ICYMI:
- We pulled the coaching staff's reviews.
- Ramzy's latest opus.
- Ohio State wasn't alone in Week 2 sluggishness after opening on a Monday.
URBAN MEYER LOVES JIM TRESSEL. Given that Urban Meyer destroyed Jim Tressel in their only meeting, one might see Meyer as the sensei of the relationship. That isn't the case; Tressel aided Meyer when he was a newly-minted head coach trying to gain a foothold on the MAC.
At Wednesday night's presser, Urban praised the man basically replaced as Buckeye head coach.
From Dispatch.com:
“Coach Tressel ran the premier program, or if not the premier, one of the premier programs in America, and I always admired it,” Meyer said of Tressel, who coached from 2001-10 and won a national championship in his second season. “When I was at Bowling Green (as a first-time head coach in 2001 and ’02) I came down and studied" the OSU program.
[...]
“Premier, on and off the field, did great things,” Meyer said of Tressel, whose 2006 OSU team Meyer’s Florida squad upset for that season’s national championship. “What’s great about Ohio State, everybody appreciates the efforts of the coaches. I think it’s great.”
Where would Urban Meyer be coaching right now if Jim Tressel hadn't so kindly resigned over the coverup of renegade bartering? I shudder at the thought.
LET CARDALE COOK. Cardale Jones will start only his sixth game on Saturday, which would put him midway through his rookie campaign. He didn't look great against Hawai'i, and there were a myriad of reasons for that.
Once the offense is calibrated, however, I would love to see more of what Cardale does best: Crushing defenders and launching beautiful 70-yard bombs off his back foot.
From Cleveland.com:
But don't you want to see Jones plow over a linebacker? Isn't that part of his game, too? Isn't that needed to let him be the most complete and successful quarterback he can be?
[...]
Expecting a vast improvement from Jones is reasonable as well. He was 12 for 18 for 111 yards against Hawaii, with six runs for five yards. The Buckeyes can help him by creating chances for him to do what he does best – let loose, scare defenses with his arm and his legs and play with the confidence to make big plays.
"I'm kind of glad we hit this pothole early in the season because it's given us something to look forward to," Jones said. "It was a reality check not just for me but for the offense, basically saying we're not as good as we thought we were."
I'm expecting a big game from Cardale this weekend, and I hope it's enough to put the tandem talk to rest. I understand it as a ploy to keep competition sharp, but I "worry" about the team juggling that throughout an entire season.
GENE SMITH IS DECIDEDLY GOOD. Gene Smith will never have the support of 100 percent of the fans, but he's done more than enough to earn the support of the rational part of the fanbase.
Because look around: Money and history are no guarantee of success in 2015. Could you imagine going through the decade Michigan just slogged through? At least John Cooper's teams were talented and capable of winning the occasional big game.
Texas is looking for a new AD now, and they could do a lot worse than Gene Smith.
From LandgrantHolyland.com:
This isn't some ploy to get rid of Smith, somebody that many Buckeye fans haven't forgiven for his handling of the Jim Tressel resignation or the inability to predict the severe sanctions that came from it. But other than that incident, Smith really has done just about everything a fan could want from a major athletic director. As a fan, you want your program to avoid major negative headlines, hire good coaches, compete in multiple sports (but especially football and men's basketball), and raise enough money to be competitive. Ohio State has done all of those things.
Smith generally doesn't get a ton of credit for bringing in Urban Meyer, given that others were involved in that process, but he didn't screw it up, like other ADs might have done when a major coaching name wants to come home. Finding a way to get Meyer to Columbus alone would atone for a lot of other mistakes, but Smith has helped bring on multiple other successful hires.
Take wrestling, for example. All Tom Ryan (hired in 2006) has done since he came to Ohio State was elevate the program to completely new heights, leading to a national championship last season, as well as being named the NWCA coach of the year. In a rugged Big Ten conference, Buckeye wrestling has now become a national power player, and one poised to remain a contender for titles, even after the departure of program legend Logan Stieber.
It's bizarre to think of somebody poaching a premier employee of Ohio State, but Texas does have that money and every man has his price. (Plus, it's not like Gene Smith is an alumnus.)
Would it happen? I don't think so.
ROD GERALD IS COMING HOME. When Buckeye fan Paige King found Rod Gerald, a former OSU QB, Gerald was drowning in debt and in frail health. King started a Facebook group, "Buckeye Love" which spearheaded fundraising efforts for the hero of the 1977 Orange Bowl.
Thanks in large part to King's efforts, the former Woody Hayes pupil will make his return to Ohio Stadium this Saturday.
From MansfieldNewsJournal.com:
All Gerald knows is that King has been a life-saver and that it’s largely because of her fund-raising efforts that he will walk into Ohio Stadium on Saturday for a 40th reunion of the 1975 team. The game against Northern Illinois will be his first time in the ’Shoe since his final season in 1978.
Like King, he’s coming in from his native Texas where he will reunite with former teammates like tailback Archie Griffin and quarterback Cornelius Greene, both of whom have given financial and moral support to Gerald in his fight to never look at another cane or walker or wheelchair.
“Paige would ask ‘Why don’t you ever go to a game?’” Gerald said. “I explained to her my situation with my spine. That’s why I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to be an embarrassment. I can be an embarrassment at home. Why go out to a place where I played and jumped over people and stumble and perhaps fall?
“I think that touched her and triggered something in her.”
I think I speak for all Buckeye fans when I say Rod Gerald ain't never been no embarrassment to The Ohio State University. I hope those in attendance this weekend give him the thunderous applause he deserves.
ANTONIO RUSSELL DISGRACES OLDER BROTHERS EVERYWHERE. Older brothers are not allowed to get punked by their little brothers.
Antonio Russell is hereby banished from the Older Brother Kingdom.
Absolutely appalling.THOSE WMDs. Movie maps... How the NFL convinced prosecutors to give them (and no one else) the Greg Hardy photos... That time Arnold Schwarzenegger played a garbage man in a 1980s anti-drug PSA... Bad-ass seal photographed riding whale... The changing face of Shenzhen.
