I'm going to spend my Saturday unpacking this quote from Notre Dame's offensive line coach on three-star OT Luke Jones:
Jeff Quinn says Luke Jones told him he was bit by a copperhead snake at age 13, and he survived it. Quinn says that's the kind of guy they want at ND.
— Mike Vorel (@mikevorel) February 7, 2018
Moving to western Ohio ratcheted up my loathing for Notre Dame in a way I didn't know existed until I started seeing wild Irish assholes every day. It's bizarre, though, as all their fans are 50+ year-old men; their only marks of diversity being windbreaker or leather jacket, with both breeds dawning the occasional hat purchased at a K-Mart Blue Light Special in 1994.
But enough of picking on the weak. Let's talk about a real university's athletic program.
ICYMI:
- Urban Meyer's pending two-year extension puts a rest to recruiting trail talk of retirement.
- Friendly recruiting advice for Michigan in wake of its disappointing National Signing Day.
- Reserve your (or your business’) spot next to the life-size statue of Woody Hayes coming to Newcomerstown!
Word of the Day: Roman à clef.
BUCKEYES TAKING IT TO THE HOOP. No. 14 Ohio State hosts Iowa tonight at 6 p.m. on BTN. The Buckeyes are in first place in the Big Ten, and they want to sell out the Schottenstein Center (if the company sponsoring the Schott wants me to use its preferred nomenclature, please reach out to my agent) for the first time this year.
In what surely wasn't a coincidence, Ohio State's football staff got in on the act in a concentrated social media push:
Big one for @OhioStateHoops and @ChrisHoltmann on Saturday! Buckeye Nation, come out and support the #1 team in the Big Ten show why youre the BEST fans in the land!! Go Bucks!! pic.twitter.com/LdVpeWieyO
— Urban Meyer (@OSUCoachMeyer) February 9, 2018
So if you have the capital (first of all... congrats) and the time, think about checking out the America's greatest concert hall that also occasionally hosts amateur basketball competitions. You know, at the very least, Chris Holtmann's team is going to play as hard as it can.
Be sure to follow James Grega on Twitter, as he'll be through in a couple of hours with a full preview. (Will update this post with a link when he drops it.)
MIGHT AS WELL NOT PLAY THE SEASON. Only 25 days remain until Buckeye football waltzes back into our lives, albeit in the form of drills possibly open to media for the stretching segments.
In the meantime, we bunker down on a cache of preseason predictions and the annual NFL draft cycle. It's the former into which we dip today. A noted CFB statistician crunched the numbers, and the Buckeyes came out on top thanks to key members returning and a sterling recruiting class in the first year Alabama failed to win a February championship in damn near a decade.
From BIll Connelly of sbnation.com:
| RANK | TEAM | RECRUITING IMPACT | RETURNING PRODUCTION | WEIGHTED 5-YEAR | PROJ. S&P+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | OHIO STATE | 1 | 1 | 2 | 27.0 |
| 2 | ALABAMA | 4 | 4 | 1 | 27.0 |
| 3 | CLEMSON | 12 | 3 | 3 | 25.4 |
| 4 | WASHINGTON | 17 | 2 | 13 | 23.9 |
| 5 | AUBURN | 11 | 6 | 6 | 22.4 |
| 6 | GEORGIA | 2 | 5 | 28 | 22.1 |
| 7 | NOTRE DAME | 10 | 7 | 16 | 21.4 |
| 8 | PENN STATE | 8 | 10 | 20 | 20.2 |
| 9 | OKLAHOMA | 6 | 13 | 7 | 19.5 |
| 10 | MICHIGAN | 15 | 14 | 8 | 18.3 |
| 11 | MICHIGAN STATE | 33 | 9 | 22 | 18.0 |
| 12 | WISCONSIN | 36 | 11 | 11 | 17.8 |
Big Ten East looks like it could get hectic this season. I look forward to Wisconsin waltzing through the West as a sacrificial lamb whose carcass apparently no longer impresses the cabal that fields the playoffs.
Here's what the rest of the Big Ten looks like:
- Iowa (#36)
- Northwestern (#38)
- Purdue (#54)
- Indiana (#58)
- Nebraska (#60)
- Minnesota (#67)
- Maryland (#80)
- Rutgers (#84)
- Illinois (#99)
I'm watching Nebraska for signs of life. I feel for Scott Frost in replacing the kindly neighborhood grandpa. The office probably smelled like Werther's Originals and coffee that could fuel a diesel engine. Still, elite coaches make an impact Year 1 regardless of the roster, and the Huskers need nothing short of an elite coach to restore them to glory in an outpost staked to arid recruiting land.
Here's Connelly's Power 5 forecast:
- SEC (+10.7)
- ACC (+7.9)
- Big Ten (+7.9)
- Pac-12 (+6.6)
- Big 12 (+16.4)
Can't wait until the Associated Press ranks Tennessee No. 11 to start the season.
NEXT STOP: DUKE. Ohio State fans loved to know the No. 2 recruiting class of 2018, which finished as the highest-rated in university history.
However, the bill has come due on the $42,000 bottle of champagne we ordered at 1:52 a.m. Thursday morning. It means four Buckeyes currently preparing for spring drills won't be with the team when it kicks off against false OSU ayatollah Oregon State in September.
From Tom Orr of The Ozone:
By NCAA rule, all teams must have no more than 85 players on scholarship on their active rosters by the start of fall camp. Thanks to the big recruiting class and fewer early departures for the NFL Draft than expected, Ohio State currently sits at 89.
[...]
Many programs plan for this and bring in a couple extra guys, much like airlines overbook flights in anticipation of travelers failing to get there for one reason or another. Four, though, is a lot – especially when you can’t offer a voucher for a future flight.
As the article also notes, coaches sometimes know a player's intention to transfer weeks and even months before the public. It's still, however, a process that must be completed.
I can't speculate on any name specifically. All I know is when we go to run the articles, all the photos of the player will likely involve him checking into various fall camps. I'm at peace with the process until a player goes public about being effectively cut. That hasn't happened yet, though.
BUCKS ABOUND IN PFF 101. NFL analytics company Pro Football Focus yesterday released its Top 101 NFL Players of 2017 list. It featured five former Buckeyes:
- #14 Michael Thomas (Saints WR)
- #28 Joey Bosa (Chargers DL)
- #29 Marshon Lattimore (Saints CB)
- #43 Andrew Norwell (Panthers OG)
- #54 Cameron Heyward (Steelers DL)
This may shock you, but none of them play for either of Ohio's ostensibly professional football teams.
THOSE WMDs. Two Toledoans arrested, $4.7 million in Bitcoin seized from large-scale fake ID operation... Tax scams piling up already... Alabama man faces charges for Cap'n Crunch assault... College hoops corruption probe hits snag due to FBI conflict... Are hand dryers actually full of bacteria? Viral photo doesn't tell whole story... Video: Frye vs. Takayama full fight.
