The Drought is Over
Caleb Downs scores Ohio State’s first punt return touchdown since 2014.
My #take, folks? Cold weather is only good if Alabama is coming to Columbus.
And we all know the Tide ain't about that life, so I ain't about this cold weather. Every year I ask, "Why don't I blog from a beach?" and every year it gets harder to answer.
Somebody found a Buckeye bar with solid wifi in Belize, please. I got $5 on it.
ELFLEIN'S UNFINISHED BUSINESS. Pat Elflein could be training for the NFL Draft right now. But the former three-star prospect weighed his options and returned to school. Next year he'll play center and reign as King Slob.
Sounds like Elflein isn't yet satisfied with his collegiate accomplishments.
From espn.com:
“I want to graduate, I wanted to be a captain, I want to be a first-team All-American and get a tree in Buckeye Grove and I want to lead this team,” Elflein said as he inched forward intently on a bench next to Ohio State’s indoor practice field. “We have a lot of talent and we can do a lot of things this year, we can just reload. I want to lead this team, play for Ohio State for another year, play center, get experience at center so I have some versatility for the next level and I want to win the Rimington [Trophy for the nation’s best center]. So, there’s a lot of goals here still to be done, and just with the inconsistent draft information, I didn’t want to leave all that here.
“It’s already starting. I was named captain the other day, so, there’s a check. Now just keep it going.”
If the Buckeyes are going to collectively keep rolling as a national contender, Elflein is now literally and figuratively going to figure prominently right in the middle of it all thanks to his decision to return.
People outside Columbus will doubt Ohio State's offense going into next year. Perhaps that's fair; we're talking about a unit returning three starters and maybe Corey Smith.
Elflein and J.T. Barrett aren't building blocks, though. They're building boulders. Sure, there could be growing pains (I'm not jazzed about that Week 4 trip to Norman—not that I'd be jazzed about any other trip to Oklahoma), but the Buckeye offense will undoubtedly roll by late in the season as long as Urban Meyer remains employed at Ohio State.
The offensive line's development will be the impetus to that, which is why Elflein coming back was the biggest recruiting #boom of the 2016 cycle.
IT WAS THE BEST OF DIVISIONS, IT WAS THE WORST OF DIVISIONS. The Big Ten East was lowkey the best division in football last fall. It'd be cooler if the Big Ten West wasn't less fertile Chernobyl.
It's going to get worse before it gets better too.
As Urban Meyer says: Recruiting is the lifeblood of the program. Jim Delany may need to arrange a gigaton Viagra shipment to the grifters out west.
From thecomeback.com:
Ohio State leads everyone in the conference with one five-star and 15 four-star players committed, but nipping on OSU’s heels are arch-rivals Michigan — with 14 four-star commits.
Michigan State is next with 10 four-star players and Penn State adds another nine before we even get to the top team in the Big Ten West division.
Those four East division teams are all inside the 247Sports Top 15 of the national team rankings as well. Ohio State has recently moved to the top of the recruiting rankings, while Michigan follows at No. 3 nationally.
The West division leaders are Nebraska and Wisconsin, both tied with the lowest Big Ten East team at three four-star commitments each.
Does Nebraska send flowers to Rutgers every month? It should, because the Scarlet Knights' blunders take heat off its all-around ineptitude since arriving in the Big Ten.
If this keeps up we might as well eliminate the Big Ten championship. What would be the point of it besides giving some creampuff a chance to dope fiend the conference's legitimate playoff hope?
MAN ENJOYED WELL-PAID JOB, WOULD LIKE IT BACK. EA Sports' NCAA Football franchise has been dead for years, but Kirk Herbstriet, who presumably made a lot of money as an in-game announcer, is still bitter about it.
From seccountry.com, here's Herbstreit on if the fabled video game will ever come back:
“They better,” he said. “I can’t believe Ed O’Bannon took that game away from us.”
This is like a jailed criminal blaming the person who called cops for his plight. Ed O'Bannon wasn't the one in the wrong; he also didn't single-handedly rip Herbstreit's copy out of his hands.
“Every single college football player,” he said. “You know what they’d love for their compensation to be? Just give ‘em a free game. That’s the compensation that they would take.
“I’ve never met one player in college football that’s like: ‘They can’t use my name and likeness! I need to be paid!’ They’re just thrilled to be on the game. They love being on the game. It’s like the biggest highlight of their life, is to be on the game.”
Kirk can only make these claims if he's interviewed every single college football player. Though he seems omnipresent on Saturdays, I have a hard time believing this to be the case.
Herbstreit professes to love the game, but I doubt his compensation ended with a free copy of the game. Why? Because he was allowed to bargain for it.
Danny Clark, though not yet a college football player, posited an interesting #take:
@KirkHerbstreit @Ljay90 I miss playing the game too. But why not use generic players, bios, numbers, etc? I'd rather not play then exploit.
— Just The Prototype (@DClarkQB) January 19, 2016
Why not indeed, Danny? Why not indeed?
ADOLPHUS GOES TO SCHOOL. Adolphus Washington made the mistake of bartering for sex with an undercover cop. He got arrested and suspended.
Now training for the NFL Draft, Washington was in Franklin County court on Tuesday to face the consequences.
From dispatch.com:
Ohio State defensive tackle Adolphus Washington pleaded guilty Tuesday to a misdemeanor charge of soliciting for prostitution.
If he completes a program known as "John school" before his sentencing date of Feb. 16 , the charge will be dismissed in Franklin County Municipal Court, his attorney said.
[...]
"John school," operated by the Columbus city attorney's office, requires men arrested for prostitution offenses to spend a day learning about how prostitutes are victimized by the trade and about the sexually transmitted diseases that can result from the activity.
Even I, the Marionaire, am struggling to imagine the cast of seedy characters that comprises the studentry of Franklin County's John School. Rubbing shoulders with guys like that will probably be a bigger deterrent for Washington than missing the Fiesta Bowl.
B1G SUSPENDS UM, OSU HOCKEY PLAYERS. The Michigan–Ohio State men's hockey game ended with a knuckleduster on Sunday. The Big Ten dropped the hammer on Tuesday afternoon.
Per a Big Ten release:
Immediately following the conclusion of the game, four players each were issued a major penalty and a game disqualification by the on-ice officials. Game disqualification penalties are accompanied by an automatic one-game suspension to be served in the team’s next game against an NCAA member institution. Michigan’s Dexter Dancs and Cutler Martin and Ohio State’s Brendon Kearney each received a major penalty for fighting and a game disqualification, while Ohio State’s Dakota Joshua received a major penalty for facemasking and a game disqualification. As a result of these penalties, Joshua and Kearney are ineligible to play in Ohio State’s Jan. 22 contest against Penn State, while Dancs and Martin are ineligible to play in Michigan’s Jan. 28 game at Penn State.
Following a review of the incident by the conference, the Big Ten imposed additional suspensions and issued public reprimands of Michigan’s Dancs and Martin for violating the Big Ten Sportsmanship Policy. Dancs has been suspended for one additional game and will be ineligible to play on Jan. 21 against the United States National Team Development Program Under-18 Team. Martin has been suspended for two additional games and will be ineligible to play on Jan. 21 against the United States National Team Development Program Under-18 Team and Jan. 30 against Penn State.
Good to know sucker-punching a freshman through a referee, as Michigan's Cutler Martin did, is only good for a suspension against a team construed of #teens and Penn State.
Guess this means I'm decking the next Michigan troll that shows their disfigured face in my mentions.
HALA PANTHERS. As my longtime readers know: I bleed Carolina Panther blue. (My dad bought me a Kerry Collins Panther jersey as a kid, which I wore every day through middle school.)
The Panthers are winning the Super Bowl 50 not only because they're fueled by the cuisine of Waffle House, but also because Andrew Norwell's power is over 9,000:
Andrew Norwell has yet to commit a penalty this season. He's played 903 snaps, including the playoffs. #StatOfTheDay pic.twitter.com/ZAtKq6RtKy
— Panthers 24/7 (@Panthers24_7) January 19, 2016
If you listen closely you can hear the ghosts of 9,000 Penn State fans screaming, "HOLDING!!!!!!"
R.I.P. AUSTIN SINGLETARY. The Franklin County coroner ruled Tuesday on the official cause of death of Austin Singletary, the Ohio State student who died during the 2015 Mirror Lake jump.
From dispatch.com:
The report, released recently by the Franklin County coroner's office, says that Austin Lee Singletary, 22, of Dayton, suffered severe injuries to his head and neck from diving into shallow water at the lake about 11 p.m. Nov. 24. He died soon after at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center.
The autopsy also notes that his blood-alcohol level was 0.18 percent, more than double the level considered to be too drunk to drive, and that he had used marijuana.
Knowing I danced in deeper realms to prepare my psyche for multiple Mirror Lake jumps makes this even more debilitating. In retrospect, it's shocking something like this didn't happen sooner.
People will undoubtedly act like asses next year when Ohio State follows through with its pledge to end Mirror Lake. My advice is to not be one of those people.
WHAT STONE AGE VERSION OF COLUMBUS IS THIS? Through a stroke of fortune, I found myself on the corner of Lane and High yesterday, and I marveled at how far it'd come since my days as a "student."
This picture made me feel the opposite:
Going through some old pics last night. Found this one of intersection of Lane and High in 2003. So many changes... pic.twitter.com/oKAGTdE5MY
— Univ Dist History (@UDHCMH) January 19, 2016
Time and change will surely show...
THOSE WMDs. NCAA investigating God for giving gifts to athletes... Tom Izzo's teams can't foul anymore, and it's a problem... Before he became a crying meme, Michael Jordan played basketball... Millions paid to find university talent... Video: Lost city revealed in Honduras.
