Monday Skull Session

18 year-olds are moving onto campus this week, and when I see these bright-eyed monsters leading their parents around Kroger pointing out all the free groceries they want, I grow sad. One, because I'm not 18 anymore, and two, there just isn't anyway they appreciate the gloriousness that will be their life for the next four (or if they're smart, five or six) years of their life.

I suppose that's just human nature, not appreciating things until they're gone. Still, the actions I'd commit to switch places with a freshman would undoubtedly land me in prison for the rest of my natural life at best or me being strapped to a table with pentobarbital being pumped through my veins at worst.

I offer this sage advice to college freshmen, America's Future, who are incapable of realizing the gift in their hands until it slips through their fingers like water: STAY YOUNG FOREVER.

SINGLE OSU #1 AP VOTER SPEAKS. Bob Asmussen, Illinois football beat writer for the Champaign News-Gazette, was the only person to vote Ohio State #1 in the recently released AP Top 25 Poll. He spoke with the venerable Doug Lesmeries of the Cleveland Plain Dealer about his reasoning behind his selection when Alabama was the damn-near consensus #1 pick:

Someone has to beat the SEC at some point. Why not the Buckeyes? I've got to start with the quarterback; [Braxton Miller] is just so good, and I really like him. Johnny Manziel, with all his troubles, will be hard-pressed to repeat in the Heisman. So I think Braxton has a great chance to be the Heisman guy. This guy is great, and I think he puts them over the top. And the schedule is so good, other than the final game against Michigan.

And let's face it, Urban really is a phenomenal coach. He's proven it time after time. And he's been recruiting. So there are more guys we don't even know about yet that can play.

It is crazy to think one day our SEC (read: Alabama, LSU, Florida and Auburn) overlords will be toppled and we will all get to pull down Nick Saban's 3-foot bronze statue and beat it with shoes like Iraqis did to Saddam's monuments. Yet, that day could be here as soon as January 6th, 2014. While I agree with Asmussen — why not the Buckeyes? — I don't really see how anybody could reasonably rank Alabama anything outside of #1.

Personally, I hope Ohio State isn't ranked #1 until January 7th, 2014. There's nothing worse than being ranked #1 during the season. It's merely a massive target inviting every middling team (and this is the B1G so there's a lot of those) on the schedule to play out of their skulls while trying to earn a story to tell their grandkids. Think Robert Marve and company were insufferable in celebrating a victory against an Ohio State team that ultimately lost seven games? Try imagining that celebration if Ohio State were ranked #1 and hadn't lost a football game since January 2nd, 2012. There still might be Purdue fans weeping with joy in the decrepit high school arena that is Ross-Ade Stadium.

THE NCAA IS AN OBTUSE, ARBITRARY MESS. Again, this is not shocking nor is it a radical, firebrand opinion. Yet, this story even surprises me as a supreme hater of the NCAA. Steven Rhodes is a 24 year-old walk-on freshman is a former Marine Sergeant who also held dreams of playing college football. As an athletic 6'3" 240 lbs man, he got that chance at MTSU. That was until the NCAA put the kibosh on the whole operation:

But not long after arriving on campus, Rhodes was told that his participation in a military-only recreational football league in 2012 would hinder his immediate eligibility to play Division I college football, per an NCAA rule.

Despite his age, military service and complete lack of college football experience, Rhodes must take a mandatory redshirt and not play a single game for MTSU this season.

... “Man, it was like intramurals for us. There were guys out there anywhere from 18 to 40-something years old,” said Rhodes, chuckling and shaking his head. “The games were spread out. We once went six weeks between games.”

This is so mind-numbingly dumb it's incredible multiple people signed off on it. If this is a fair application of the NCAA rulebook, then it needs to go the way of the phonebook.

RT @ruthlessreviews: It's sort of crazy how that guy just happened to be named Dewy Decimal.

Omar Jacobs was Meyer's first protégé.

MAN ALMOST DROWNS IN MIRROR LAKE? 10TV posted a troubling story yesterday afternoon. Swims in Mirror Lake are usually reserved as student traditions of anticipation in stomping an annual mud-hole in Michigan's sorry-ass or to celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden (some may argue these two things are unnecessarily redundant), but apparently "a man" went for a swim yesterday, almost drowned, and had to be given CPR.

No, I'm not questioning this man's "man card" or whatever awful phrase you want to use to futilely question a guy's manhood; I'm just doubting any "man" who isn't also a Little Person is capable of almost drowning in Mirror Lake considering its depths only reach to about five feet. (Mirror Man-Made Pond would probably be a more truthful, albeit less-catchier name for that body of water.)

Alcohol or bath salts or a heart attack had to be involved, right? I mean there's no way a sober "man" almost drowns in Mirror Lake on a Sunday afternoon.

MEYER FOLLOWS BGSU BLUEPRINT. I had a buddy who went to Bowling Green during Urban Meyer and Omar Jacobs' heydays, so I've been hip to Urban Meyer's kingliness for quite some time.

Bowling Green was Urban's first head coaching stop. He almost turned down the job too; speaking to Lou Holtz he said "I just don't think it's that good of a job," to which Holtz replied: "Of course not. If it was, why would they be calling you?"

It turned out being a great move for Meyer and Bowling Green, although the former has ascended to national prominence and the latter has never recaptured the magic, I'm sure it's a hire Bowling Green would make a thousand times again.

It turns out, however, Meyer learned quite a bit during his time at Bowling Green. David Briggs of the Toledo Blade broke it down yesterday in a very insightful story that should be read in its entirety:

At dinner, the BG officials ordered ribs; Meyer just water. He was all business. Though the youngest of three finalists — [BGSU A.D. Paul] Krebs also interviewed Purdue offensive coordinator Jim Chaney and Indianapolis Colts receivers coach Jay Norvell — Meyer was by far the most prepared. He rattled off the nine assistants he wanted on his staff, outlined his plans for discipline, even scribbled out his vision for the spread offense on a yellow legal pad stained with Seeliger’s barbecue sauce.

“On the sidewalk afterward, Paul and I looked at each other, like, ‘This guy is something special,’ ” said [Scott] Seeliger, now the football coach at Bowling Green High School.

Meyer’s new players would reserve judgment.

“We didn’t get a head coach, we didn’t get a coordinator, we got a position coach from Notre Dame?” [Linebacker Mitch] Hewitt recalls thinking.

Meyer would go on to run 21 players off that first team of his and his depth chart got so thin he had to turn to the student newspaper to place ads looking for help with the kick-off team. How did it turn out? Well, I don't think anybody in these parts needs a history course on that. Read the whole article; it's worth your time.

THE BOSS MIKE DOSS. I've liked Mike Doss ever since Marion Harding corralled him in a heart-breaking 14-7 Prexy loss in the OHSAA Division-I playoffs, and Doss went on to run for roughly 250 yards and four touchdowns in the championship game against St. Ignatius. He's probably my favorite Ohio State Buckeye. (Jonathan Newsome is my second.)

Here is a highlight tape of Mike Doss, because he was a cool guy who came back to win a national title and did just that: