It's Wednesday, so here's a Cardale Jones highlight reel, because why not?
We also had a new, extremely good shirt just hit the shop. Better act quick.
MILLER TO OREGON FSU LSU BAMA. Folks, you might not believe this, but a controversial radio host said something wild on the ol' airwaves yesterday:
.@finebaum just said he talked to a source at Alabama who said there's "a chance" Braxton Miller comes to Alabama.
— Marc Torrence (@marctorrence) April 21, 2015
Sure, there's a chance I could be president some day. There's also a chance I could be struck by lightning today. Who knows? Life is but a series of chances.
Nick Saban (who drives a toy car, apparently!?) of course denied all knowledge, but he did leave the door open to a graduate transfer "that could help the team" somewhere down the road.
My take? It's a Lizard King doing the Lizard Dance, but Braxton will have my support no matter what he does. Because at the end of the day, Cardale Jones could not play a snap and be a first-rounder. Braxton Miller doesn't have that luxury. If he has a dream of playing quarterback in the NFL then a father has to do what a father has to do.
KIPER DROPS TAKES ON BUCKEYE DRAFTEES. What does Mel Kiper do for the other 10 months out of the year? You almost have to respect the hustle at this point, even if you're better off guessing than listening to him.
Defensive tackle Michael Bennett: “Bennett is just a smart, intelligent player, and he’ll have a role in the NFL, probably as a starter as a second- or third-round pick.”
Cornerback Doran Grant “is a solid player. He’s not going to wow anybody over, but I think he’s a mid-round pick, and he can get it done.”
Wide receiver Devin Smith “is probably a late-one, early-to-mid two. He’s a vertical stretch guy. I’d like to see more production than just the big catches, but hey, the big catches were numerous. [...] He is the best at tracking a deep ball as I’ve ever seen."
Kiper is also high on Heuerman.
All four of those players will have venerable careers, just as I'm sure none of them will be drafted by the Browns or the Bengals. (It's almost to the point where I detest both teams equally.)
DID YOU KNOW URBAN HAS A PSYCHOLOGY DEGREE? Nobody saw Ohio State coming (post-Braxton injury), but honestly, who else is better positioned in 2015 than Ohio State? The Buckeyes lost four future NFL draft picks, two starting seniors, and will be better in 2015. That's insane.
From Matt Brown of SportsOnEarth.com:
So by getting the media to talk about how Meyer said the team was terrible in the spring -- with many of the key veterans sitting out or limited -- the message is obvious. Despite what everyone is writing about Ohio State being the preseason No. 1 team and an enormous favorite to repeat, the 2015 version of Ohio State hasn't actually won anything yet. The 2014 team did, and while many of the components are the same -- many more than usual for a national title team, making the Buckeyes such a decisive favorite -- it is still a different team, and you never know how it will react when trying to defend that championship.
One obvious example is Florida State last year, as the Seminoles spent the entire offseason anointed as a likely runaway national champion. They did go undefeated through the regular season, but they never actually played like a championship-caliber team, and indeed it all came unglued in the Rose Bowl against Oregon. Winning a national title is hard, and successfully defending one is even harder. Even modern superpowers like 2001-02 Miami and 2004-05 USC came up just shy of back-to-back titles, as only Alabama (2011-12) has done it since Nebraska in 1994-95.
Another perk of winning the title is Ohio State will get the benefit of the doubt as long as they handle their business. They don't have to worry about style points... just go out there and play the dang pigskin game.
BUCKEYE NATION REALLY DID IT. It's been ~72 hours, and I'm still bemused at the fact OSU packed 100,000 into the Horseshoe for an intrasquad scrimmage.
It's awesome because it's another dagger in the "they just care about football more in the South!" trope, but also because it leads to laudatory national articles like this one from Adam Kramer of BleacherReport.com:
It's why 99,391 people willingly gave up their Saturday afternoon and watched a spring football game.
That warrants repeating. Nearly 100,000 people made the pilgrimage to Columbus to watch its football team, even without many of its superstars in action. The warm sun and high 70s didn't hurt this effort, although giving credit to local meteorologists and Mother Nature would be an injustice to their dedication.
Scalpers circled the stadium like sharks as an ancillary ticket market took shape—for a spring game. Ticket lines wrapped around buildings. Parking lots overflowed, and the traffic pattern looked more like that of a Michigan game than spring. Some said it was even worse.
HARBAUGH!!!!! Let's play a game: Is this a GIF of Jim Harbaugh waking up from a blackout to news he stabbed a man? Or is it Jim Harbaugh reacting to Jameis Winston's crab theft story, which he had never heard?
You might not believe it, but I tricked you. It's actually Harbaugh reacting to Jameis Winston's crab heist. (Winston admitted the Publix employee "gave [him] the hookup," which is a good way to get a working man fired. I can't wait to watch him throw 28 interceptions next year for a hapless Buccaneers team, but he deserves worse.)
I understand Harbaugh was an NFL coach, and they have their bubbles, but he must live in a sewer if he didn't hear about that story. I didn't think it was possible to have even a passing interest in football and not hear about it. To me, that's the most impressive thing he's ever done.
But I digress.
Last night ESPN's Draft Academy (an in-depth look at Bryce Petty and Jameis Winston's pre-Combine stop in Ann Arbor) featured this gem from Harbaugh's interrogation of Winston:
I give it three years before Urban Meyer makes Harbaugh cry. And when that happens, I may cry too because this dude is high, high comedy.
THOSE WMDs. That's silky, Bayern Munich... OSU Study: Pet owners risk getting diseases from their pets... This guy make the best swords in the world... What it was like to work for the junk bond king... So, you want to be cryogenically frozen.
