I don't know much about life. I do know Ohio State needs to go back to the big boy shoulder pads immediately.
You might beat Ohio State, but you weren't going to out-ginormous shoulder pad them. pic.twitter.com/NCh1RoLRGz
— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) April 17, 2018
The 1970s look like they were a wild ride.
ICYMI:
- Steele Chambers, a four-star athlete from Georgia, committed.
- In Chambers, the Buckeyes landed an athlete capable of playing running back or linebacker.
- Redshirt junior offensive lineman Matthew Burrell will transfer, leaving the Buckeyes two players above the 85-scholarship limit.
- Brady Taylor left spring ball as the starting center while Josh Myers closed the gap in the last two weeks.
- Thayer Munford will likely start at left tackle.
- Ryan Day still evaluating the quarterbacks.
- Top 2019 target, five-star defensive end Zach Harrison, ran a 10.82-second 100-meter dash in the rain.
- Ramzy's latest dispatch on the lessons from #QBgeddon.
- Reserve your (or your business’) spot next to the life-size statue of Woody Hayes coming to Newcomerstown!
Word of the Day: Kulak.
SLOBS RELOADED. Urban Meyer loves talking about how Ohio State is an offensive line-driven program almost as much as I love mentioning that as a launching pad for discussing the offensive line.
Meyer has been blessed with a lack of offensive line injuries, as he didn't lose a starter to a serious injury until Branden Bowen last year. It's helped obscure a lack of depth at times, especially at tackle.
This year is different. This year, the Buckeyes have backups across the line pushing the starters.
From Tim May of The Columbus Dispatch:
Greg Studrawa does not know who would start on the Ohio State offensive line right now.
Studrawa coaches that position, so one would think that might be a bit of a concern now that the Buckeyes have concluded spring practice.
Not to Studrawa. In fact, he laughed it off.
“No,” he said of identifying the starting five, “but it would be pretty good.”
For the first time under coach Urban Meyer, the Buckeyes believe the line has sufficient depth. It’s not just that they have an adequate backup at each spot. It’s that the backups are now pushing presumed starters for jobs.
The offseason is always a hellacious march for #content creators, so I'm thankful I'll be able to ride my high about this team for the next three months.
As we saw in the Fiesta Bowl when Michael Jordan went down, the local team's fortunes can go from bad to worse in a snap. This year, however, I won't say "oooooh sheeeeeeeiiiiit" if that happens. Like at every other position, it's next man up.
URBAN UNSURE ON THE ECONOMICS OF UBER. What I cherish most about Urban Meyer, outside of the winning, is he's 100% middle-aged dad in literally everything outside of football.
He loves Sister Hazel. He drinks Bud Light. He thinks it's possible to hail an Uber in a Texas town of 5,000 people.
From landof10.com:
On that November night, three days after beating Michigan in double overtime, all was well for Meyer. There was just one problem: Ohio State running backs coach Tony Alford was leaving at a different time, so Meyer needed to get a ride the next morning to Fayette Regional Air Center, the tiny airport a couple miles west of town. He asked whether La Grange had Uber or a cab service.
“We were like … this is La Grange, Texas,” La Grange coach Matt Kates said. “There ain’t no Ubers, there ain’t no taxis. I said, ‘I guess we’re the Uber.’ My little brother and I got up at 7 o’clock and ran taxi service for Coach Meyer to get him to the airport. We picked him up at the Ramada Inn and got him over to his private jet by 7:30.”
The idea of Meyer checking into a Ramada Inn slays me. I can only imagine how many 2.7 star hotels in which he's stayed while pursuing talented #teens across the country.
Knowing Meyer, he would have slept on an uneven, piss-soaked pool table in a biker bar if it landed J.K. Dobbins.
BARRETT NOT DONE GRINDING. While Ohio State fans tear the skin off each other over #QBgeddon2, the most controversial quarterback in school history is trying to monetize his talent.
Barrett's motivation comes from a deeper place than proving odious haters wrong. He spoke after working out at the Cincinnati Bengals' local prospect circuit.
From mydaytondailynews.com:
“I don’t know if I’m out to prove anything, change people’s minds,” he said of his approach to the draft season. “What’s out there on me as far as tape and everything, that’s who I am. I’m still striving to get better so I don’t think I'm a finished product yet. I’m going to go out there and continue to work hard, continue to get better but be myself each and every day. I’m J.T. Barrett. This is me. I’m going to try to continue to be a great quarterback and a great person.”
Bad move by Barrett's agent. If the goal is to get drafted, he can eliminate the Cincinnati Bengals from contention. "Great people" don't fit their culture.
CINCY STILL ONE YEAR AWAY. We're entering Year 2 of Luke Fickell at Cincinnati, and it's no surprise he's killing it on the recruiting trail. It could still be a year or two before those stars turn into big wins.
From sbnation.com:
Thanks mostly to [quarterback Hayden] Moore’s return and excellent two-year recruiting, Cincinnati is projected to improve back into the S&P+ top 90. If some of the young guys start to figure things out, then further improvement is possible, but I’m going to assume major leaps don’t happen until 2019 or later.
The schedule is forgiving, though. UC plays more highly ranked teams like USF, Ohio, and Navy at home and faces winnable road games against teams like UConn, Miami (Ohio), Temple, and SMU. Cincy has between a 37 and 62 percent win probability in seven games; win enough of those, and the Bearcats can eke out a bowl bid.
That’s really the only goal on the table this year, though. Keep building the foundation, try to win more than four games, and keep recruiting your butt off.
Looks like Cincinnati's Week 2 trip to Ohio Stadium in 2019 will be a bigger banger than most would've thought when the two universities announced the game.
I'm old enough to remember Cincinnati almost smothering Ohio State's 2002 championship hopes in their crib. It was up there with the time a guy named "Boo" almost led Ohio to an upset win in the Shoe.
Still expect the Buckeyes to roll next year, though. There are dictatorships that treat their citizens more humanely than Meyer treats his former assistants once they leave the nest.
MIKE LEACH RIGHT ON GOLF. Are we sure Mike Leach is still a football coach?
Granted, I haven't watched a Pac-12 regular season game in a decade, but I never see any video of Leach actually coaching Washington State. They only feature him rambling about anything except football while holding court in what appears to be a janitor's office.
Not that I'm mad about it. Like all people, Leach can be right and wrong. Unlike most people, he's usually entertaining.
This week's subject is golf, and Leach is right.
From Spokesman Review reporter Theo Lawson:
“Golf’s pretty much for people that don’t swear effectively enough or need practice at it. And so there are people that need golf and I don’t think I do.”
Henceforth whenever somebody asks if I want to "hit the links," I'm just going to look them dead in the eye and say, "Do I look like a man that needs practice cussing?"
THOSE WMDs. Lost in battle, found by amateur sleuths: An "unknown" Marine... South Carolina's prisons among the deadliest in America... How to get rich quick in Silicon Valley... Tammie Jo Shults saved crippled Southwest Flight 1380... Notes from a public typewriter.
