Happy Friday everyone, and welcome to your morning Skull Session!
With the Olympics winding down, I've been thinking about some of the weirder aspects of the games, specifically the opening and closing ceremonies. I actually wrote in this space about how I was wishing London and Danny Boyle would just go for the gusto and be weird as all hell, and to my delight that's exactly what they did.
So that got me thinking about what an Olympic opening in Columbus would look like, and since that will never, ever happen in real life, my imagination was forced to come up with something like this:
A giant buckeye tree sits in the middle of the stadium. Slowly, the giant disembodied head of Woody Hayes floats down from the skies as a voice booms RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS ARE FOR CHILDREENNNNN over the strains of "Across the Field." Suddenly, the stadium shakes as ten thousand Brutus Buckeyes stream out of every nook and cranny, smacking their heads back and forth and throwing footballs at each other, frolicking around the tree as every surviving OSU football coach, past and present, paraglides into the stadium as they shower the crowd with Jeni's ice cream coupons.
And then I was thinking something about burning a Wolverine effigy while Brady Hoke and Les Miles are strapped down Clockwork Orange style and forced to watch Archie Griffin highlights. I don't know, I haven't gotten that far yet.
YES. GOOD. FINALLY. I really don't know why we haven't done this yet, but the Big Ten is thinking about installing goal line cameras for review purposes. I guess you could argue that the concept basically exists already, but honestly if we've already got replay in general, it doesn't make sense not to stretch that out to its logical conclusion.
In any case, the fun thing about this story is that it's a reminder that the Big Ten was also at the forefront of reviews in general in college football, and as of now I think you'd find very few people who would want to get rid of it. Yeah, it feels weird that a camera and officials stop the game to look in a box that might as well be showing Sheriff Lobo reruns for all we know, but it works. Usually (haha hey did you notice that Dan Fouts says "THAT'S A BAD CALL! THAT'S A BAD CALL!" using the same inflection that he did in the OSU championship game? Ahh, memories).
EVERYBODY SUCKS. That's the general theme of this article from SI about the upcoming football season. Okay, that's a little overdramatic, but what this article does do is talk about where some of the perceived contenders in 2012 have holes to fill. For USC, everyone's prohibitive favorite, it's nothing too major, just basically their entire defensive line:
USC’s losses on the D-line may have more lingering effects. Perry, Harris and nose tackle Christian Tupou combined for 92 tackles, 20 tackles for loss and 10 sacks last season; all-conference player Wes Horton will be able to hold his own at one end position, but fellow senior Devon Kennard is coming off surgery on a torn pectoral muscle and is out indefinitely. On the interior, we might see even more hiccups. The Trojans’ three-deep at the tackle position features only two upperclassmen, George Uko and Zack Kusnir. The former is a junior with two career starts, while the latter is a walk-on redshirt senior.
Personally I think USC is overrated right now precisely because of stuff like this. It's possible that they could ride their offense to a championship, as it certainly wouldn't be the first time anyone's done that, but I'm not as sold on Matt Barkley as a lot of other people seem to be, at least not so much that I think he can overcome a relatively subpar defense 100% of the time. I dunno! I'm kind of an idiot, but we'll see. The Notre Dame and Oregon games will be big.
D'awwwDAVID GO LIGHTY HEH HEH HEH. I'm hilarious, and Lighty's in France. It's a little sad, because I think that all of us had hoped that the dude would land on an NBA roster relatively soon, but at this point I think he's gonna be an overseas lifer. And that's okay; he's a great player and his defense will straight up infuriate a lot of guys over there. As long as he brushes up on his nutpunch game, I'm sure he'll fit right in.
DON'T YOU SCREW THIS UP FOR ME. I think the Notre Dame/Navy game in Ireland this year is awesome and I'm glad they're bringing it back after discontinuing it for years. Still, it looks like it might be in jeopardy after some contract and money issues between the Navy and a few Irish companies.
I guess this could just be a power play move to get the ball rolling and make sure everything works out (which means I'm a sucker and falling into their "the sky is falling" trap), but so help me if I don't get to see some American football being played where one-fourth of my ancestors are from. I'm Erin' to go Bragh on some fools.
COUNTRY LINKS SAUSAGE. BREAK A LEG AHAHA Oh... Yeah take that Carl... Willing to go double on this, I can put up around 650 a month... SI's Preseason AA team (no OSU players so phbbttt)... The only version of Country Roads I can stand... This is what I look like when I write these things (minus the cigar)... College_football_fans.mov.
