Summer: The best season as a kid. No. 3 as an adult. (Sorry, winter, only psychopaths like you best.)
GET DUMPED THEN, [TBD]. If you folks look out the bus to your left, you'll see the bloated cow carcass that is the landmark mile marker for the point in the offseason suicide ride that is "weighing fictional future opponents."
In a utopia, Ohio State would play nothing but bangers throughout the season and let the chips of chaos fall where they may.
Alas.
But give the university we all love to know credit, it doesn't shy away from Power 5 power matchups and generally eschews the neutral site game. As a Buckeye fan, shots on Ohio State's schedule ring hollow. OSU's schedule policy is fine; the only critiques can be found in other Big Ten teams, but the conference — at least the East, anyway —is on the ascendancy.
From landgrantholyland.com:
North Carolina: [...] UNC historically hasn’t been an elite program and might be just non-intimidating enough to pair with Oregon. The Buckeyes and Tar Heels were also previously scheduled to play each other, a series that died with the Big Ten expanded to nine games, and UNC needed to move some things around. If UNC wanted to come to Columbus in 2020, OSU could return the trip after 2025. It’s a long shot, sure, but it’d be the most fun. Ohio State is 3-1 against UNC all time, with their most recent meeting occurring in 1975.
Virginia: Ohio State has shown it’s willing to play multiple P5 programs in one year, as they scheduled Oregon State and TCU in 2018. UVA has no early season games scheduled for 2020, although they do have a November road trip slated for ODU. The Cavaliers typically don’t play two road games a season, so this would also be a longer shot of happening. But the P5 possibilities for 2020 are a bit slim. Ohio State is 1-0 against UVA, clobbering the Cavs 75-0 way back in 1933.
Houston: Tom Herman almost certainly won’t be coaching the Cougars in 2020. Heck, maybe he’s coaching Ohio State by that point. But given the school’s financial commitment to the sport, their new infrastructure, and their run of success over the last few years, it seems like a reasonable bet that the Cougars will field a decent team, no matter who is coaching. Houston has an open date on Sept. 19, to pair with a home game against Rice, and a road trip to Kansas. Ohio State is 1-0 against Houston all time, beating the Cougars 52-0 in 1994.
On the list, give me Houston, even though the Cougars might not be led by the founder of MENSA, Tom Herman, by 2020. Even if Herman is gone, I feel a Herman-Meyer matchup is inevitable and could happen in the playoffs, even with Texas Tom still in Houston. It could wind up as the sport's biggest coaching rivalry after the Devil redeems his poker chip on Nick Saban's soul in a couple years.
Virginia and North Carolina both rate as "baby bangers" to me. Virginia wouldn't be bad, but its fans would wilt in a feral environment like Columbus on a game day. I'd rather play North Carolina in a home-and-home. The Tarheel State, like every state outside of Ohio, has its flaws, but it's an overall good time.
The team that leads my Dumpability Index, however, is Southern California. The 2008 game — fine, the Trojans win that game 99 out of 100 times. I'm still salty about that 2009 collapse, though.
ARMANI REEVES HITS A FORK IN THE ROAD. Ohio State ruled Armani Reeves physically unable to play football back in February after he suffered multiple concussions throughout his playing career.
But as we saw with the Jamel Dean situation, Ohio State's medical team is not the final word in the realm. Reeves competed on American Ninja Warrior earlier this month and last month he tweeted (then deleted) confirmation of mutual interest with Boston College.
Yet no return to the east coast is on the docket as Reeves potentially weighs starting his coaching career at Ohio State.
From scout.com:
I hope Armani skips the risk of future head trauma and enters coaching. Cutting your teeth in the coaching profession is no easy task (those who can't live a Spartan lifestyle need not apply), but like Cam Williams entering an NFL front office, he can do it a lot longer than playing.
GO ON THEN, BRAVE SIR. Back in a simpler time, when all I had to do on game day was pick out an Ohio State shirt and a pint of liquor to drink in a parking lot, I enjoyed night games. What is better than grilling and hanging out with friends on a pavement prairie before the local team humbles foreign invaders?
That was before I sold my soul to the media Illuminati. Now, I see the light, which is ironic because night games are bad. Thankfully, one venerable columnist in Wisconsin penned an opus that should end the debate.
From The Oshkosh Northwestern:
I was annoyed and incredulous when I read in The Northwestern that “Wisconsin football fans, clamoring for more night games, will be giddy in 2016,” because ESPN announced that the Ohio State and Nebraska home games will be at night. This ruffled my feathers. I do not believe that fans want more UW–Madison football games at night.
[...]
In the last couple of years, we have had to go to "night games"; what a disappointment. A Badgers game is not supposed to begin after dark. Watching, listening and singing with the band as it plays "Varsity", is best on a beautiful fall afternoon, not at night. And in the evening, after the game, [my wife and I] like to hit one of our favorite restaurants. When the game ends at 11 p.m. that is not possible. It ruins our tradition.
I realize the reason for the night games is to make more money, which benefits the business community, UW-Madison’s athletic programs, coaches and even some players, but not the fans. I’m not against someone making more money and me suffering for it; I just don’t want to be told it’s for my benefit, that I will be "wet my pants" giddy. I hate to be treated like the village idiot. It really annoys me. This is similar to the airline industry telling us how much they are investing in new aircraft to improve their service to passengers, but their new aircraft have smaller seats and less legroom, which means more seats to make more money, not at all for my benefit.
Before you ask, yes it's required by oath sportswriters complain about traveling to get paid to watch an athletic contest. I'm going to Montreal next week (pending customs clearance, obviously), and I got a call from the union boss yesterday saying I better raise hell if my flight is delayed by 30 minutes. (I HATE WHEN MY FLIGHT IS DELAYED 30 MINUTES!!!!) My hope is to get Delta's social media intern fired while I sip overpriced liquor ~100,000 feet in the air.
P.S. I am now a subscriber to the Oshkosh Northwestern, and I suggest it to all my loyal readers as well.
R.I.P. FIKAYO IDOWU. Rising Ohio State junior defender Fikayo Idowu drowned this past weekend at Apple Valley Lake.
Here are the funeral arrangements for anyone looking to pay final respects to Idowu, from ohiostate.edu:
Viewing
Date: Friday, July 1, 2016
Time: 5-9pm
Venue: Schoedinger Funeral Home Worthington Chapel
614-848-669
6699 North High Street
Worthington, OH 43085Funeral Service
Date: Saturday, July 2, 2016
Time: 9:30 AM
Venue: The Ohio Union Hall
The Ohio State University
1739 North High Street,
Columbus, OH 43210Burial
Kingwood Memorial Park
8230 Columbus Pike
Powell, OH (or Lewis Center, OH) 43035
Expect Buckeye Kingdom to turn out in force:
We love you #14 pic.twitter.com/W9NT2QC24t
— TheOSUMensSoccer (@OhioState_MSOC) June 26, 2016
COLUMBUS HITS SHORTCUT INTO 22ND CENTURY. Columbus hit a lick last week when the federal government announced $40 million in transportation funds as part of its national "Smart Cities" initiative.
Details were sparse at the time, but it appears the Discovery City could be in line for a Google-funded parking app that would streamline parking efforts in urban areas of the city.
From theverge.com:
When it was spun out from Google last year, Sidewalk Labs promised to improve urban living by creating "smart cities." Now, in documents obtained by The Guardian, we've got an idea of exactly how the Alphabet company envisions these cities will work. In proposals offered to Columbus, Ohio — the winner of the $40 million Smart City challenge award organized by the US Department of Transport — Sidewalk Labs says it will use camera-equipped cars to keep track of empty private parking spaces and offer them for short-term rental, and combine various methods of transport under one app, integrating car-sharing services, bus routes, and even bike lanes to create a new kind of public transport.
The company is reportedly offering Columbus a three-year trial of its capabilities, bringing 100 Wi-Fi kiosks as well as systems it says are "new superpowers to extend access and mobility." The project is built around Sidewalk Labs' Flow software, introduced earlier this year as a tool designed to manage congestion and parking problems, with an eye to the eventual introduction of self-driving cars. Using Flow and data from Google Maps' camera cars, Sidewalk Labs could tally all the parking spaces in a city, then using data from drivers and parking meters to estimate whether they would be free in real-time.
You ain't lived in Columbus until you ruined a date night because you lack the emotional intelligence required to stay cool while driving around the entire Short North in search of a fabled parking spot. Google owns a blackmail file on me that could ruin me, and I would gladly add to it if it meant easier parking at peak times.
THOSE WMDs. #Teen-designed app overturns 160,000 parking tickets in New York and London... The humiliating process of sex-testing women female athletes... BlackBerry diehards aren't going down without a fight... The legends of Yosemite's Dope Lake... Facebook promises location data is "only one of the factors" in friend suggestions.
