The local team returns to the practice field today. We're expecting to hear from the head ball coach around 11 a.m. ET.
ICYMI:
- Kevin Wilson's arrival means more chances for Ohio State running backs.
- Better Know a Buckeye: J.K. Dobbins.
- 2018 Toledo four-star LB Dallas Gant includes OSU in his top five, will announce May 16.
- Film Study: Don Brown's creative and aggressive Michigan defense.
- Help put a life-size statue of Woody Hayes in his hometown of Newcomerstown, Ohio.
Word of the Day: Majordomo.
THROW THE SCREEN AT THEM. Whenever the local offense stutters, fans complain of the lack of screens.
That could change in 2017. While Kevin Wilson is expected to reinstitute offensive pace, he's also a believer—and more importantly, a creative designer—of screens.
From sbnation.com:
If you geared up to stop the 2016 Buckeye run, they might spread you out with a different formation and fling it. Wilson might respond with one of Wilson’s well-designed screens.
Many Big 12 fans still have visions of Sam Bradford hitting Murray or Ryan Broyles on one of those screens behind a wall of massive linemen. Perhaps Big Ten fans have become familiar as well, after Wilson’s time at Indiana.
Just imagine that executed for a blue-chip Buckeye WR, with future NFL linemen advancing into open grass to lead block, and you can see why this would be a nice complement to the existing Meyer offense. Ohio State does have screens, but they’ve never been as devastating as Wilson’s. Meyer prefers to use the QB option game, rather than screens or play-action, as a constraint (a play that prevents the defense from loading up to stop the offense’s basics).
Few things are more demoralizing in football than a flawlessly executed third-down screen.
I should probably stop reading excellent analysis like the aforementioned article. Otherwise, I'll demand 100 points a game when I should be satisfied with 60.
IS THERE A RETURNER IN THE HOUSE? Another thing lacking from Meyer's recent teams: An explosive kick returner. The last time Ohio State returned a kickoff? 2006.
I just made that number up, yet I doubt it raised the eyebrows of any reader. Thankfully, help is on the way.
From cleveland.com:
"That wasn’t a phase of our special forces that was good enough last year," Coombs said. "We will be significantly improved this year, and we’ve put a lot of time and effort into that. I can’t tell you who it is yet, but somebody is gonna emerge."
Other "special forces" not up to snuff: Punt return and place kicking in pressure situations. Those are topics for another day, though.
Here are the candidates to return kicks:
- Demario McCall
- Kendall Sheffield
- Eric Glover-Williams
- K.J. Hill
I'd be more than content laughing at opposing kickers for stupidly putting the ball in the hands of McCall. I also am intrigued by Eric Glover-Williams. That guy was electric with the ball in his hands in high school and could be a breakout receiver this year.
GRIND TIME. Millennials are so work-obsessed we're ruining vacation while still being lazy and not wanting to work in the first place. We're a remarkable people like that.
Former Ohio State King Slob Taylor Decker falls into the former camp. After a venerable rookie season at left tackle, Decker didn't rest when his season ended.
From freep.com:
Decker, the Detroit Lions’ first-round pick last year who played every snap as a rookie at left tackle, moved to Arizona eight days after the season ended with a wild card loss to the Seattle Seahawks and was back in the gym starting five-day-a-week workouts less than 96 hours later.
[...]
“I took about a week and a half off,” Decker told the Free Press after an hour-long workout at LeCharles Bentley’s O-Line Performance academy last week. “And that was really just cause I was looking for a house.”
Decker put down roots in the Phoenix-area shortly after the season ended in part to be close to OLP, his off-season workout sanctuary.
Quite the juxtaposition of offseason regimens between Decker and Ezekiel Elliott. But hey, if Elliott dumps the NFL again, why work out in a Phoenix warehouse when you can party on a yacht in Miami?
BRIAN KELLY: STILL A DICK. College coaches don't always agree with a player's decision to go pro. Yet they usually back them publicly.
For some inexplicable reason, Notre Dame surly purple jellybean Brian Kelly, appearing Monday on Sirius XM, decided to throw his former quarterback DeShone Kizer under the bus.
From nfl.com:
"Well, he still should be in college. The circumstances are such that you have to make business decisions and he felt like it was in his best interest," Kelly said. "I'm going to support him and his decision. But the reality of it is he needs more football, he needs more time to grow in so many areas. Not just on the field, but off the field."
Nice of Kelly to showcase to potential future players how much he respects the agency of former players.
I laugh at the notion players can only grow "off the field" in college. Where would Kizer's stock be if he came back next year and Notre Dame lost another eight games?
I'd have pulled my rip cord, too.
A GROWN MAN GETS RED AND MAD. Baseball and its asinine 182-game regular-season schedule returned to our gentle shores yesterday. Besides 10-cent hot dogs at the Bier Stube, here's the only good thing to come from it: A grown-ass Mets fan about to cry.
This @Mets fan's reaction was totally appropriate pic.twitter.com/lxiCGRgGgq
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) April 4, 2017
Looks like we can rule out the Mets winning the World Series this year.
THOSE WMDs. Twenty years later, Space Jam is the movie we didn't know we needed... How Cincinnati salvaged the nation's most dangerous neighborhood... Dear #brands, quit trying to be my best friend... For 18 years I thought she was stealing my identity... Girl gang's grip on London revealed... What I learned about journalism after 27 years in prison.
