Happy Monday everyone, and welcome to your morning Skull Session! If you look slightly to your right, you might notice an especially snazzy logo occupying the space normally reserved for a skull image I accidentally found while searching "doggy high fives" on Google at 3 in the morning. Said snazzy logo was created by the masterful M. Walton Keys, and will be a permanent fixture in future Skullies, as part of our ongoing effort to make Eleven Warriors the absolute slickest looking independently-operated Ohio State related college sports blog focusing primarily on football and basketball.
Anyway, we liked the skull logo so much we decided to give you a portable one to impress your friends and family with in the form of a fabulous t-shirt! I don't know a lot about fashion, but I do know this: skulls are cool, and if you wear something with a skull on it (such as a t-shirt), you become cool. As a bonus, if you were already cool, your coolness will increase proportionally to the amount of days in a row you wear it without taking it off.
Again, big big ups to Mr. Keys for helping us out here. If you missed it the first time, his site is Grandman Studios, and you should check it out. Lots of excellent photography and printwork to be seen, in addition to his already prodigious design skills.
Stand Tall, That's Right, Be Proud As Hell Yesterday Tim May wrote a really interesting bio of Luke Fickell for the Dispatch that gave a lot of insight into who this guy is as a person, and surprise! The words "compete," "competitor," and "competition" are a pretty constant theme throughout. May reminds us that this is a guy who has had a high motor his entire life, spurred on by two siblings with the same drive that he has. Tons of great anecdotes in here (and one questionable unitard choice), but I'd have to say that my favorite one is probably this, if only for the mental image it conjures:
The knock at the door of the Fickells' Westerville home came late one evening when Luke was about 8. There stood John Hicks, "the largest man I'd ever seen," Luke Fickell once recalled. Hicks, a former All-America offensive lineman at Ohio State, needed help. He lived in the area and his car had just stalled on County Line Road.
"That was the first time I met him," Pat Fickell said.
"They were, of course, very afraid," Hicks said, laughing.
TP Plays The Waiting Game As we all know, Terrelle Pryor decided to give up his final year of eligibility and shoot for the NFL supplementary draft in what might have ultimately been the nicest thing he's ever done for the university. However, as Alex Marvez argues, TP might end up sitting out the supplementary draft and be forced to wait until 2012. It's a pretty simple train of thought: the supplementary draft is for players who were forced out of their schools under a certain set of conditions, and depending on how stringently the NFL decides to adhere to those conditions, TP may not apply since he left school voluntarily. The conditions are set so that players can't drop out of the regular draft to seek a better team in a second draft, and though Pryor wouldn't be exploiting that notion, it's something to think about.
It's a valid argument, and if Pryor is forced to sit out a year I would imagine that he would immediately become a pretty huge Cam Newton fan and hope his stock would rise in conjunction with the other big and rangy QB.
Parento Disappointum!
The Hip New Fad That's Sweeping The Nation Preemption! Coach not following the rules? AD ignoring the local press? Assistant handing out loaner cars like they were made of and ran on candy and dreams? PRE. EMPTION. Follow Ohio State's example and preempt an NCAA investigation by cleaning house early and often. There you go, UConn, you're getting the hang of it! Your basketball coach is facing investigation and suspension and the NCAA is licking its lips, so kick that AD to the curb by buying out his contract. Remember, in the magical universe of NCAA compliance, there's no such thing as a nasty ol "subpoena," so if you pay the guy on his way out the door, it's gonna be pretty hard for what he knows to get back to you!
Also of note in this story: angry trustee, who for the purposes of this story I imagine to look like the scary old guy from Home Alone.
What You Get To Enjoy/Put Up With For The Next Five Months ESPN released their list of who will be doing the commentary for their football games, and by far the best revelation is that Urban Meyer will be in the same booth as Chris Spielman and Dave Pasch. There is pretty much no way in the world that won't be absolutely hilarious and awesome, and gives you an excuse to turn off your internal ESPN hate machine for at least three hours a week. Just say it's for maintenance or something. Also: no more Pam Ward on the primary. Sad face. Her replacement? Beth Mowins, who sounds basically exactly like her but also has a pretty good track record doing play by play for basketball.
YOU'RE A WIZARD, HARRY God, I wish I was in this video. Not even kidding. This looks awesome.
