It's been over 24 hours after my expected outcome of the big game, and it's still surreal. I spent most of yesterday thanking Warren G. Harding for the clean water available in my apartment, the health of my beautiful cats (#shoutout to BuckeyeVet), and my future-son-in-law, Cardale Jones.
I also spent a few minutes admiring this picture:
This photo of a gelatinous Urban Meyer is surreal. Like he's supercharging for a power move in Street Fighter pic.twitter.com/lUBNB4JBPu
— Chris B. Brown (@smartfootball) January 13, 2015
(Correction: Urban Meyer's been supercharged since the moment he walked through those Fawcett Center doors in November 2011.)
Say though, Urban, how many titles is that now?
(Thanks to RDubs for introducing that Vine into my life.)
If I didn't know any better I'd say that crazy old man in the background has enough cocaine in his bloodstream to kill a yak.
LUKE FICKELL TAKE A BOW. Disclaimer: I've had a soft spot for Luke Fickell since the then-interim head coach refused to crush my larynx during a 2011 press conference in which my cellphone interrupted his soliloquy with a shitty rendition of The Game's "We Ain't." (That pitiful effort earned me three comments.)
From Doug Lesmerises of cleveland.com:
"[Urban] has always said and I've always said and everyone before has always said, it's not about just one team or one guy or one person or one coach. This is a special place," Fickell said.
"And you notice that when there are so many guys down on the sideline like they just won the national championship, whether they played 10 years ago or four years ago or whatever it was, whether they played for a different head coach or not, they are just so proud of their university and their program, you can't believe how far that goes.
"That makes me so proud."
I think every fan who made a "FIRE FICKELL" thread over the last two years should be forced to hand-write him an apology letter. For one, thinking anybody but Urban Meyer had that authority, and two — this only applies to most, but not all FIRE FICKELL types — for spitting on a member of the Silver Bullets.
Luke Fickell, meanwhile, stayed the course, and now he's a champion. Makes u think. Makes u think real hard.
But since we're on the topic of the underappreciated:
Most impressive part of the #Buckeyes Championship run CONDITIONING! Bama=Fat Oregon=Weak Bucks=2fast & 2strong #CFBChampionship #Marotti
— Brent Williams NFL (@bdub969391) January 13, 2015
(A Hater's Reminder: Jim Harbaugh missed on his No. 1 Strength & Conditioning target for his Strength and Conditioning coach and instead hired a Lloyd Carr-era retread.)
THE FULL MEYER. You know what's crazy? Other than the typhoon that came through Columbus and rained out the Virginia Tech game at halftime, Penn State gave Ohio State the most nail-biting second half of the season.
Realizing that yesterday, it made me take a gander at 2015's schedule. Closing the season with a five-week playoff of Michigan State, at Michigan, Big Ten Championship, Semi-Final, Final, will be a gauntlent, but I think it's proven Meyer is a master at peaking his teams at the right time. Will there be anyone more talented than Ohio State by next November? I don't think so.
The same things can be said the 2016 schedule, idle speculation as it is.
But here's a post-championship bone on which you can chew: Ohio State could win all its 2015 and 2016 games, and that's not ludicrous to say.
After all, only sanctions from a bygone era and a missed block on a 4th-and-1 in the 2013 B1G title game kept Ohio State from playing for three national titles in three years.
Weak Big Ten or not, that's staggering.
From Matt Hinton of Grantland.com:
In honor of Ohio State’s offensive line, let’s not mince words: That was an ass-kicking. I’ve scoured the most arcane recesses of the thesaurus for the right adjective — assertive, brusque, domineering? — to extol the performance of the OSU front in Monday night’s 42-20 romp over Oregon, but after a dominant display of that magnitude, the direct approach feels right. The Buckeyes lined up, kicked ass, took names, and sauntered out of AT&T Stadium as the undisputed champions of college football. How else to describe it? The Ducks were feisty, but in the end they were driven inexorably into the sea. For everyone who witnessed the Buckeyes’ coronation, the enduring image of this Ohio State team will be of a herculean unit that imposed its will on the sport’s biggest stage to such an overwhelming extent that even four turnovers ultimately failed to mitigate the carnage.
[...]
In the strictest sense, the line that ground Oregon’s defense into a fine paste on Monday night is the same one that teetered on the brink of disaster early in the year: The starting five of Taylor Decker, Billy Price, Jacoby Boren, Pat Elflein, and Darryl Baldwin remained the same in all 15 games. But remove the names on the jerseys, and the front that emerged over the last third of the season would be unrecognizable from its former self. In November, the Buckeyes averaged 262 yards per game on the ground against the meat of the conference schedule. In the Big Ten championship game, they mauled Wisconsin for 301 yards on 7.9 per carry en route to an eye-opening, 59-0 thrashing. In the Sugar Bowl, they took the fight to Alabama’s indomitable front seven, pounding out 281 yards on 6.7 per carry against an outfit that, at kickoff, boasted the no. 1 run defense in the nation. The face of the surge, tailback Ezekiel Elliott, evolved seemingly overnight from a reliable plodder into a headline-hogging home run threat.
Against Oregon, Meyer said, Ohio State’s goal was to turn the game into “an inside drill … a game that’s a block-and-tackle game” that took advantage of his team’s increasingly mature muscle up front. And so it was: The Buckeyes ran 61 times for 296 yards, amassing a 15-minute edge in time of possession in the process. (In the second half, Oregon’s wildly prolific, warp-speed offense held the ball for all of six minutes and three seconds.) Elliott, who ran eight times for 32 yards in the loss to Virginia Tech, logged a career-high 36 carries against the Ducks, notching four touchdowns and a BCS-era-and-beyond record 246 yards, eclipsing 200 yards for the third consecutive game. Between Elliott — whom his coach described as “a monster” — and gargantuan quarterback Cardale Jones, Ohio State converted five of eight third-down attempts with 5 yards or fewer to go, and followed up two of the three failed attempts with successful conversions on fourth down.
My 2015 football resolutions are to never question Urban Meyer on any decision ever again, and to never fret about a September loss, no matter how bad.
WHAT A CAMPAIGN. *in my substitute teacher voice* We're watching a movie today, class. There will be a pop quiz over this tomorrow.
via @ZVessels55:
In all seriousness: I want to use this video against the offseason like garlic is used against vampires. How do we make this happen?
OHIO STATE WON ITS FOURTH MACARTHUR BOWL. What in the hell is the MacArthur Bowl, you ask?
The additional honor Ohio State just won, explained in a release:
On behalf of the National Football Foundation, our 12,000 members, our board of directors and Chairman Archie Manning, we are extremely proud to recognize Coach Urban Meyer and Ohio State University as MacArthur Bowl recipients for the school's fourth time,” said NFF President & CEO Steve Hatchell. “This trophy was started in 1959 by General Douglas MacArthur and legendary Hall of Fame coach Red Blaik, and etched on the side of this stadium replica in silver are all of the subsequent national champions. It is an honor to recognize the Buckeyes, who capped off a spectacular year by winning the inaugural College Football Playoff. As the keepers of the history and the legacy of the sport of football, we are exceptionally pleased to engrave this Ohio State team on its walls."
From 1998 until 2013, the winner of the BCS National Championship Game was automatically declared the winner of the MacArthur Bowl. Prior to 1998 during the poll era of college football, The NFF Awards and MacArthur Bowl committees selected the winner of the trophy. Three other organizations, the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), The Associated Press (AP) and the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA), also presented trophies during the BCS and poll years.[...]
With the win, Ohio State claims the MacArthur Bowl for the fourth time in the school’s history. The Buckeyes won the MacArthur Bowl in 1968 and 1970 under College Football Hall of Fame head coachWoody Hayes. They also claimed the trophy in 2002 under head coach Jim Tressel, who was announced as a member of the 2015 College Football Hall of Fame Class on Jan. 9. Coach Meyer was presented with the MacArthur Bowl twice as the head coach of the University of Florida in 2006 and 2008. Meyer now joins Alabama head coach Nick Saban as the only coaches in history to win a national championship at two different schools. A team in the current Big Ten has now claimed the trophy 13 times.
Guess I need to google some "UNDISPUTED MACARTHUR BOWL CHAMPIONS" swagger later today.
BRUTUS IS GOING TO DISNEY WORLD BUT BRADY TAYLOR WON'T BE THERE. Brutus Buckeye's buddy pass finally came through, y'all! And Puddles, the Oregon Duck, is walking home like the vagrant he/she is:
Brady Taylor, a true freshman slob to keep an eye on, went a different rout in celebrating his championship:
"Your team just won the National Title, where are you headed?" "Chipotle!!!" @ChipotleTweets pic.twitter.com/zN3PmQqo1U
— Brady Taylor (@beTaylor79) January 13, 2015
(It's 1:28 a.m., and I now have an insatiable hankering for Chipotle. I am my own worst enemy.)
THOSE WMDs. Dog takes public transport to park (by herself)...This doesn't look real... Can't stop laughing at this Mike Thomas Vine... Why people like to read interesting facts... Germany's Absurd World Cup Free Kick Worked in Practice... Typical Michigan Man nepotism, amirite?
