was 17 and yes, very dumb, at the time).
