Folks, there's an Ohio State basketball game on TV tonight. People get mad when I express CBB opinions, so let me just say I've read it might be a long year.
Anyway, here are the vitals:
| TIME (ET) | OPPONENT | LOCATION | TELEVISION |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7:00 | PROVIDENCE | COLUMBUS, OH | BTN |
Oh, and No. 5 Louisville plays at Houston tonight, for some reason, at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN. Cougar QB Greg Ward Jr. dinged his shoulder against Tulsa but is "ready to go" against the Cardinals.
A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. Curtis Samuel has played so well this season he should've started over Braxton Miller last season. That take may be too hot for some, but I didn't cobble together this throne of empty pizza boxes with mediocre takes.
Samuel's season has been such a renaissance, children in Brooklyn now dream about growing up to play the "Curtis Samuel position" at Ohio State.
From cbssports.com:
New York is well-known for producing stars in basketball, not football. But Nicole Samuel, Curtis' mother, can't go a day at her job with the city housing authority without someone saying they watched her son play. Roy Armstead, Curtis' stepfather, had a New York youth coach tell him many kids want to shift from running back to H-back and be the next Curtis Samuel.
"I always felt like he was 'the one' and kids from Brooklyn need their own Jackie Robinson, so to speak, to look up and see anything is possible," said Danny Landberg, who coached Samuel at Erasmus Hall High School and met him when he was 7.
My work on Eleven Warriors inspired a similar awakening in Marion. Only now City of Kings youths cuss their parents and refuse to work while lounging around the house in sweatpants.
That profile is a #goodread by the way, with an explanation about Samuel's previous lack of touches buried in it:
"There's a lot of wear and tear on him, even seeing how they use him at practice," Landberg said. "It's funny people talk about touches. I only gave him the ball seven times a game, but he was averaging a score every seven times. I kind of protected him a little bit. He always had this stuff [minor injuries] even as a little kid, but he always bounces back. Sometimes, people don't realize not touching the ball is almost as much a threat. When he's 197 pounds and you're used to Ezekiel Elliott at 225 and (former Ohio State running back) Carlos Hyde at 230, you have to remember the season is a marathon."
Those lack of touches earlier in the season means less mileage on Samuel's body come money time. Seems like an easy trade, in retrospect.
THE PRINCE THAT WAS PROMISED. It's all bad when the local team loses. Everybody sucks and they will never win again.
A lot of fans wanted Isaiah Prince demoted after the debacle in Penn State. It was a tough take, but even Prince would probably admit PSU's defensive line roasted him during a night he never looked comfortable.
That's sports. It's like the old Marshawn Lynch parable I tattooed across my chest:
Meyer challenged the offensive line (and everyone else) after the loss. Prince responded like players forged in Meyer's program do:
Ohio State RT Isaiah Prince has allowed just 1 QB pressure in 107 pass pro snaps in his last three games (the 3 games since Penn State)
— CFB Film Room (@CFBFilmRoom) November 16, 2016
Bad, bad news for Ohio State's enemies. Prince isn't the only tackle shoving weight, either:
Ohio State LT Jamarco Jones has allowed just 4 QB pressures over last 5 games (97.9% pass block rate)
— CFB Film Room (@CFBFilmRoom) November 16, 2016
Now, if only that vaunted deep threat would evolve...
NOBODY FORGETS THAT. Prepare your bodies, folks. This week's broadcast will feature plenty of footage from Michigan State's improbable 2015 upset as ESPN tries to gain interest in this game outside of MSU and OSU fandoms.
A year later, it still makes me shake my melon-shaped head.
From disptach.com:
First off, credit the Spartans. They held Elliott to an average of 2.8 yards per carry in that 2015 shocker. Perhaps a lack of early success is why the OSU coaches shied away from feeding the Zeke beast.
Or perhaps Elliott wasn’t at full speed. He spent three days prior to the game hospitalized because of an infection from a scratch on his leg, which had caused him so much pain he couldn’t walk on that Monday.
Still, Elliott started the game, was available throughout, and afterward declared himself fit. And Michigan State's defense was ferocious. The Spartans held OSU to 132 total yards of offense, the lowest in Meyer’s coaching career.
My take is the hospitalization of Elliott had more to do with the lack of touches than we knew at the time. That's what I tell myself, anyway, as Zeke runs roughshod over the NFL as a rookie.
TO BE YOUNG AND DUMB. We now know why Maryland suspended three freshmen minutes before it kicked off against No. 2 Ohio State.
As you might expect, it involved stupidity.
From washingtonpost.com:
Maryland running back Lorenzo Harrison and wide receiver DJ Turner have each been charged with three counts of second-degree assault and three counts of reckless endangerment for their roles in a BB gun shooting incident on campus earlier this month, according to University of Maryland police.
Harrison and Turner, freshmen who were high school teammates at DeMatha and have played crucial roles for the Terrapins, remain suspended indefinitely by the football team. Both have also been charged one count of school molestation, which is levied when a student or individual has been threatened with bodily harm on university property. In conjunction with the charges in Prince George’s County, Harrison and Turner’s case will be reviewed by the university Office of Student Conduct.
Freshman linebacker Antoine Brooks, who was suspended indefinitely along with Harrison and Turner before kickoff of last week’s loss to Ohio State, has not been charged and has been reinstated to the team. Brooks will travel with the team to Nebraska for its game this weekend.
Ah, youth, back when "shooting a stranger with a BB gun" can be rationalized as a "very good idea."
Glad I escaped that period of my life without a felony conviction.
MY NEW FAVORITE GENRE OF PICTURE. Yesterday, Kevin captured Brutus Buckeye enjoying a leisurely walk past the iconic 12th Avenue UDF on High Street.
For some reason, the idea of Brutus living an everyday life around Columbus during the weekends amused me, like the mild-mannered I.T. guy who, unbeknownst to your office, is a drug kingpin.
Anyway, this is my new favorite genre of picture:
@Kevinish this is one of my favorite photos that I took at OSU. Just Brutus casually heading to work pic.twitter.com/oTJ9THKKLw
— Alexa Malone (@Alexa_Malone) November 16, 2016
Looks like Brutus partied too much and lost some scholarship aid and had to get a real job. Typical Millennial buffoonery!
THOSE WMDs. Ex-Purdue QBs meet after battle in West Lafayette... The taboo world of teen pregnancy on The Sims... Māori women talk about their sacred chin tattoos... The legacy... What's the matter with college basketball?
