Luxurious Sunday weather and I chose the eradication of weeds over margaritas on La Fiesta's rooftop patio in Troy, Ohio, USA.
I'm filing for Social Security this week.
ICYMI:
- Five-star DE Micah Parsons decommitted from Penn State, which is all good news for the Bucks.
- Spring rewind: Tight ends.
- Despite renovations to the Horseshoe, Ohio State once again leads the country in spring game attendance.
- Lack of spring ball hurts in-state prospects looking to land an Ohio State offer.
- Help put a life-size statue of Woody Hayes in his hometown of Newcomerstown, Ohio.
Word of the Day: Clabber.
THE BIGGEST CONCERN. Kevin Wilson arrived in Columbus and switched the Ohio State offense from bad to good. Maybe other people need to see more than a couple drives of touch-football to render judgment, but I'm now calling for 70 points a game from the local offense.
However... if it switches from good to bad, well, the likeliest cause will be lukewarm offensive line play.
From landgrant.com:
Generally cohesiveness and returning starters are incredibly important for developing a dominant offensive line. That’s why the offensive line isn’t seen as a major point of concern entering the summer — the line has four returning starters.
[...]
Now the Buckeyes have to decide between Matt Burrell and Jordan’s Fiesta Bowl replacement, Demetrius Knox, for the new starting guard spot. Despite little turnover, there’s no guarantee that the replacement guard will equal either Jordan or Billy Price. And even if they do, can the unit improve in pass protection from last season?
With Tim Beck coordinating Texas' offense these days, Greg Studrawa will be the first assistant on the chopping block after Ohio State surrenders a sack for the first time.
I'm of the opinion the Slobs will be better due to returning four starters. It ultimately depends on that right guard spot, though. The only way I'll back off that proclamation is if we're halfway through camp and Meyer is asking one of his players to seize the position. If Wyatt Davis walks into a starting role it better be because he's the next Orlando Pace.
THE DEEP BALL. Folks, how excited are you for three months of offseason talk after the NFL Draft later this week? We might as well get a head start on it with something we'll surely talk about forty to fifty times: the play fans love to know, the one where a quarterback finds his receivers for a lightning strike of a gain for 40 yards or more.
As it turns out, there's more to the play than running and catching.
From cleveland.com:
"Does the quarterback give the wide receiver a chance? There's a lot more that goes into than that, but does he give him a chance?" Day said. "What you don't want to do is throw the ball down the field and the ball falls out of bounds or overthrows him -- the receiver never actually gets a chance to touch the ball."
Seems like a simple enough to way to break down an issue that is, at the same time, complex. Throwing the ball deep is something a lot of teams do, and some make it look easy. Ohio State couldn't do it for two years. Getting it fixed requires improvement in three facets: Protection, accuracy and finishing the catch on the other end.
[...]
"Coach Smith and Coach Day just really found landmarks for those throws to the field and to the boundary so the receivers understand where the ball is gonna hit," Barrett said.
Ohio State had protection, accuracy and finishing throughout the past two years. The problem was they rarely coincided in the same play.
It'd be cool to see Ben Victor develop into a guy defenses can't guard without interfering. Ohio State hasn't had one of those since Noah Brown ate a big ol' bowl of Wheaties the morning of the Oklahoma game.
MALIK'S DECISION. This time last year we were concerned about the local team replacing two NFL safeties.
Malik Hooker, a guy who didn't play football until junior year of high school, would be better than both of them. In the olden days, maybe Hooker comes back for another round in Columbus. These days, however, money talks.
And it's not like Hooker could massively improve his stock.
From Tim May of dispatch.com:
That was the message from the man Hooker refers to as his father figure and “uncle,” John Cox, a cousin of his mother. They sat down after the Clemson game and discussed whether Hooker should apply for the draft.
Cox has overseen Hooker’s rise from a youngster in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and persuaded a basketball-bent Hooker to give football another shot during his junior year of high school because he thought it was Hooker’s true calling.
“I put it like this: This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance because his season was great, and I said, ‘You’re really banking on the idea of having to go out there and duplicate that season or even do better, or you may lose your stock,’ ” Cox said. “If you’re going in the first round, it’s really hard to say, ‘OK, but if I stay I’ll go first pick next year instead of seven.’ ”
Hard to argue with that. It's not like Ohio State is going anywhere, and players can always finish their education after their playing days are over.
As for the fake news pumped to media by teams looking to capitalize on Hooker's falling stock, his medical reports are fine:
Teams are reviewing medical info: On #OSU S Malik Hooker: Combine recheck went as well as it could. Healing is good. No questions there.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 21, 2017
FORMER SLOB COMMANDER EXPLAINS FOURTH DOWN DECISIONS. Outside of a fateful call against Michigan State in the 2013 Big Ten Championship, Ed Warinner's offensive line had a pretty good record on fourth down. (If Jeff Heuerman doesn't whiff that block, though...)
Warinner is now at Minnesota, where his decisions to go for it on fourth down can best be described as "The body langue of the tiger."
From footballscoop.com:
“Body language is all I look at,” he explains. “Because on fourth-and-one, coach is going to say, ‘You want to go for it?’ and I’m going to look right at you guys on fourth-and-one when we call a time-out and I see that ‘Don’t run behind me coach’ look, and I’ll be like ‘Punt it.'”
“Or, if I have some dudes that say ‘Let’s go,’ then we’ll go.”
And this concludes your monthly reminder that the Spot was, in fact, good.
COME TO MIAMI, KIDS! Brad Kaaya came to Coral Gables looking to be the big man on campus. Instead, he got a molar knocked out of his mouth against Florida State:
That Gruden QB camps w/ Brad Kayaa kinda has me feeling sorry for whoever the next canes QB is. #itsallabouttheu I guess pic.twitter.com/TSYivQhgIt
— Singleshot (@Singleshot25) April 21, 2017
True parents don't let their kids go to either Miami.
THOSE WMDs. One last tip from America's greatest writing coach... How airline workers learn to deal with you... Seven Ohio residents have won the state lottery more than 100 times in three years... Guantánamo base kills plan to save feral cats... Rough and Ready, California.
