It's like Urban Meyer always asks... "What's the best thing about Thursday?"
It's almost Friday.
As always, avoid all Applebees Happy Hours. It's a cursed day.
ICYMI:
- Jamarco Jones will return for his senior season.
- Marshon Lattimore declared for the draft.
- Way-too-early Big Ten rankings.
- Urban Meyer on next year: "We're going to be better."
HAPPY TRAILS, ED. Due to the offensive fall off the past two years, Ed Warinner won't get the send-off he deserves.
From dispatch.com:
When the 2015 offense didn’t click as well as expected for most of the season, Warinner was the target of some of the criticism. That abated when he was moved up to the press box to call plays following the upset to Michigan State and the Buckeyes’ offense rolled against Michigan and then Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.
But the offense, particularly the passing game, was inconsistent in 2016. After Clemson shut out Ohio State 31-0 in the College Football Playoff semifinals, Meyer said he would consider changes. He wasn’t bluffing.
Warinner is off to Minnesota, and judging by the comments on our piece, some fans want to pack his bags.
But consider the benchmarks:
- 5-0 against Michigan
- Four NFL starters on the 2013 offensive line
- Five Big Ten rushing titles
- Ran 85 yards side-by-side with Ezekiel Elliott on his iconic evisceration of Alabama.
All that success isn't owed entirely to Warinner, but he played a massive role. But given he took the OL job at Minnesota (and a sizable pay cut), it's hard to read this as anything but a firing.
There are always behind-the-scenes dynamics to workplaces, and Greg Studrawa obviously has a connection with five-star guard Wyatt Davis, but the decision to keep Studrawa and jettison Warinner is still curious given total resumés.
Even Warinner's harshest critic would have been delighted if he became the "Larry Johnson of the offensive line" as Ramzy so eloquently put it.
So I raise my chalice to Warinner, as a fan and assistant to the offensive coordinator. I'll cheer for my old boss to wreak havoc on the Big Ten West.
DON'T TWEET. I owe my career to Twitter. Without it, 11W would've never seen me my Tumblr article mocking my roommate (and current Toledo Blade reporter) Kyle Rowland. (It was a collection of his tweets that included the word "Amazing.")
It also changed the way I consume news. When I log into Twitter, all my interests are displayed in a chronological timeline.
It can also be a parade of horribles that makes you want to move to a Montana cabin and type an anti-technology manifesto on a typewriter.
But Ohio State makes it work. It has one of the best Twitter presences in college football. And it's all owed to a guy most fans don't know: New & Media Creative Director Zach Swartz.
From sportsbusinessdaily.com:
Ohio State New & Creative Media Dir Zach Swartz (@zswartz0407) joined the football staff last spring, with coach Urban Meyer telling Swartz he wanted to be innovative and cutting edge in the team's presence on social media. Swartz said, “When I interviewed, I wasn’t sure what value a head coach would put into social media and graphic design and video, but it became pretty clear to me that it was incredibly important. It was, ‘Can we be the best in the country? Can you be the best in the country at what you do? And can we make the recruiting department the best in the country?’”
[...]
Staying ahead of the content curve:
Technology is a big one. All this technology is starting to get affordable. You can make really professional looking content with an iPhone and a gimbal. There’s so much stuff out there that four, five years ago would have been an investment. Now it’s a $300 camera that you can make something look really professional. I always look at what other schools are doing. It’s not taking their idea, but seeing how they use a piece of technology and how it might fit in our department.
$300 camera and something called "a gimbal," eh? Looks like you guys are reading the typing of the next Ohio State New & Creative Media Director.
A RETURN TO FAMILIAR PLAYOFF TERRITORY. The Dallas Cowboys play another NFL team this weekend in a playoff game I don't care about.
But the Dallas Cowboys began their courtship of Ezekiel Elliott while watching the 2014 championship game at the ostentatious steel heap the locals call "JerryWorld."
It worked out well.
From espn.com:
“This 15 for Ohio State is pretty good,” Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, said to Garrett.
After a season spent with tunnel vision, Garrett knew of Elliott, if not about him at the time. "So I kind of watched him because Emmitt knows a little something about running backs. I watched him closer and closer, and obviously he had a big game that night,” Garrett said. “And then you watch him throughout the next year, and he obviously is a really, really good football player."
[...]
“If I’ve ever seen anything that was scripted in the draft room, scripted in the evaluation process, and then has come to bear any more straight down the line than Zeke, I don’t know it,” owner and general manager Jerry Jones said. “He’s exactly more than we had hoped for.”
Jones must not think the ongoing investigation into domestic assault allegations against Elliott won't amount to anything. I don't know anything about that, but I doubt a hammer drops on the impending Offensive MVP, who plays for the league's most powerful and popular team, while in the playoffs.
BASKETBALL, YOU SAY? Die-hard basketball fans hate when I talk #hoops, but I'm doing it anyway.
Football National Signing Day looms, which means legions of Buckeye fans will soon turn to the basketball team to get them to spring ball.
Unfortunately, things aren't going well for Thad Matta's team.
From bcsn.tv:
If you haven’t noticed, this is a program in crisis. Ohio State (10-6) is 0-3 in the Big Ten going on 0-6 — its next three opponents are tied atop the league — and on course for a fifth straight season of decline.
[...]
But, again, you may not have noticed. The only thing falling faster than the state’s once-powerful flagship team is fan interest. Ohio State announced a crowd of 13,221 for last week’s Big Ten home opener against Purdue, but it could have curtained off the upper deck and still had good sections available.
Even in the best of times, the multipurpose Value City Arena has always felt more corporate than collegiate. Lately, with little to cheer, we’ve seen funeral homes with more charm.
The Schottenstein Center is a lucrative venue for Ohio State given all its events, but it's still the second biggest blunder of the athletic department in my time in this prison. (The first: Accepting an invite to the 2011 TaxSlayer.com Bowl.)
Oh, by the way: If you're into masochism, the basketball team plays at Wisconsin at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
OK, I'M GOING BACK TO SCHOOL. Back in my day, it was only the students on drugs.
Here's Ohio State kicker Sean Nuernberger:
Teacher: "just to warn you, I took a bunch of fu***** drugs last class so I'm like tripping balls right now, just so you know" #yesmaam
— Sean Nuernberger (@Sean4Heisman1) January 11, 2017
@Sean4Heisman1 the bottom of one of her PowerPoint slides says "please learn this shit" #iminlove
— Sean Nuernberger (@Sean4Heisman1) January 11, 2017
@Sean4Heisman1 "these are coordinates, you guys get that? Not enough heads nodding, fine, f*** you guys"
— Sean Nuernberger (@Sean4Heisman1) January 11, 2017
Shoutout to that grad student on her job hunt. It may ruin her career, but one day she'll laugh about the time she ingested narcotics and bragged about it to her students.
THOSE WMDs. The Uncomfortable reality of Tyreek Hill's success... The high-cost, high-risk world of modern pet care... Elon Musk has delivery issues... Nazi war criminal died in a Syrian basement in 2001... Helpless: The tragic story of an addict... Why Canadians say "eh."
