I don't know the extent to which you revolve your Saturday mornings around the Skull Session here, but you will not be seeing it much longer. This is the last Saturday without college football for several weeks to come.
We did it, you guys. We did it.
WANT TO HELP ELEVEN WARRIORS? The first item in the Skull Session is actually about you all, the community at Eleven Warriors, and how you can contribute to not only Eleven Warriors, but Ohio State fandom, in general.
Yesterday, yrro, a member of the Eleven Warriors community, posted a forum topic asking for the community here to keep track of some of the more advanced statistics and metrics associated with college football.
This is something that, currently, we do not do and no other Ohio State website does for Ohio State fans. The reason for this is understandable. Given the weight of the task, it would amount to a part-time job, without compensation, for just one person to do.
yrro's idea is that many hands would make for light work here at Eleven Warriors, delegating responsibilities for parts of a given game through the forums on this website. Rather than burden a single Ohio State fan with this task, the job could be divided by quarter or ten minute sections for those who volunteer. Division of labor could get even more particular, with, perhaps, tasks being divided among Eleven Warriors users by "drives" or "series", rather than quarters or minutes, per se. That much is my suggestion for the division of labor. The utility of doing this for Eleven Warriors and Ohio State fans remains the same.
If this interests you, feel free to say so in the forum topic that yrro posted. We would appreciate it, but not nearly as much as Ohio State fans would appreciate having more advanced statistics and metrics to consider after watching a game.
WHO DOESN'T HAVE A STARTING QUARTERBACK IN THE BIG TEN? Yesterday, we learned who will replace the departed James Vandenberg as Iowa's quarterback. That job was given by Kirk Ferentz to Jake Rudock.
Who is Jake Rudock? Rudock is a redshirt sophomore for the Iowa Hawkeyes, coming to Iowa from the St. Thomas Aquinas program in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This is the college football factory that gave us Joey Bosa. Redshirting 2011, he did not see any action in 2012 behind James Vandenberg. Vandenberg quarterbacked every snap for Iowa, finishing the season with 2,249 yards, seven touchdowns, and eight interceptions.
As such, there is not a lot we know about Rudock. We cannot readily infer from his time at St. Thomas Aquinas (31 wins, three state titles) to how he projects as a starting quarterback for Iowa.
He gets his first start at home against Northern Illinois, last year's MAC darling. Iowa visits Ohio State on Oct. 19.
This raises an interesting question about the rest of the conference. How many teams do not have a starting quarterback yet? The answer: three. Indiana, Penn State, and Wisconsin are programs without starting quarterbacks entering game week.
Indiana's position is different from Penn State or Wisconsin. Indiana is returning three quarterbacks who played well enough when afforded the opportunity. However, Kevin Wilson and quarterback coach Kevin Johns are having difficulty deciding among Cam Coffman, Tre Roberson, and Nate Sudfeld. Coffman and Sudfeld are the quarterbacks that Ohio State fans likely remember from last year's contest in Bloomington. Tre Roberson actually started last season before suffering a season-ending injury at Massachussetts.
Bill O'Brien is still deciding who is going to replace Matt McGloin. From an outsider's perspective, he does not seem any closer to deciding among recent JUCO transfer Tyler Ferguson and true freshman Christian Hackenberg than he was several weeks ago. Maybe he is, but he is not saying at the moment.
Wisconsin's quarterback situation is one that I am surprised is not being discussed more. As I mentioned in my season preview feature about, in part, Gary Andersen's first year in Madison, quarterback play is going to be the difference between Wisconsin as possible Big Ten champion and Wisconsin as 6-6 team en route to the Little Caesar's Bowl in Detroit.
Wisconsin has talent upon talent at almost all positions on offense, but has a big question mark about the quarterbacks in Andersen's system. Curt Phillips and Joel Stave cannot possibly approximate Chucky Keeton's skill set for Andersen last year at Utah State. It is why Andersen added Tanner McEvoy in the 2013 recruiting class as a JUCO transfer (originally at South Carolina). If the quarterbacks flop in Andersen's system, the wheels could fall off the wagon in Madison.
The photograph in question.INVESTIGATING DEION SANDERS... JR. I am not sure why this is a story, but, we can discuss it here.
Southern Methodist University is investigating Deion Sanders Jr., a defensive back for the Mustangs and, yes, son of Deion Sanders, for a photograph taken of Sanders Jr. with rapper Lil Wayne. The internal investigation is to make sure that Sanders Jr. did not receive an impermissible benefit (from Lil Wayne?). The suggestion is Sanders Jr. got backstage at Lil Wayne concert because he is, wait for it, a football player at Southern Methodist University... in 2013, not 1983.
The nuance here might not be obvious to Southern Methodist University, but it is worth clarifying. Deion Sanders Jr. did not get backstage at a Lil Wayne concert because he is a football player at the university. He got backstage at a Lil Wayne concert because he is his father's son. The first case would be an NCAA violation. The second case is nepotism, at worst. Just in recalling Sanders Jr.'s performance at the Under Armour All-American Game in 2012, being his father's son was why he was at that exhibition game, and at Southern Methodist on a football scholarship. That is a different conversation, though.
There is no way that compliance at the university, whatever its intention, could distinguish Sanders Jr.'s family connections from a violation of rules around NCAA's concept of amateurism. This should be so obvious prima facie that I am not convinced it is even worth exploring from a compliance perspective.
The more interesting question is about the other people in that photo, who look to be college teammates of Sanders Jr. (this is speculation on my part, I do not know these guys from Adam). As the unfortunate case of USC's Dwayne Jarrett showed, the parent of one player is the booster of another. However, Jarrett's case involved a financial transaction. If Lil Wayne allowed some of Sanders Jr.'s teammates backstage because they were football players, the issue becomes a bit more interesting.
Again, though, this would be near impossible to demonstrate. It is more likely the case that these other guys got backstage because they are friends of Sanders Jr. The connection with the football program is incidental.
The things that make the news these days, no? Personally, I stopped paying attention to Lil Wayne after his cameo in that Juvenile song over fifteen years ago. Yes, you are all that old and, yes, I am assuming you are not at work by linking to that video.
MISCELLANY. J.T. Barrett and Evan Lisle are two of three freshmen to lose their black stripe on Friday... Of course Bo Pelini's idea of a prank involves overt, audible threats of violence... Illinois is entertaining off the field, if not on it... Texas Christian has new uniforms, as does everyone else... Watch ESPN create a meme... In related news: the NFL is basically a cigarette company... Roll Tide... Also: Roll Tide... Remember Jameis Winston? He was just named the starter at Florida State... Ohio State basketball's new trophy case features the jersey Michael Redd wore in the gold medal game from the 2008 Olympics... The first thing I heard when I first heard "Blurred Lines" was "Got To Give It Up". Evidently, Marvin Gaye's family feels the same way too... Linda Ronstadt, singer of great songs like "Different Drum", "You're No Good", and "Blue Bayou", is so ravaged by Parkinson's Disease that she can no longer sing... College football is Breaking Bad... The 2014 Louisiana State-Wisconsin game now has a name... There is a caption contest in here somewhere... Vin Scully, who will live forever, will return to the Dodgers for his 65th (!) season... Jim Tressel still follows the Buckeyes.
