Skull Session: Ohio State Four-Time Champions, J.K. Dobbins On Pace for 1K, and Zero Margin for Error

Summer Cartwright of The Lantern reports Ohio State will gift iPads to freshmen. Nothing infuriates me more than younger people getting things I didn't.

In my day, we SMS tweeted with flip phones, and GPS cost an extra $5 a month. That should be the eternal standard.

ICYMI:

• J.T. Barrett thinks questions about the deep ball should stop.
• Offensive braintrust working on two-back packages.
• Tracy Sprinkle uses personal experience to give back.
• Kirk Herbstreit stopped by the Dubcast.
• Freshman small forward Kyle Young "out a few weeks."
• Bri'onte Dunn charged with kidnapping and rape.
• Warren Ball hurts knee, ending collegiate career.
• Come to the 11W Friday Night Banger on Oct. 27.
• Help put a life-size statue of Woody Hayes in his hometown of Newcomerstown, Ohio.

Word of the Day: Unction.

 4X CHAMPION CLUB. Urban Meyer bestows "champion" grades on top performers after every win. They're ultimately arbitrary decisions.

Why did Terry McLaurin grade a champion despite a cheap shot that cost his team 30 yards? Urban Meyer likes him.

Despite the subjectivity, patterns can be gleaned this far into the season. The names to grade champion in Ohio State's four wins won't surprise you.

From cleveland.com:

Graded as champions in four games

• J.T. Barrett, quarterback
• Terry McLaurin, receiver
• Billy Price, center
• Jamarco Jones, tackle
• Nick Bosa, defensive end
• Sam Hubbard, defensive end 

Guess this means on 3rd and 12 in the fourth quarter of a big game we need to turn our attention to DeLorean McLaurin.

 DOBBINS ON PACE. I'm old enough to remember when extremely online posters questioned Meyer's hiring by mentioning his failure to produce a 1,000-yard running back at Florida. After all, how would the "power spread" play in a real man's conference overlorded over by Brady Hoke and Bert Bielema?

Six years later, he's made it work. J.K. Dobbins is the latest off the assembly line.

From landgrantholyland.com:

At the pace freshman phenom J.K. Dobbins is going, Meyer will tally his seventh consecutive 1,000-yard rusher this season.

Dobbins has churned out 573 yards and three touchdowns, averaging 7.6 yards per carry. He racked up 205 yards of offense Week 1 in Bloomington and had a 172-yard, two-touchdown performance against Army.

Despite the extra rest that the coaching staff is giving him – coupled with the return of Mike Weber – he’ll still likely to break 1,000 yards.

Dobbins may be the best back of them all. I realize that's tall talk, but neither Carlos Hyde or Ezekiel Elliott contributed like Dobbins as a freshman.

 BIG, IF TRUE. Folks, it appears due to the local team's loss to Oklahoma, it has a thin margin of error to make the playoffs. I didn't believe it, yet the research seems to support the hypothesis.

From espn.com:

1. Ohio State (4-1): The Buckeyes are favored by FPI to win each of their remaining games, but the Oct. 28 matchup against Penn State looms the largest. The Buckeyes lost this game last season and still finished in the top four, but that wouldn't happen this time because of their Week 2 loss to Oklahoma.
2. USC (4-1): The Trojans' toughest remaining game is Oct. 21 at Notre Dame. FPI gives USC just a 26.5 percent chance to win. If they don't, they're likely done.
3. Oklahoma State (4-1): The Cowboys can overcome their home loss to TCU, but not if they don't beat Texas on Oct. 21. Yes, Bedlam is the game that gets all of the attention, but Oklahoma State will enter the committee's first rankings having played back-to-back road games against Texas and West Virginia.

The nice thing is we'll know where the Buckeyes stand by the end of the month. If they dust Penn State, the party bus is back on the highway.

If Ohio State loses, well, we hunker into our nuclear bunker (location available only to 12th Warriors) and prepare for the biannual guerrilla raid of Ann Arbor. If our team sacks that primitive outpost, at least we can warm our cold bodies with wolverine pelts throughout the impending nuclear winter. 

 MAN DEFENDS ALMA MATER. We've all been there. Fresh off signing an 8 million, one-year contract, you catch a touchdown pass on the home field of the NFL's hottest team. 

Things look good for your team, but it switches. They lose. 

Afterwards, some drunk accountant potshots you. That's fine. But then that bum pot shots your beloved alma mater. 

OH HELL NO.

From our nation's paper of record, TMZ:

In the new video, you can hear the fan say, "Hey Terrelle, you bitch! F*ck you! F*ck Ohio State!!"

Of course, Pryor played for the Buckeyes from 2008 to 2010 -- right before he was hit with a 5-year ban from OSU football amid an NCAA investigation into players receiving improper benefits.

Clearly, he's still proud of his school -- and launched his middle finger and an F-bomb after the Ohio State insults.

Dead celebrities must be thankful they didn't grow up in eras when everyone carried a video camera in their pockets 24/7.

UPDATE (10:37 a.m.): Pryor says the Chiefs fan racially slurred him.

 ONE WEIRD TRICK. The worst part about being a sports fan is navigating the hellscape of websites that reward clicks with autoplay videos because they value cheap money over customer experience.

Chrome users, thwart this nebulous weapon:

If you use Google Chrome, go to

chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy

and set it to "Document user activation is required."

Boom: no more auto-playing videos.

You're welcome.

— Chris Meadows (@robotech_master) October 3, 2017

Somebody richer than me: Build @robotech_master a statue.

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