Wednesday's Skull Session will offer some commentary on things happening in the world of college athletics. Ohio State enters its second bye of the season, so there's no depth chart to analyze for the upcoming week. That feature of this Skull Session returns next week, when Ohio State returns to action against Illinois.
What do you think of two byes in a season? I kind of like it. I remember one of the alternatives: not having any bye in the season. Ohio State went through the 2007 season without a bye, and thought that was a little much to ask for a team to play every week of the season until the bowl game.
Michigan did that in the 1997 national title year. Ohio State almost pulled that feat off, depending on how much an "almost" qualifier extends to the 2008 BCS National Championship Game.
I think two byes are great. Ohio State football is more fun for me when there is a probability of zero that Ohio State loses on Saturday.
Nonetheless, the bye week means we start this feature looking elsewhere in the college football landscape. We start with Texas.
TEXAS HAS A NEW ATHLETIC DIRECTOR? Texas athletics is in quite the pickle right now. Its football program is basically rotting from the inside out. That Greg Robinson can be billed as a job-saver for Mack Brown speaks well of how inadequate of a stopgap that has to be. Whatever we make of Texas football, Texas basketball is arguably in a worse position. If Rick Barnes' poor performance had not made Texas fans not care about basketball altogether, he may have been fired years ago.
All these woes eventually led to DeLoss Dodds to throw in the towel and retire in 2014. It also led to a slew of candidates for his replacement.
It seemed the frontrunner was Oliver Luck, the current athletic director of West Virginia University. Luck, who has ties to Texas as a former resident of Houston, seemed like a natural fit for a program that considers itself as one of the most aggressive athletic departments in the country. Luck was the guy who effectively ran Bill Stewart from Morgantown in favor of Dana Holgorsen. There was the immediate payoff of the 2011 season, even though Holgorsen has not built on that debut.
Further, Gene Smith's name came up, even if his name was mentioned in error. That guys with Luck's aggression, and Gene Smith's institutional credentials, were mentioned as candidates for the job underscored that Texas sought to aim big for Dodds' replacement.
In the end, Texas will be going with Steve Patterson. Patterson is the current athletic director of Arizona State University.
Patterson was mentioned early along with Luck, mostly because Patterson has two degrees from the University of Texas. He also has experience working with the organizations of the Houston Texans, the Houston Rockets, and the Portland Trailblazers. Still, I wondered if his name on that short list was because of the Texas degrees.
Maybe he has done great things at Arizona State and I just don't know of it. I would not consider Todd Graham necessarily a great hire. He's worked out for Arizona State so far, but his arrival in Tempe is as much wanderlust as it is a coup in the hiring process.
DE'ANTHONY THOMAS THINKS OREGON CAN SCORE 40. By now, you're aware that this weekend is mostly make-or-break for Ohio State's BCS chances. Incidentally, it's the weekend in which Ohio State does not play anyone.
The first game of interest for Ohio State fans pits Oregon against Stanford in Palo Alto, this Thursday. Once the Pac-12 and the ACC (first Clemson, then Florida State) leapfrogged Ohio State's no. 2 position in the AP early in the season, Ohio State fans were aware that the Pac-12 needed to resolve itself in this realistic scenario. Basically, whoever wins the Oregon-Stanford game needs to wang it somewhere else on the schedule.
Stanford was kind of enough to set up that scenario shortly into its season with a Week 7 loss to Utah in Salt Lake City. Now, we need the Cardinal to beat Oregon at home.
Can Stanford do to Oregon what it did last year? Last year's contest saw the Cardinal enter the game as three touchdown underdogs, only to use its defense to smother Oregon's offense and escape with an overtime win in Eugene. De'anthony Thomas seems fairly confident that won't happen again.
"I feel we are a better team, just a new generation of players," Thomas told GoDucks.com. "We've got a lot of guys that can contribute to the offense and that's what makes this offense to dynamic."
Thomas was then asked if he thought Stanford could hold the Ducks offense to 14 points -- Oregon's total from the 2012 loss.
"I don't think so," Thomas replied. "I feel like this team, we should at least put up 40."
Love the confidence. So does Stanford's David Shaw, for that matter.
David Shaw reacted to De'Anthony Thomas' comment (Oregon should score at least 40): "I've seen em play, no problem with him saying that."
— David Lombardi (@DavidMLombardi) November 5, 2013
Ohio State fans will be content with Oregon scoring 40 points against Stanford, provided Stanford scores at least 41.
Carlos Hyde has looked the part lately.IT'S NOT WHETHER YOU WIN OR LOSE... ...it's how good you look. At least, I vaguely recall David Lee Roth saying that at an MTV Video Music Awards ceremony in the mid-1980s. I'm not sure if that's his original quote, though.
Nonetheless, style matters more than substance these days in college football. Ohio State fans seem to know this all too well right now, losing pole position from the preseason after an (arguably?) underwhelming victory in the season-opener against Buffalo.
Perhaps the seven-point victory over Wisconsin doesn't hurt as much now as we're beginning to realize Wisconsin would probably pummel most other two-loss teams in the country. I say that knowing full well the ranks of the two-loss teams include South Carolina, Texas A&M, UCLA, and, yes, Arizona State.
That Northwestern win, though, probably screwed us for the time being. Ohio State eventually overpowered the Wildcats in Evanston, but that Northwestern has not won a game since then has put us behind the eight ball. The national perception is Ohio State's relatively meek opening to its season projected an aura of a good, not great, team competing with Oregon, Alabama, and Clemson/Florida State for attention.
Well, two victories by a combined score of 119-14 against Penn State and Purdue is giving Ohio State positive attention right now. Bill Connelly has been effusive in praise for the same midseason acceleration Ohio State showed this time last year.
Something changed when the first BCS rankings came out. Finally part of the BCS club again after last year's postseason ban, the Buckeyes responded to their No. 4 ranking by playing like the No. 4 team in the country. All of a sudden, both the team and the marching band are playing at a championship level.
Yes, Penn State is wholly mediocre. Yes, Purdue is probably the worst BCS-conference team in the country this year. But as I've said too many times to count about Boise State through the years, it only somewhat matters who you play. It very much matters how you play, and Ohio State made a mediocre Penn State team look terrible and a terrible Purdue team look like a Division II squad.
Kudos for the shoutout to the marching band, naturally.
Connelly's post from there praises Ohio State's ability to run the ball as well any team in the country, and for the defensive muscle it has flexed in the last two games.
Will it matter for the BCS? Probably not. I think we all know that.
Again, Penn State and Purdue aren't exactly UCLA and Stanford (Oregon's last and next opponents). But Ohio State has known all along that it is doomed to terrible computer rankings because of an awful schedule. While the Buckeyes wait to see if a couple of the fantastic teams above them lose, all they can do is look the part. And for the first time since Meyer moved to Columbus, they truly are.
Basically. That's why we're all Stanford fans on Thursday night.
MISCELLANY. Bowling Green and Buffalo had no problem dispatching Miami of Ohio and Ohio, respectively, on Tuesday night football... The surprising correlates of who makes it to the NBA... This Week in Great Mayoral Confessions... I used to be a Clippers fan in my youth, so that they're barn burners now makes me happy... Gary Kubiak released from the hospital... Aaron Rodgers has a broken collarbone, and will miss three weeks... The Dolphins's flap over Richie Incognito gets weirder, and weirder... Report: Fickell interviewed for the Florida Atlantic job in Columbus yesterday... Michael Redd retires, one of the most underappreciated players in 2000s NBA basketball... Scary locker room brawl in Berkeley. Don't know what to make of this...
