We're getting this Friday out of the way like LarBon Jim tha Kang dumping a dumb-ass dinosaur:
LeBron immortality mode: ENGAGE. (Watch Valanciunas reaction) pic.twitter.com/ZUSpvFlqNM
— LeRob Perez (@World_Wide_Wob) May 4, 2018
Your boss is going to look like Valaciunas when you head for the door at 11:30 a.m. The key is keeping your feet moving. Ain't no traveling call in this league, baby.
ICYMI:
- Offensive line depth could mean rotations up front.
- Steelers convert Ryan Shazier's $8.26 million 2018 salary into a signing bonus.
Word of the Day: Bastion.
BURRELL PISSED ABOUT TRANSFER. Prior to Urban Meyer, we used to lampoon Nick Saban for the nefarious practice of "oversigning," which instituted de facto annual cuts.
Post-Meyer, we no longer use that word, even as the local team sits two players above the scholarship limit of 85 with walk-on C.J. Saunders earning one.
Former offensive lineman Matthew Burrell, likely headed to the FCS, lamented the numbers crunch in an exclusive interview with Harry Wexner of Eleven Warriors:
YOU’RE TRANSFERRING AWAY, SO, OBVIOUSLY, THINGS HAVEN’T WORKED OUT THE WAY YOU HOPED THEY WOULD. PEOPLE MIGHT EXPECT YOU TO BE BITTER AT THE PROGRAM, BUT YOU SEEM TO HAVE SO MUCH LOVE FOR THE PLAYERS AND THE COACHES. WHY DO YOU FEEL THAT WAY?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pissed. I’m very pissed and very upset. There’s a lot that I could say that I don’t agree with. Everyone knows it’s always a number crunch for Ohio State.
We’re a great team, top to bottom. Every practice is like an NFL combine because there’re 32 coaches from every team, coaches from every high school team, coaches from other colleges. There are coaches from other colleges who have already seen me play because they come and watch our practices and take notes on how we do shit out here. Now, I’m going to those schools.
As far as it being love for my team, I mean, yeah, that’s way I stayed in the first place.
I've accepted what I've once hated (the practice of oversigning) because hypocrisy is the price of unbridled fandom. It still sucks to read, though, because I tabbed Burrell for glory when he came here. Apparently people back home did not???
Coming out of high school, all my friends had offers. We all wanted to play the same place. I was kind of the oddball because one of my best friends went to Bama, and I went to Ohio State.
I was always told it was a terrible decision, I wasn’t going to play. I needed to stay home and start and follow my dreams. I didn’t really believe it, but it definitely played out the way everyone told me.
Shoutout to the adults back home for shitting on a kid's dream. Way to help him build a platform for future success.
HIP HIP TO CHIP. J.T. Barrett is down in New Orleans, the greatest city in America outside Ohio, trying to earn a roster spot with the Saints.
Regardless of his replacement in Columbus, it will allow QB coach and co-offensive coordinator Ryan Day to do more of what he loves to do against opposing defenses.
From sbnation.com:
The main threat of the play is that shallow cross, which is typically run by an explosive wideout like Parris Campbell or K.J. Hill and aided by a rub that comes from the tight end. Between the wheel route and the first crosser, the linebackers are often pulled apart to create a passing window to the outside receiver who runs a sort of curl route in the middle of the field, where he can settle behind the first level of the defense.
Once teams are worried about the crossing routes and stacking the middle of the field, it becomes easier to get receivers open for the QB on quick routes outside.
Barrett wasn’t a great vertical passer at Ohio State, but he was more explosive in his senior year under Day and Wilson, when his yards per throw jumped from 6.7 to 8.2.
Meanwhile, the mesh concept and accompanying plays helped Ohio State’s run game by commanding numbers and attention outside the defensive box.
And the best part is Ohio State will still have a deep offensive line in front of Mike Weber and J.K. Dobbins. I'd be talking a lot more shit if I wasn't old enough to remember the 2015 season.
KIRBY PAID. Kirby Smart, who you might not know is named after Nintendo's sex icon of the same name, had one good year at Georgia that culminated with him losing a national title.
He went 8-5 the year prior. Entering Year 3, Georgia seems fit to throw a bag of money at him.
Georgias Kirby Smart will receive a new seven-year, $49 million contract, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. The new deal, which will extend Smart through the 2024 season, is pending approval of the executive committee of the UGA... https://t.co/LbIpyAGBI9
— Mark Schlabach (@Mark_Schlabach) May 3, 2018
I just don't know against whom the Dawgs are bidding? There aren't any planned vacancies at the three to five programs in America that could poach a Georgia coach.
But hey, it ain't my money. Can't wait until Purdue doles out $100 million to keep Jeff Brohm around in two years.
BILL MOOS = BAD, ACTUALLY? Nebraska was lauded for hiring athletic director Bill Moos from Washington State. After all, Moos hired renowned philosopher Mike Leach and spearheaded the new palatial football facility required of any school with conference championship ambitions in 2018.
But what if Moos sucked at, you know, everything else with his job?
From pullmanradio.com:
An internal audit has revealed extensive mismanagement in Washington State University Athletics. The review from WSU auditors was initially intended to only examine tickets. The audit came about following a risk assessment to ensure that regulations were being followed regarding tickets and passes to Cougar games. The probe ended up expanding after additional problems were discovered with contract management, ethics training, attendance data, benefits for ahtletics employees and cash handling in the ticket office. The audit concluded that, “The environment within Athletics did not support a culture of compliance or fiscal responsibility.”
...
The problems uncovered in the audit came under former WSU AD Bill Moos who suddenly left for the AD job at Nebraska in mid-October. The specific staff members identified in the audit by their positions left WSU following Moos’s departure. Deputy Athletics Director Mike Marlow left for the AD job at Northern Arizona in December. In January, Marlow hired Cougar Athletic Fund Director Uri Farkas to lead his external operations and development.
Remember, this is the same man that said Urban Meyer and Jim Harbaugh, which he for some reason put on the same level, are "running scared and they don't want to admit it" after the Frost hire. That's something you say to your cabal of boosters at 2 a.m. while slurping a sixth scotch—not at a luncheon of sports media!
Frost will probably be good in Lincoln. But it takes more than coach to win a championship. It takes a program.
DO YOU KNOW WHO MY DAD IS? The men's lacrosse team "brawled" with Johns Hopkins last night in a B1G tournament semifinal knuckleduster featuring men wearing gloves throwing punches at other men wearing helmets.
I can't embed this video, so you'll have to click through. The tweet says it all:
Rowdy laxbros fight as only 30 dudes named Braden can: https://t.co/koSqM6B3hA pic.twitter.com/Euk6nhSRLb
— Deadspin (@Deadspin) May 4, 2018
The most offensive thing is the Buckeyes lost 6-5.
THOSE WMDs. San Franciscans paid $1 million to live next to a former nuclear test site... A hundred-year old handmade American flag heads home (to Scotland)... School superintendent turns out to be serial public pooper... The doting boyfriend who robbed armored cars... Columbus plans to adapt gunfire detection system... Am I the face of a Nigerian online romance scammer?
