Welcome to Thursday, the third day of the week and your return to normalcy (as in college football is back on TV tonight, and you can get back to ignoring your household and family responsibilities and do what you actually want to do.) This weekend also marks the return of the NFL (sans Terrelle Pryor and Jim Tressel). The Bengals play the Browns, the Steelers clash with the Ravens and the world as we know it is officially “right” again.
Let's get it on, my little pudding pops.
HURRICANE JACORY WILL BLOW AGAINST OSU AGAIN. This Saturday against Toledo, the Buckeyes depth chart will get a shot of much needed talent with the return of Jordan Hall, Jordan Whiting, Corey "Pittsburgh" Brown, and Travis Howard. Next week against Miami, Ohio State will welcome back OL Corey Linsley and Miami's Jacory Harris. It could be argued that Harris helped aid Ohio State's victory over Miami last year more than any player actually wearing scarlet and gray did.
Despite completing 22 of 39 passes, Harris made huge mistake after huge mistake, ending up the day with a 4-to-1 interception to touchdown ratio (that's good, right?) and 232 yards.
Harris was not much better the rest of the season, ending his junior campaign with 14 touchdowns to 15 interceptions while only completing a paltry 54% of his passes. Harris split time with freshman Stephen Morris at the end of last year, but was suspended for the 'Canes opening week loss against Maryland for his role in the boats, hookers, and abortion scandal that blew through Coral Gables in August. Morris, who played every snap in the opener, will be relegated to back-up duty (hehe, I said duty).
The Hurricanes have a week off to prepare for Ohio State in what will likely be a brand-defining moment for Al Golden's version of "Da U".
BUCKEYE CAGERS SCHEDULE RELEASED. The 2011 Ohio State men's basketball schedule was officially released yesterday, and similar to years past, Thad's boys will test themselves early and often in hopes of better preparing themselves for Big Ten Conference and (hopefully) NCAA Tournament play. In their first 11 games of the year, the Buckeyes will face Florida, Duke, Kansas and South Carolina amongst others. Duke, Florida and Kansas have won four of the last six NCAA championships. The Buckeyes will tip-off B1G conference play on my mom's birthday (December 28th) against Nerdwestern and finish off 2011 with a 6pm start against what should be a much improved Indiana Hoosiers team on New Year's Eve. B1G newcomer Nebraska makes its initial trip to the Schottenstein Center on January 3rd.
WILL THE BIG TEN MOVE TOWARDS A SUPER-CONFERENCE?
CONFERENCE CALL. With all the hand-wringing and drama surrounding Texas A&M's rumored move the SEC, the Big Ten and commissioner extraordinaire Jim Delaney have been relatively quiet since the announcement that Nebraska was set to join. Delaney has said the B1G was done with "active expansion", but it would be foolish of the conference to stand pat while the SEC and PAC-12 make a move to what will be 16-team "super conferences".
Currently at 12, it would make sense for the B1G to be reading the tea leaves before making any public expressions of interest in any other schools. When they do, however, my money is on Maryland, Missouri, Notre Dame and Rutgers being the teams that will eventually join. Of course, there's always a chance that Oklahoma or Texas could throw a major wrinkle into my ideas.
MICHIGAN MOMENT. I am sure there have been plenty of LeBron James jokes lobbed around since Michigan and Western Michigan took a cue from "The King" and decided to not play a fourth quarter this past weekend, but in the three quarters that they did play, what did we learn about TSUN? Well, from my P.O.V - they didn't look too different than last year. An explosive offense (39 total offensive plays led to 288 yards) and a defense that showed flashes of talent, but struggled to stop their opponent. Western moved the ball and controlled possession most of the game, but two costly turnovers kept the Broncos playing from behind.
Denard Robinson played better under center than I expected, and you could definitely see an increased focus on staying put in the pocket rather than running right away. Overall, the game didn't change my opinion about what we'd see from UM this year. Playing Notre Dame this weekend (who will be sporting these sweet helmets) should give a better idea of where the little Hokesters are really at. Speaking of Notre Dame, head coach Brian Kelly has decided to give Tommy Rees the starting nod at QB for this weekends tilt in Ann Arbor.
QUICK SLANTS. Fick's debut makes list of "impressive starts"... This picture makes me feel like puking... How to avoid politics and watch football pre-game instead... Rock 'em sock'em Jayhawks... Wisconsin gets beaten, hurtin' Beavers... The "butt-slasher" has been fingered.
