Skull Session: The Value of Mickey Marotti, Ohio State Will Look at Liquor and Beer Sales, and the Big Ten Resurrection

It's Thursday, friends. Put in a quick prayer for your boy at the company Christmas party tonight. It's a thin line between drinking on the company tab and the unemployment line.

ICYMI: 

• Kelsey Mitchell can still ball.
• If Luke Fickell takes the Cincinnati job (smoke is densifying), he could make Kerry Coombs the next Bearcat DC.

 MAROTTI LOVE. Folks who read Eleven Warriors love to know Ohio State's strength sensei, Mickey Marotti.

Urban Meyer made Marotti a priority hire at Florida and Ohio State. And as Buckeye fans, we've seen both sides of his product. I preferred Ohio State making Alabama look fat and slow over Florida making Jim Tressel's most talented team look like a mid table MAC team.

Meyer was on the cutting edge with prioritizing the hire (I couldn't tell you the name of Jim Tressel's strength guy). Other programs are catching up, though.

From usatoday.com:

Afterward, Meyer approached Marotti and introduced himself, kicking off a correspondence — handwritten notes before the time of emails — that resulted in Meyer recommending Marotti to then-Notre Dame coach Bob Davie in 1998. The two would reconnect at Florida in 2005 and again with the Buckeyes in 2011.

“Knowing Urban how I know Urban, knowing Mickey, that’s a match made like no other,” Davie said.

[...]

[Iowa's Chris] Doyle, Marotti and [Alabama's Scott] Cochran each are paid more than 17 public school head coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Five strength coaches — Doyle, Marotti, Cochran, UCLA’s Sal Alosi and South Carolina’s Jeff Dillman — are making at least $400,000 annually. Six — the aforementioned quintet plus Oklahoma State's Rob Glass — make more than two FBS head coaches: Louisiana Monroe’s Matt Viator and New Mexico State’s Doug Martin.

I only included those first two paragraphs because I'm amused by the idea of Meyer and Marotti passing handwritten notes like middle schoolers trying to arrange after-school hangouts behind the back of a math teacher who checked out two decades ago.

With Luke Fickell, Kerry Coombs, Ed Warinner, and Greg Schiano all having their names in the mix for various jobs, I'm not tripping unless Purdue reaches into its sack of gold and offers Marotti $1 million a year.

 LET THE LOKO FLOW. Ohio State peddled over $1 million of beer in the Horseshoe over the year. Texas did $1.1 million in two games.

One reason is the Horns lost seven games this year. Another is they offer liquor and wine.

Ohio State isn't promising liquor and wine sales, but fights and fan misbehavior went down this year.

From Tom Knox of bizjournals.com:

On if selling beer has led to more fights and fan misbehavior, which was a concern.

“The one positive I can tell you is, the number of incidents is less than what we had a year ago.”

[...]

On expanding the alcohol offerings to liquor and wine, which is what the University of Texas at Austin and its much more robust revenue offers:

“I think we’re good with the selection we have now. ... We’ll look more at it after the football season is over," [said Martin Jarmond, Ohio State's deputy director of athletics.]

This was the stance they took with alcohol. "We're cool with not hawking booze but we're watching others pilgrim the game."

It may not happen next year or the year after, but OSU won't ignore that revenue stream forever.

 THE B1G IS BACK. As a wise old Millennial, I remember when the haters said the Big Ten sucked.

The haters were right. It was atrocious. Even the year Ohio State and Michigan played as No. 1 and No. 2—it was more like No. 5 and No. 12.

But it switched.

And it started in 2011 when Ohio State signed Meyer.

From si.com:

"It got going, all right. Meyer says, "You didn't see the athletes on defenses when I got here that you see now." What he won't say, at least publicly, is that this year's 11–1 Buckeyes would crush his undefeated 2012 team.

"It's not even close," says Rutgers coach Chris Ash, a former Ohio State and Wisconsin assistant. "That was a completely different team than what he has right now. He just has more weapons."

When Meyer arrived at Ohio State at the end of the 2011 season, the work of improving the conference had already begun. Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith says it was a continuous topic of discussion among Big Ten ADs. They moved toward a nine-game league schedule, eliminating one September nonconference cupcake. And, Smith says, "we talked more about making sure we all had the investments necessary in recruiting."

What's hilarious is the Big Ten is considered the best conference but its champion, Penn State (I still don't believe it), didn't make the playoffs.

We also live in a Big Ten where Purdue is shelling out $3.3 million a year for a coach who played in the XFL with a concussion.

Let's just hope the B1G balls out in bowl season otherwise, it will instantly switch back. The B1G will not only suck, it will be worse; it will be "overrated."

 THE FOLKS WANT WINS BUTCHIE. My favorite thing about Tennessee crashing from preseason Top 10 to losing to Vanderbilt is everyone in the country saw the derail coming except Tennessee fans.

Let's check in with Rocky Top.

From 247sports.com:

“You talk about the time and place to say something like that - and that is not what our fans wanted to hear,” one Tennessee administrative source told 247Sports, referring to the “champions of life” comment. “That will never go away. That soundbite will never go away.”

Jones evidently failed to adequately prepare his team that week, as well. Those same angry fans reached a fury a few days later as they watched Vanderbilt dominate Tennessee late, outscoring the Volunteers 21-3 in the second half, for a 45-34 victory.

“I don’t know why,” one Vols staffer told 247Sports, “but it meant more to them. It’s like they didn’t understand what was out there.”

Schools and fans pretend to care about character and education, but what we really want is wins. Butch Jones could assembly line National Merit Scholars who volunteer at Meals on Wheels 30 hours a week, but if they can't whip Vanderbilt they'll be run out of town.

Wild but true.

 TRUE SCHOLAR-ATHLETES. Here are a bunch of scholar-athletes who won't be run out of town (at least this semester):

Congrats to everyone involved. People that young and that disciplined with their time mystify me, the idiot sports blogger.

 THOSE WMDs. The linebacker, the dead body, and a pizza delivery from Hell.. A brief history of people elected dog catcher... I got rich beating men at their own game... The soccer-star refugees of Eritrea... Westworld saved HBO... An escape from a London cult.