Wednesday Skull Session

My goal with this Session of Skull is for my opinions to not aggravate a commenter into calling for my charred corpse to be desecrated and dragged through the village streets in celebration as if I were a downed Black Hawk pilot in Somalia. *straps on Kevlar vest, throws the Blackhawk's transmission into ~FLOAT~*

If you were in God's Palace, aka Columbus, Ohio, yesterday, you were treated to a glorious 70-degree day. Eddard Stark, if his skull hadn't been snipped from its stem by that vile, treacherous brat King Joffrey, would sternly tell us, "WINTER IS COMING YOU SUN-SOAKED SCRUBS," but he would be skipping a step.

FALL IS COMING. Yes, that means football and English Premiere League and NFL, but it also means the best season is right around the corner. I couldn't be happier, because after struggling through this summer, I understand why Satan chose the digs he did. (Have I typed about my love of Fall/hate of Summer before? Is this what getting old is like? *sigh* Gosh, I need to die already. Let's just get to the news.)

 INNFFFOOO DUMMMMP. (That sub-headline is a lot cooler if you imagine me screaming it in my ***WOOOORLD STARRRR*** voice.) ESPN was on campus yesterday, offering another chance for OSU's Urban Meyer to spindle the network's national platform into recruiting gold.

HERE is the video of Urban and Braxton appearing on ESPN, if you're into that kind of thing.

HERRO H8ERZ.

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE. I'm sure nobody here needs a refresher course on Tatgate, or the miserable ribbing suffered at the hands of insufferable fans from insufferable fanbases (this also included the national media before the Miami and Penn State scandals broke, each dwarfing the prior in enormity like a bizarre, paradoxical set of Matryoshka dolls). 

Thankfully for us, this is the internet, which never forgets. Enter Texas A&M fans who, for whatever reason, seem to have done a complete 180-turn on NCAA players trading their signature for cash since then:

MAROON_LIQUID: It makes you wonder what J.B. Shugarts (offensive linemen from Klein) got when he played with tOSU...Wondered why he went all the way to Ohio to play CFB, and now, not so much...

JOHN DAVID STUTTS: This is a real concern. The IRS will most certainly get involved. There is no hiding from them and there is no refusing to talk to them. AND the NCAA can use whatever they find to further rip Ohio State, especially if they find out multiple players were doing this.

CJS4715: This is major and sounds much worse than the USC issues. Time to hammer tOSU. Hasn't their athletic program been under sanctions in other sports recently?

2AgDad: Apparently, it's tO$U.

TREY DEPRIEST SUSPENDED IN NAME ONLY. The Springfield 4-star product, who spurned Ohio State for Alabama, has apparently run afoul of Nick Saban's iron-coated baby-fist:

Granted, it's unlikely we will ever know what Trey DePriest did, and people will use this to bludgeon Saban for a "winning-at-all-costs," attitude, yet it's not like Saban has ever pretended to be anything else. But, it must be asked: what is the point of a "suspension" if the player isn't even missing a game? Why even present it as such? 

FOUR STAR FRIDAY ON DECK? Curtis Samuel, the 4-star burner from New York, will be visiting Ohio State this week, and another commitment for the 2014 class could be imminent: 

To which program could Samuel be committing? Well, some have ideas:

AWAY TICKET PRICES. Maybe it's because I'm "intentionally contrarian," but I happen to enjoy attending away games more than home games. Don't get me wrong, the aura of the Shoe is irreplaceable, but I enjoy traveling to new places and examining enemies on their own turf. I also enjoy getting heckled and abused, which is why I've been eyeing a trip to the Whore of the North for the better part of this year. Few things in life excite me more than a front row seat for the bi-annual sacking of Ann Arbor.

The People, however, may be interested in ticket prices for away games in general, via TicketIQ: 

• at California: Average: $179 / Starting at: $88
• at Northwestern: Average $245 / Starting at: $124
• at Purdue: Average: $124 / Starting at: $25
• at Illinois: Average: $96 / Starting at: $33
• at Michigan: Average $442 / Starting at: $216

I remember back when I attended the 2009 remix of The Game when a buddy and I bought two tickets for $200 total off a Michigan season-ticket holder who acted like he was selling a gigaton of yellowcake uranium to Al Qaeda operatives in the heart of Brooklyn. "Ohio State fans are the only ones biting today for reasonable prices," he lamented. He knew an ass-kicking was imminent. (It's crazy what a competent Michigan coach can do to ticket prices.) 

Also, why is Kirk Herbstreit against Ohio State and Michigan playing two games this year? It's not like it will ever be possible again, and what a historic opportunity for Ohio State to blast Michigan's sorry-ass back into the bowels of the Earth's not once but twice in a single season? I can see why coaches would dread it, but from the view point of the guy guzzling cheap spiced Caribbean rum in the parking lot? WHERE DO I SIGN? 

THOSE WMDs. America's most important soccer player conquers the Old World... "I bet kids are really surprised when they get to the ending"... MARIO BALOTELLI MEETING THE POPE, I REPEAT: MARIO BALOTELLI MEETING THE POPE... Christian Benteke is a MONSTER... Staples and Mandel look at four roadblocks to Alabama's repeat (OSU is one)... Ohioan and 2015 RB Larry Scott is pretty good... Eradicate small dogs now... Ban lawns... All 280 pages of Ohio State football's 2013 Media Guide... A world map showing the 22 countries Great Britain hasn't invaded... A Top 5 Funniest Vine OF ALL TIME... Mixed-Use Development Plan Unveiled for the Scioto Peninsula... Ohio State touts incoming freshmen class records... FBI: 11 arrested on gang-charges in Ohio... Russian surgeon stole heroin found in patient's stomach... The coldest case ever solved... Kendrick Lamar's "Control" verse... 12th/College Rd on OSU campus ***FINALLY*** has a traffic light...