Good morning, Buckeye fans and welcome to your Wednesday Skull Session. Grab some coffee and let's get to it.
Even though the college football regular season is over, we have a good deal to be thankful for: bowl games start in just three days, the basketball Buckeyes play tonight and are in for a good year, Silly Season is always interesting, and the NFL is delivering some quality product as well.
So while we might not have any more Braxton highlights to watch this year, that also means an anxiety-free early January in preparation for next year's anxiety-heavy January bowl game.
In the meantime, let's see if the Big Ten has any talent left and the reason for the (bowl) season:
SO WHO IS LEFT IN THE B1G? Since it's now time for underclassmen to start declaring away their futures, we can begin prognosticating about the future of the Big Ten. And it might not be very pretty.
The ESPN Big Ten bloggers take a shot declaring who should stay and who should go, and mention our favorite cornerback:
Roby, a redshirt sophomore, had a terrific season but still lacks much game experience. He may want to come back and help lead Ohio State on a potential BCS title run.
So, uh, yeah, there's that. You probably figured that.
But what's interesting to me is that the Big Ten seemed pretty top-heavy in senior talent this year – if you add in the potential departures of underclassmen like Michigan State's Gholston, Michigan's All-American offensive tackle Taylor Lewan, and Michigan State's Le'Veon Bell, then the Big Ten is looking a little sad talent-wise.
In particular, I wonder if Michigan State will remain mediocre after potentially losing three starters on defense and their top offensive threat. Sparty, no!
REASONS TO WATCH THE BOWLS. As if you needed a reason beyond "because it's football."
The always excellent Bruce Feldman asks ten intriguing questions so that bowl-less Ohio State fans have a reason to join in the party (ok, maybe it wasn't just written for us).
The Big Ten was lucky enough to be represented twice on the list, with Bruce asking whether Wisconsin will respond to Alvarez's leadership and whether Nebraska's "defense" can handle Georgia's Todd Gurley and Aaron Murray.
To answer these, I'll give a "Yes, but it won't be enough" and "No. NO. No. STOP THE BLOOD!"
Nebraska surrendered 539 rushing yards and 70 points to the Badgers and exited the game ranked No. 96 in the nation against the run. Georgia freshman standout Todd Gurley probably can hardly contain himself at the chance to face the Huskers in the Capital One Bowl. On the same day as the Badgers were rolling over Nebraska, Gurley ran for 122 and two TDs against Bama's top-ranked run defense.
What are you watching bowl season for?
Clowney will challenge Braxton for the HeismanBYE BYE BIG EAST. There's no denying that I'm a sucker for conference expansion strategy and politics (which is different than being a fan of it, mind you), so yesterday's news that the Big East is threatening to dissolve was extremely interesting.
Unfortunately for Big East fans, the exits of Louisville, Rutgers, Syracuse, Pitt, and Notre Dame have led to the possibility of a heavily reduced TV deal for the league, forcing basketball-only members to make little of what they were previously:
Considering TV revenue has long been viewed as the only tangible reason for the non-football members to remain affiliated with the football-playing members, last week's report combined with the possibility of additional changes has the non-football members now exploring other options. One possibility, a source said, is the non-football members forming a basketball-only league and perhaps inviting other relevant basketball schools without FBS-level football programs to join them -- schools like Butler, VCU, Xavier, Saint Louis, Dayton, George Mason and Creighton.
There's also the possibility of a basketball-heavy Catholic league, which would actually be really awesome. Still have questions? Parrish has answers. And just think of the Great Schism jokes...
HEISMANS FOR THE OTHER HALF. Now that the Heisman is over and done, with Te'o coming in second place to Johnny Football, some are beginning to question whether a defensive player will ever be able to take home the hardware.
Dr. Saturday argues that Jadeveon Clowney has a lot of thinigs going for him for next year: the ability to rack up a processable statistic (sacks), he won't come out of nowhere as a candidate, he plays in the SEC, and Spurrier can give him some choice sound bites.
However, it's not like there aren't any other 2013 candidates out there, between Braxton, Marqise Lee, Marcus Mariota, Aaron Murray, and TJ Yeldon. Or if you want some lolz candidates, there's some of those too.
There's hardly a scarier guy in the country than Clowney, but I still don't think 2013 will be the year of the purely defensive player holding the trophy in New York. Looking at that shortlist of offensive players, it's hard to imagine one of the above or some other up-and-comer being unable to lock it down in, say, a bid for a national title.
ASHLESS WISCONSIN. Our most despised(?) divisional rival, current B1G champion, and third-place Leaders division team – the Wiscy Badgers – are now defensive coordinator-less.
Chris Ash, who's been around as DC for the past two seasons, will be following Bielema to Arkansas, depriving Wisconsin of yet another assistant coach in the past year.
And Arkansas needs it, too:
Ash will take over an Arkansas defense that struggled mightily in its first season following the firing of Bobby Petrino. The Razorbacks were 113th in passing defense, allowing 285.8 yards per game through the air, and they were 12th in the 14-team Southeastern Conference - allowing 30.4 points per game.
You mean to tell me that an SEC team doesn't play SEC defense? Oh the humanity.
Why is this news? Because Ash's squads were actually pretty good: the Badgers' scoring defense against FBS-winning squads was ranked 13th and 16th for the past two seasons (the Buckeyes were 14th and 18th for reference), after being 31st and 33rd for the previous two years. That's really a signifcant jump.
For the Buckeyes, that means even more chaos for the Leaders division in what already looks like an easy schedule. It's easy to be overconfident for next year, and the Badgers may hire someone great, but Urban just HAS to be licking his chops right now.
AIN'T NO PARTY LIKE A LINK PARTY (BECAUSE THE LINK PARTY DON'T STOP). Oregon's many uniform combinations... John Wayne played football?... The weirdest play you'll ever see... College coaches in high school... Grading the coaching hires... Worth the risk for Petrino?... Thank you Barry, no thank you... Science rules.
