I have to buy furniture today. What a racket! These jackals have better profit margins than midlevel drug dealers.
ICYMI:
- While Ohio State passed on playing Texas and Notre Dame, it used to play multiple marquee non-conference games.
- Buckeyes will face a numbers crunch (again) in 2019.
- The dismal primetime record of the last 15 years.
- All–Urban Meyer Squad: Defense.
- Jack Nicklaus helping lead effort to award a scholarship to every member of the band.
Word of the Day: Absquatulate.
DID YOU SAY APOLOGY? Urban Meyer left the Florida Gators, because that's a right every worker has in America. Gators fans cried because they knew their next coach wouldn't be half as good. (He wasn't.)
Meyer, however, called former SEC commissioner Mike Slive, who passed away earlier this week, in 2015 to apologize for the manner in which he absconded from Gainesville.
From al.com:
It was Good Friday 2015. We'd just finished breakfast at Salem's Diner in Homewood, his favorite early morning hangout, when Mike Slive's phone rang. The caller ID said Columbus, Ohio, but didn't include a name. Slive said, "I'm intrigued."
He answered, and the voice on the phone belonged to Urban Meyer. The coach was calling to apologize to the commish for the way Meyer had left Florida and the SEC years before.
Actually, Meyer had been writing a letter of apology to Slive and thought, hey, why not pick up the phone? It was a touching show of humility from an elite coach coming off a national title at Ohio State, a telling sign of respect for the most powerful man in college sports.
This is how you know I'm not Meyer's publicist. The first rule of apologizing is to never apologize. Your friends already have your back and your enemies never credit you. Next thing you know, your earnest and forthright apology turns into fodder for scum-sucking bloggers.
Between the apology, the two national championships, and the recent hiring of Meyer's first offensive protégé, the Buckeye coach's account should finally be settled in Gainesville.
That means I expect a Mike Bianchi hit piece by sunrise. I will not click it.
BURRITO ALMOST REHEATED. Almost two weeks into the saga, we may soon learn a final destination for Joe Burrow.
Via 247sports.com:
WSYX sports reporter Clay Hall reported that the Burrow camp is "nearing decision", with the likely two candidates being LSU and Cincinnati, the two programs he visited over the past week. Hall, who has been on the Buckeyes beat for more than 20 years, is the sports director at WSYX, WTTE-TV in Columbus, Ohio.
If Burrow wants a guaranteed starting spot, he'll go to Cincinnati. No Top 25 team will guarantee a starting job to a former backup quarterback.
My last five cents are on Burrow to the Bearcats. It seems like destiny at this point.
IT'S A TRAP. Another timeless offseason topic: What's the trap game this year? My first instinct was Purdue, because I still bear the psychological scars from watching Terrelle Pryor turn the ball over four times in West Lafayette while wallowing on my Iuka Avenue couch with a top-three hangover of my life.
From landof10.com:
So who’s going to be the team that comes out of nowhere this season to scare and possibly beat the Buckeyes? It might be tempting to pick road games against ascending teams such as Purdue or Maryland, but as I detailed earlier, that’s rarely the way it works. Instead, I’m going to go with a team that’s lost to Ohio State by about 100 points the last two years. Come on down, Nebraska!
Why the Huskers? Maybe I’ve subconsciously realized this season might be the last chance for a while to pick them as a trap game. But even with Scott Frost on board, there’s no denying a Nebraska win would be a monumental upset in 2018. After all, the Huskers have taken some awful beatings lately at the hands of the Buckeyes, losing 62-3 in 2016 and 56-14 in Lincoln in 2017. Quarterback Tanner Lee is off to the NFL, and while he wasn’t always effective, keep in mind the job is going to go to either someone who wasn’t as good as him or someone who wasn’t at Nebraska last season.
Nebraska is the correct take, even if the Buckeyes are off the week prior. Scott Frost's team won't have anything to lose. It almost can't do worse than it did against the Buckeyes the past two years.
I hope to be wrong. Ohio State goes to East Lansing that next week. It'd be nice if the local team put the Huskers to bed Huskers with a warm glass of milk by the end of the third quarter. (No Nebraskan can resist a cup of warm milk.)
FROST VS. HELLFIRE. Speaking of Frost, the new Husker coach fired back at Nick Saban for taking a swipe at UCF's self-proclaimed title.
From espn.com:
Nebraska coach Scott Frost continued the back-and-forth debate between Alabama and his former employer, UCF, this week when he told an Omaha news station that not all of the Crimson Tide's 17 claimed national championships are legit.
"Alabama probably has one or two national championships they claim that weren't necessarily recognized by everybody," Frost told KETV.
Anytime I hear a Tide fan claim 17 titles I laugh. If it happened before you were born, they don't count. If it happened before your father was born, go fuck yourself.
KANGAROO CROSSING. If I had to pick a story to explain Clintonville to a stranger, it would probably be this one.
From wosu.org:
More than two months after the city of Columbus removed Clintonville’s “Kangaroo Crossing” sign, the neighborhood will return it to its rightful home. Or, at least, right down the street.
On May 31, Clinton Elementary will officially unveil a permanent location for the reclaimed “Kangaroo” sign on its playground, about a block away from its original spot.
The unveiling promises to be a victory lap for the community activists who rallied to replace the sign, which was taken down by the city on March 12 after WOSU inquired about its origins.
Congratulations to the Clintonville community activists for righting this cosmic injustice.
THOSE WMDs. Julia Hunt Catlin Park DePew Taufflieb... Bumble Bee CEO accused of fixing tuna prices... My bridesmaid tried to kill me after she seduced my husband... The unbelievable story of one of America's bloodiest hitmen... My adventures with the trip doctors.
