Today's' Skull Session will be served after I get done flogging myself for not thinking of the nickname "Teflon Wizard" for Ezekiel Elliott.
It. was. right. there. for. the. taking. *shakes fist at sky*
ICYMI: With February 4th's National Signing Day looming, Urban Meyer went and flipped a 2015 Kentucky commit/three-star Pickerington Central DT, Da'Von Hamilton, to the good guys last night.
Today is the first day of winter workouts for the football team. (If you're up early enough, you can probably hear Mickey Marotti bellowing "WHAT NATIONAL TITLE, YOU FAT SCRUBS!?" from anywhere inside the 270 outerbelt.)
PERSPECTIVE ON THE DREAM RUN. How crazy do you think Ohio State riding "a third-string quarterback" to the national title was? Would you believe it had never been done? (I did.)
From Jason Kirk of SBNation.com:
Playoff champion Ohio State suffered more starting QB games missed due to injury than every other national champion since 1985 combined, including legit co-champs.
Those numbers, according to NCAA stats and a records review:
- Ohio State lost 18: 15 by Braxton Miller, the Heisman contender who went down in August camp, and three by J.T. Barrett, the redshirt freshman lost in November. Third-string Cardale Jones stepped up and won three postseason games.
- The previous 31 champions lost 16: nine by 1994 Nebraska's Tommie Frazier, two by 2007 LSU's Matt Flynn, two by 1991 Washington's Mark Brunell, one by 1993 Florida State's Charlie Ward, one by 1990 Colorado's Darian Hagan, and one by 1989 Miami's Craig Erickson.
I've come to accept I may never see something as magical as Ohio State's championship in athletics for as long as I live. (The Browns winning the Super Bowl would top it, but so would a golden retriever dunking in an NBA game.)
Ohio State will win other titles under Urban Meyer, but unless Woody Hayes descends from the skies and cold-clocks Jim Harbaugh in Ann Arbor during The Game, then I just don't see how this run could be topped in terms of what a season's move rights would sell for.
(I suppose if anybody could do it though, it's the current crop at the WHAC.)
EDDIE GEORGE: STILL BALLIN'. Eddie George has to one of the top five most popular Buckeyes of all time, right?
From Joyce M. Rosenberg of Fort Wayne's JournalGazette.com, who looked at Eddie's post-football career:
NEW YORK – As Eddie George neared the end of his nine seasons in the NFL, the running back began pondering his next play.
“Something I’d worked on for most of my adult life was coming to an end, and it was really depressing, the unknown,” says George, a Heisman Trophy winner who played for the Houston Oilers, Tennessee Titans and Dallas Cowboys from 1996 to 2005.
George used his landscape architecture degree from Ohio State University to help found the Edge Group, a company that does landscaping and design projects in Toledo and Columbus, Ohio, and Nashville, Tennessee.
Eddie's landscape architecture degree is one of my favorite tidbits about him. (My other favorite Eddie factoid? He makes a dynamite Julius Caesar.)
PLAYOFF CRYPTKEEPERS BEING OBTUSE... AND I THINK I LIKE IT? Here's something I didn't realize: The first round of next season's playoff games occur on New Year's Eve.
Yes, it's ol' Bill Hancock at work once again. From John Ourand and Michael Smith of SportsBusinessDaily.com:
Next season’s semifinals at the Capital One Orange Bowl and the Goodyear Cotton Bowl are scheduled for Dec. 31 but ESPN is pushing the CFP to move those games to Jan. 2, 2016, a Saturday with relatively little competition on TV. The NFL’s regular season concludes that Sunday, Jan. 3, and the league hasn’t had a Saturday game during the final week of its regular season since 2007.
Is there a worse "prestigious" bowl than the Orange Bowl? (Maybe the Fiesta Bowl when Ohio State isn't on the field?)
The CFP, however, is under pressure to change on two fronts:
On one of those fronts, top ESPN executives are lobbying CFP officials to move next season’s semifinals off of New Year’s Eve where it would compete with highly rated star-filled countdown shows on several networks.
[...]
Meanwhile, the CFP is facing pressure on another front. The NFL is considering expanding its playoffs and moving one of the new games to Monday night when it would compete directly with the CFP championship.
Sources say NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell initiated a series of high-level meetings with some of the CFP’s most influential commissioners, including the SEC’s Mike Slive and the Big Ten’s Jim Delany. Goodell approached the commissioners to discuss the potential impact an NFL playoff expansion would have on the CFP championship game.
Well, that's just perfect. On one hand, I somewhat admire Bill "Playoffs Would Incinerate the Thread of Society" Hancock for being a thorn in the side of the corrupt NFL and the sport's filthy rich puppet-master, (For those interested, FoxSports.com's Stewart Mandel laid out, in detail, Hancock's (and the schools/bowls/commissioners objections.)
On the other hand, I laugh at the word "tradition" being used in defense of an institution that has been around for a year.
I'll be shocked if ESPN and the NFL, two corporations with the temperament of a petulant child, don't end up getting what they want. Money is the only thing that talks on those levels.
MEYER COLLECTS COACHING HARDWARE. I think this is where I'm required by Ohio law to make a joke about Jerry Kill's 2014 Big Ten Coach of the Year Trophy, but I will never slander the yeomen's efforts of Jerry Kill.
Per a release from Ohio State:
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer today was named the Rawlings 2014 Football Bowl Subdivision Coach of the Year. The honor is awarded in association with American Football Monthly. This is the third coach of the year award this season for Meyer, who was named The Dispatch Ohio College Coach of the Year yesterday and the Phil Steele Coach of the Year last week.
Well, I guess now my thinking of Urban Meyer as the top coach in the sport is validated. Thank you to Rawlings, The Dispatch, and oracle Phil Steele. It was a bold choice, but in the end I think history will validate all of them (and me).
MARK PANTONI FLAMES TWO OSU PILLARS. If you follow OSU coaches/players/commits on Twitter, you're well aware of the clowning (of everyone) that transpires from time to time in those circles.
Ohio State's Director of Player Personnel, Mark Pantoni, isn't one of the bigger yakkers on the team, but when Pantoni goes in, somebody is going to need a paramedic:
Started from the bottom, now they here pic.twitter.com/rhabJbuDe0
— Mark Pantoni (@markpantoni) January 26, 2015
The photo of the young Teflon Wizard is terrifying because my middle school classmates only had pagers — you're damn right I just typed pagers — and that's the circa in which I'd peg Zeke's glorious mirror-selfie.
Honestly, I'd be more comfortable around #tweens armed with assault rifles than I am anytime I see their odious ilk banging away on an iPhone while ignoring their droning #dad at Olive Garden. (You're like, 12, why do you need a cellphone? And, more importantly, why do I feel like I'm 80 and my skin is melting?)
As for Bosa's pic, it's always good to see I wasn't the only 90's kid with a shitty haircut and dumb shorts. I did not, however, look like a middle aged man as a kid. So I guess Bosa's greatness was in the stars (or the genes).
Lesson learned: Mark Pantoni will bust those dang chops, buddy.
THOSE WMDs. David Simon Does Not Care What You Think Is Cool About His TV Shows... LET J.R. SWISH COOK... Bobby Bowden, like any good archaic grandfather, turns to ranting on Facebook... Women warriors in ancient warfare... Jim Tressel's 2002 defensive playbook.
