This Week in Twitter: Big Ten Media Day Madness, Chicago is Falling in Love with Justin Fields, and Chris Holtmann is Ready for Paintball

By 11W Staff on July 24, 2021 at 1:47 pm
Thayer Munford, Jeremy Ruckert, Zach Harrison
Thayer Munford, Jeremy Ruckert, Zach Harrison
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This Week in Twitter is our weekly look at some of the week's best and most entertaining tweets from current and former Ohio State players and other Ohio State accounts.

It was already set to be a whirlwind of a news week in the college football world, even before Oklahoma and Texas set off the biggest conference realignment discussion in recent memory.

Big Ten Media Days got underway this past Thursday, and four key members of the Ohio State Football family were there to discuss and illustrate the forthcoming success of the Buckeyes in 2021.

It was extremely refreshing to see players, coaches, and staff all interacting with various members of the media directly in person again. The Zoom press conference is now—hopefully—a relic of the past.

Just look at how happy Dan is to be basking in the presence of Ryan Day again!

Though the beat journalists were understandably giddy with excitement, no Ohio State media member had more fun than newcomer Zach Harrison.

After getting peppered with questions himself all afternoon, Harrison "crashed" Ryan Day's press conference to get a quote from Ohio State's head coach on how he plans to get Jeremy Ruckert more involved in the offense this season. 

While the head coach had all eyes on him in Indianapolis, the football team's position coaches stayed home this week to work aspiring Buckeyes through drills and teach young football players how to #PlayAGreatGame.

Offensive line coach Greg Studrawa ran the lads through various footwork exercises, while linebackers coach Al Washington provided some technique tips to hopeful LBs of all ages.

Meanwhile, with July entering its last week and the college football season closing in, the Buckeye running backs took to Top Golf to celebrate their final days of summer. Someone might want to help Master Teague with his swing stance, but at least the entire group looks like they had fun!

To the NFL, Chicago Bears fans continue to find themselves smitten with not only the development of Justin Fields, but also his character. Earlier this week, Fields and his family visited a fan recovering from a stray bullet gunshot wound last month that relayed he, "can’t die before I see Justin Fields on the field for the Bears."

For a city that has been ravaged by gun violence over the last decade, this was a very powerful and touching move by Fields. Judging by the replies to this tweet, his new fellow Chicagoans certainly appreciated the gesture.

Elsewhere in the NFL, Trey Sermon finally signed his rookie deal with the San Francisco 49ers this week after many impressive showings in practice over the last several weeks.

Another former Buckeye running back got good news this week when ex-Dallas Cowboy Mike Weber received a call from the New York Giants a week prior to the start of training camp.

On the defensive side, Baron Browning also put pen to paper this week as he looks to get his career started and established with the Denver Broncos.

Though no deal has been finalized yet, former Ohio State and Indianapolis Colts safety Malik Hooker may have a new team to call his own after the Cowboys reached out to him about potentially joining their defense.

Between two trips to their facility and Dallas' desire for safety help, his prospects of linking up with them appear great.

Pivoting to Ohio State basketball, there were plenty of interesting bits that made it onto social media this week. Chris Holtmann took the squad paintballing on Tuesday, and you have to admire the intensity with which the coach approaches an opportunity to have fun with his players.

Seriously, zoom in on that expression.

Also highlighted this week, the Buckeyes' in-state exploits are well known in the sport of football, but the basketball team has plenty of historic fodder as well. Did you know that the 1903 team once beat the Ohio Bobcats by a margin of 86 points?

As for Buckeye pro hoopers, with the NBA offseason now underway following the Milwaukee Bucks' NBA Finals win, Jae'Sean Tate took to the mound to deliver the first pitch at the Houston Astros' Minute Maid Park. It was also his first professional baseball game!

But the best Buckeye basketball news this week had to be Carmen's Crew finally taking the court for the next installment of The Basketball Tournament.

The entire roster had an excellent showing in their first game yesterday, but perhaps no one was more impressive than former Sacramento Kings center Kosta Koufos. The former Buckeye of Greece finished off the game's Elam Ending with the final six points of the contest—including this spectacular Kosta-coast-to-coast sequence in the closing moments.

In Olympic-athlete news, Alec Yoder punched his ticket to the finals for the pommel horse in Tokyo this morning after turning in a score of 15.200 in the qualifying round earlier on.

If you have not read up on Yoder's story, check out this great feature the Indianapolis Star did on the aspiring gold medalist earlier this week.

And finally, Eleven Warriors would like to congratulate Connor Nichols—former Chicago Fire Creative Services Coordinator—on joining the Ohio State Football Creative Media team as its new Assistant Director.

Looking forward to a fun football season on the field and online! 

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