Heard this: As Tom Herman harvests his staff for Houston, a name to watch at graduate assistant is former Ohio State quarterback Kenny Guiton. (It would also answer the question as to "OMG WHAT QB IS HERMAN TAKING WITH HIM TO HOUSTON?")
Oh, and shoutout to Houston athletic director Mack Rhoades:
Houston AD Mack Rhoades says school had no issue w/ Tom Herman staying with OSU through CFP. "He owes that to those young men."
— Joseph Duarte (@Joseph_Duarte) December 16, 2014
ELITE 15 GETS SOME BEEF. Ohio State's 2015 offensive line class is beefy as hell, but not so much along the defensive interior. That changed yesterday when Ohio State flipped Huber Heights product Rob Landers from West Virginia.
(Per the Lord of Whispers, Ohio State is still on the hunt for another tackle to join the class.)
This one excited me because I drove through West Virginia two weeks ago (at night in the rain and fog), and that was a level of stress I strive to avoid in all facets of my life. So I consider this karmic retribution on the state of West Virginia and their godforsaken highway system.
NICK SABAN WEIGHS IN ON KING CARDALE. It appears even Nick Saban, the self-styled King of Alabama, knows King Cardale is not to be trifled with.
From Bill Landis of cleveland.com:
"I think this guy is very capable," Saban said. "He's a good passer, big, strong, athletic guy who can really do all the things the other guy (J.T. Barrett) could do in terms of quarterback runs. It's just different styles."
[...]
"The one thing he did really well was pass the ball," Saban said. "He made some good throws in the Wisconsin game, some big plays downfield. We feel like philosophically, they're going to run their offense, it's just what part of it they might feature a little differently, that's the part we're not sure about."
I've mentioned Cardale Jones as a reality TV star-in-waiting, and I don't even like reality TV, but the new million dollar idea I've cooked up is a a show centering around Jones and Saban rolling around America solving petty crime.
But I digress.
HOW OHIO STATE CAN SCORE ON BAMA. The big thing Ohio State did against Wisconsin is it didn't treat Cardale Jones with kid gloves. Tom Herman trusted Cardale to make a strike down the field on the first possession of the game, and Jones dropped it in the bucket. Wisconsin never got off the mat.
I'm hoping to see more of that against Alabama, which is a team, as I mentioned yesterday, that has been roasted through the air in its last four games.
From Michael Bird of SB Nation:
And that's where the danger against Ohio State comes into focus. The Bucks just booked their spot in no small part because of Cardale Jones just throwing deep balls to Devin Smith. Three touchdowns in the Big Ten Championship resulted from Smith just being more athletic and skilled than the guys covering him.
[...]
Smith's performance in Indianapolis on Saturday creates the possibility of a whooshing up moment in the bacchanal setting of New Orleans. Alabama looks like the best team in the country. The Tide opened as a 9.5-point favorite. Bama is a complete program operating at a level that suggests that there is no immediate end in sight to its dynasty.
And in the face of all of that, the prospect of an opposing wide receiver just making plays over a Bama corner is a threat. As Saturday showed, Saban seeks to control every last aspect of a game, but backyard plays can evade his grasp.
Ohio State has nothing to lose against Alabama, so I see no reason why they won't use Cardale Jones' strengths to their advantage. And I might regret this because The Internet is Forever, but I believe Ohio State will put up points on Alabama's defense, which is not the caliber of defense one assumes when one hears "Alabama defense."
I'm expecting a very aggressive gameplan that lets Cardale go deep often. (And if Cardale Jones bombs Alabama back into the Stone Age, there will be no Skull Session from me the next day because I will be dead from euphoria.)
THE BUCKEYE PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR. ESPN did an end-of-the-year roundtable on the best Big Ten performance this year. Unsurprisingly, Ohio State footballers were ubiquitous.
Brian Bennett and Adam Rittenberg voted for J.T. Barret's five-touchdown performance vs. Michigan State. Austin Ward voted for Jalin Marshall's four-touchdown, second half performance against Indiana.
As electrifying as Marshall's performance against Indiana was, I have to give the nod to J.T. Barrett's performance at Michigan State. It seems blasphemous now, but up until then, a lot of fans weren't 100% sure what they had in Barrett. That game erased all doubts and officially cleared the way for the Quarterback Armageddon of 2015. (Coming soon to an off-season thread near you.)
FSU IS THE REIGNING CHAMPS. And it's tired of being disrespected, damnit!
FSU DB Jalen Ramsey: "We're the ones who won 29 in a row. What are we scared of? Why are we the underdog? I don't really understand that."
— Natalie Pierre (@Natalie_Pierre) December 16, 2014
Ramsey on facing Heisman winner: "That really doesn't matter to me. Jameis is the best player in America. We go up against him every day..."
— Natalie Pierre (@Natalie_Pierre) December 16, 2014
I hope Florida State wipes Oregon off the map. I really do, but only because watching OSU put Florida State to sleep would be the ultimate schadenfreude-on-top of beating Alabama.
And if it ends up Alabama and FSU? Well, Jimbo Fisher and Jameis Winston will have made America cheer for Notre Dame, Miami, Bobby Petrino, and Alabama. That's impressive.
THOSE WMDs. How the NFL's forgotten Christmas albums almost made one man rich... Agreed: this #teen is way cooler for hoaxing a magazine than he would be if he had $72 million... Prank that "went too far" nets BGSU quarterback a charge... The 2005-6 New York Knicks were hilariously dysfunctional... Drugs, Murder, and Family: The Life of Louisiana Football Legend Janzen Jackson... The Origins of 10 Popular Christmas Carols.
