Apologies to the men's basketball team. I led the Saturday Skull Session with a prayer request for the Basketbucks when I should've led with a prayer request for Kentucky.
I could brush it off as "reverse jinx mojo," but that'd be wrong. I sat down with no faith on Saturday, and the Buckeyes dragged my face in my wrongness like a puppy that soiled their rug.
Perhaps this is why mediocre bloggers don't decide sports outcomes.
FIESTA BOWL DEATH MARCH CONTINUES. Holiday joviality feels like concrete on my soul so the 13 sunrises between us and the Fiesta Bowl feels like 13 weeks.
Speculation, however, remains legal.
From btn.com:
Best individual matchup: There will be a lot of good ones. But let’s go with Ohio State OT Taylor Decker vs. Notre Dame LB Jaylon Smith. Decker was the lone unanimous All-American for the Buckeyes. Smith won the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker. These are two future pros who should matchup on occasion. Decker is a mauler who has size and underrated athletic ability. Smith is a freak whose combination of athletic ability and strength is unmatched. The guy is special.
Best unit matchup: Ohio State secondary vs. Notre Dame wideouts. The Irish can stretch defenses with Will Fuller, one of the best targets in the nation. He has a nice chemistry with Irish QB DeShone Kizer, who has done well filling in for injured Malik Zaire. This is a good Ohio State defense. Corners Gareon Conley and Eli Apple will be tested. No doubt, coverage will be helped by a good pass rush. That is where end Joey Bosa comes into play. He will need a big game in what may be his last effort in a Buckeye uni. OSU will be without star tackle Adolphus Washington, who has been suspended following an off-field incident. ND needs to hit some passes down field to open room for the ground and keep the Buckeye defense off balance.
Ohio State blooded then-sophomore tackle Taylor Decker against Khalil Mack and Buffalo in 2013. Mack mauled the entire offensive line, and people questioned Decker's recruiting pedigree. After all, a random MAC linebacker turnstiled him so what chance did he have in the Big Ten?
If Decker wins the lion's share of his reps against Smith he'll solidify himself as a Top-15 pick.
I'll be watching Ohio State's ability to stop the run. I respect DeShone Kizer, but the Irish won't contain the Silver Bullet pass rush if Notre Dame becomes too dimensional.
Ohio State, unlike the Irish, can get one-dimensional and win because the Buckeyes proved they can bludgeon opponents with that dimension:
Never felt more prepared in my life 01012016
— EzekielElliott#15 (@EzekielElliott) December 20, 2015
A season that ends with a last-second loss to a playoff team and a cudgeling of Michigan and Notre Dame is a successful season. To demand a championship every year cheapens how hard they are to win.
A Notre Dame rout, at this point, is the only thing that can change how this team is remembered.
Despite what the squawking class would tell you, a hard-fought loss would only be a small disappointment from an era of dominance. All good things come to an end, but thankfully Urban Meyer attacks recruiting with a gusto of a doomsday prepper on Armageddon.
Ohio State will fine regardless of the outcome.
THE GREATEST TRICK KIZER EVER PULLED. Stop me if you've heard this before: An Ohio kid (Notre Dame's DeShone Kizer) is getting a crack the home state team that did not offer him.
The yarn is old trope for Ohio State fans, but the Buckeyes did not shun Kizer.
Tom Herman, MENSA member and then-Ohio State offensive coordinator, stopped in Toledo in 2013 to look under the hood of the 2014 four-star prospect. The workout didn't go as planned for the young prospect.
From bcsn.tv:
It was 7 a.m. on May 22, 2013, and almost three years before the schools will reconvene on New Year’s Day in the Fiesta Bowl, they had sent their top assistants to Toledo to watch a precocious high school junior go through a half-hour throwing session.
One of the top quarterback prospects in the nation, Kizer already held scholarship offers from Alabama, Louisiana State, and Penn State among a line of suitors. But Notre Dame and Ohio State still needed convincing, and he desperately wanted to impress. Too desperately.
With Notre Dame offensive coordinator Chuck Martin and then-Buckeyes coordinator Tom Herman in attendance, the cool that the Central star displayed on Friday nights vanished in the first light of day. He threw one duck after another.
Kizer, whose relationship with OSU went back to Jim Tressel, thought he lost a chance to place play at both schools.
Meyer said last week Ohio State "was real close" to offering Kizer after he readied the ship his senior season, but the Buckeyes—after failing to secure other top targets—settled with three-star Stephen Collier out of Georgia.
The Irish stayed faithful to Kizer and eventually brought him to Notre Dame. His path to the starting job wasn't as crowded as Collier's, but the QB rewarded that faith after stater (and fellow Ohioan) Malik Zaire broke his leg earlier this season.
In 10 starts, the 6-foot-4, 230-pound redshirt freshman completed 63.4 percent of his passes for 2,600 yards and 19 touchdowns, and he rushed for 499 yards and nine scores. Kizer is one more foray into the end zone away from breaking the Notre Dame single-season record for rushing TDs by a quarterback. Tony Rice and Rick Mirer also had nine in 1988 and 1991, respectively.
The problem with sitting on a recruiting hot bed: Other programs smuggle gems.
MORE IRISH PRETENTIOUSNESS. Of course Notre Dame, a school that peaked in 1924, buys into the insipid motivational celebrity Instagram quote of football motivational tactics.
From chicagotribune.com:
Notre Dame will be a band of no-names when it faces Ohio State on New Year's Day in the Fiesta Bowl.
And that's just how the Irish prefer it.
In fact, that's what the seniors requested when they approached coach Brian Kelly about bucking recent bowl tradition against the Buckeyes .
"Every year we put the names on the back of our jerseys for the bowl game," Kelly said. "But the seniors came to me and said they don't want (it). It's about team 127."
"They play for the name on the front, not the back!" Some curdled Notre Dame fan no doubt hooted upon reading about UnderArmour's latest billboard.
Notre Dame's seniors are welcome to weigh every sartorial choice ahead of their matchup with the Buckeyes. Do the socks agree? I ask as a man that exclusively buys clothes at gas stations.
TOM RYAN PHILOSOPHICAL BUT NOT SATISFIED. Tom Ryan (and Logan Stieber) led Ohio State to its first national championship in program history last season. But Ryan, who eats salads for breakfast, didn't get to the top by being satisfied with a single trek.
From dispatch.com:
“Joy is eternal. Happiness isn’t,” Ryan said. “Happiness comes and goes with events in our life. Joy is about other things. Joy is about transcending winning national tournaments.”
And so Ryan, 46, explained why OSU’s first NCAA team title last March made him as “freaking happy as a human being can be in that moment,” but didn’t bring the fulfillment of eternal joy.
“The best is yet to come for Ohio State wrestling, I really believe that,” he said.
Great advice, but I'm rattled by salad for breakfast and my life once spiraled to the point I ate a Taco Bell breakfast before 9:00 a.m. on a weekday.
The Wrestlebucks are off until January 3rd at Illinois.
J-E-T-S! JETS! JETS! JETS!. Dallas Cowboy losses are my second-favorite NFL team. Nick Mangold captured my reaction Saturday night when Twitter informed me the New York Jets beat Dallas at home:
Epic photobomb on Jets QB Ryan Fitzpatrick tonight. I like this guy. Bleeder and all. pic.twitter.com/w5MnmBKEIX
— Lionel Bienvenu (@lionelbienvenu) December 20, 2015
He's just a kid out there having fun, folks.
THOSE WMDs. What was fake on the internet this week: Why this is my last column... Blogger claims Brooklyn chocolate company built on lies... Watch for malware in Bible apps, of all places.
