My confidants in our nation's capital tell me that D.J. Byrnes remains alive and will be returned safely to Columbus on Sunday, in time to deliver you Monday's Skull session.
In the meantime, you're stuck with me – D.J.'s loyal hand and the one true heir to the Skull Session throne.
ICYMI:
- The diminishing Ohio State-Illinois rivalry should serve as a warning for the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry
- Buckeyes look to rebound after injuries during their debut seasons in the NFL.
- Observations from Ohio State's first one-day recruiting camp of the summer.
- Have a tailgate recipe the world needs to know about? Submit it to the Official 11W Tailgate Cookbook. The author of the highest-voted recipe receives a $50 gift certificate to the 11W Dry Goods.
Word of the Day: Abscond.
BUCKEYES LOOK OUT FOR EACH OTHER. When you're deeply entrenched in message boards, comment sections, forums and Twitter, it's easy to forget that there's a lot more to being a Buckeye than football.
The Ohio State community is remarkably wide reaching, and is filled with generous, compassionate and loving people. This week, there was an incredible reminder of that.
Thursday evening, Brooke Adams, a Buckeye fan in Texas, posted a tweet asking the Ohio State football community for help.
“This was when my daughter’s gravestone was placed on her 16th bday,” the tweet read. “Tomorrow’s her 19th birthday. Any @OhioStAthletics fans in the Lima area want to drop off a buckeye nut for me? I live 1,400 miles away now, can’t visit her grave & it’s killing me.”
Slowly, and thanks in large part to a retweet from Shelley Meyer, the tweet began to circulate through Ohio State’s massive Twitter community.
Eventually it reached some people who were able to make Adams’ wish come true.
Brooke's daughter got her birthday Buckeye, thanks to a kind individual named Rachel, who post a picture shortly after.
Brooke, I cleaned all the dead grass off and pulled any high grass around it. This is my Buckeye from the Buckeye grove by the stadium. I think this little Buckeye deserves to have it more. pic.twitter.com/umo8ESGOcU
— Rachel (@rachelabel23) June 8, 2018
Sometimes, the Internet is good.
HOLTMANN'S WHIRLWIND DECISION. June 5-9 was a wild time in Columbus as the Buckeyes searched for their next men's basketball coach, but it was almost equally wild over in Indianapolis as Chris Holtmann and his wife Lori decided if he would be the guy.
At one point, both Chris and Lori were confident they would not be coming to Columbus, and would be back at Butler next season. Then, it switched.
From Bill Landis of Cleveland.com:
The search firm reached out on behalf of OSU athletic director Gene Smith the next day, Tuesday. Holtmann needed more time. Smith moved on. He flew to Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday evening to meet with Creighton coach Greg McDermott. At some point Wednesday afternoon, Holtmann had it in his mind that he was staying at Butler. So he tweeted:
"Team #120 arrives in 2 weeks!An important summer!."
It was accompanied by a photo of Butler players gathered near their bench in Hinkle Fieldhouse, hands raised in the air as they prepared to break the huddle.
"I thought it was done Wednesday night," Lori said. "I went to bed pretty at peace Wednesday night thinking we had made a decision that we felt good about, but was still hard."
Clearly, Holtmann quickly had a change of heart, because he was formally announced as Ohio State's head coach less than two days later.
The whole story is worth the read. It includes a 5:30 a.m. text conversation, details covert meeting at a relatively seedy Holiday Inn near Dayton, and discusses Holtmann's Belichick-esque reluctance to celebrate due to his paranoia of being outworked.
URBAN MEYER OFFERS ADVICE TO TEENS. Ohio State had its first one-day camp of the summer on Friday night, and a number of top Buckeye targets were in attendance, as detailed by our Andrew Lind.
Over 700 athletes – Ohio State targets or not – had a chance to work out on campus and hear from Buckeye head coach Urban Meyer, who offered up some advice to the young athletes.
From Steve Helwagen of Bucknuts.com:
“You know, when we go into a high school to recruit a player, we don’t ask about their vertical jump,” Meyer said. “You could have a 40-inch vertical jump. But if you’re not a good teammate, we’re done.
“The first question I ask the high school coach is ‘What kind of teammate is he? What kind of family does he come from. Do they support the program and the coaches here?’"
Meyer added, “You need to ask yourself … are you a good teammate? If you are, keep going. If you aren’t, change.
“We need everybody to be all in or those (pointing to OSU’s championship banners inside the WHAC and his championship ring on his hand) and this don’t happen.”
In the past, I didn't believe Meyer when he said things like this. I never believed he would actually turn down a five-star recruit because he's not a good teammate and doesn't "support the program and the coaches."
But the more time goes on, the more I buy it. Meyer has at least an outside chance with pretty much every kid in the country he might want to join his football team. He's not going to waste his time with one who's going to be a disaster to coach for three or four years. He'll just cross his name off the list and move on to the next top-100 prospect.
Most coaches might not be able to be that selective in recruiting if they want to compete nationally. Urban Meyer probably can.
CAN HE CATCH? Typically, it's the Buckeye football players who help bolster the track roster, as guys like Kendall Sheffield, Dontre Wilson and Devin Smith have done in recent years. But with Ohio State track's Zach Bazile's freak athleticism, maybe Urban Meyer could try to make things work the other way around.
Bazile ended a 25-year national championship drought for the Buckeye track and field team on Wednesday night when he claimed the long jump national title. He had the four longest jumps of the event and his longest – 27' 5.5" – was over a foot further than any other competitor, and the 10th furthest in the world this year.
It's a B1G day for the Buckeyes!
— NCAA Track & Field (@NCAATrackField) June 7, 2018
Zack Bazile wins the 1st individual #ncaaTF title for @OhioState_TFXC since 1993 in the long jump with a PR of 8.37m (27-5 ). pic.twitter.com/MsC8ecUjp5
Then on Friday, Bazile showed off his sprinting ability, anchoring the Buckeye 4x100 relay team to a national runner-up finish with a time of 38.75 seconds – a time that would be good for first in many seasons, but not this one as Houston took gold with a collegiate record time of 38.17.
Bazile is a true senior, which I believe would give him one year of remaining eligibility to compete in another collegiate sport – shades of Greg Paulus. Perhaps he could be interested in grad school...
WELL. NOW WHAT? The Cavs got swept in the NBA Finals and now the King has a decision to make – stay in Cleveland, or take his talents elsewhere.
The prevailing assumption is that LeBron James is on his way out, but this time the decision might not just be about basketball.
What he is sure of is that if and when he opts out of his contract and hits the free agent market, his family will have a bigger say in his decision than they've ever had before.
"The one thing that I've always done is considered, obviously, my family," James said when asked about his upcoming free agency following the Cleveland Cavaliers' season-ending loss to the Golden State Warriors in Game 4 of the NBA Finals. "Understanding especially where my boys are at this point in their age. They were a lot younger the last time I made a decision like this four years ago. I've got a teenage boy, a pre-teen and a little girl that wasn't around as well.
"So sitting down and considering everything, my family is a huge part of whatever I'll decide to do in my career, and it will continue to be that."
A #take: LeBron doesn't want to leave Cleveland, and if the Cavs can do something this offseason, he'll stay. With the current roster situation, though, that is a much bigger "if" than it would have been in previous years.
But as long as LeBron funnels his eldest son into the open arms of Chris Holtmann, I'm at peace with whatever decision he makes.
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