Another day, another penny. Wouldn't have it any other way. #AlphaWorkerMentality
ICYMI:
- The darkest timeline of the 2018 season.
- Gareon Conley countersued the woman who accused him of rape in 2017.
- 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 Eleven Warriors Dry Goods.
Word of the Day: Charwoman.
WHO YA GONNA CALL ON 3RD AND TWO? Urban Meyer is the best football coach in Ohio State history, yet it didn't take one of his peers to realize J.T. Barrett would run the ball on 3rd and 2.
To Meyer's credit, the gambit worked most of the time. With Barrett's exodus to New Orleans, the question becomes who totes the magic diamond on 3rd and 2 in 2018. Though Dwayne Haskins can scramble, he's not the same kind of running threat as Barrett.
Thankfully the local team has two potential All-Americans in the backfield.
From theozone.net (brackets mine):
“Hopefully it’s one of us [that carries the ball],” Weber said of he and Dobbins this spring. “Third and two, I think we can get two yards in those situations.”
In fact, in those very situations last season, both Dobbins and Weber were more successful on average than Barrett was.
Dobbins converted 11 of his 15 attempts (73.3%) and averaged 5.5 yards per carry in the process. Weber, meanwhile, went 9-for-11 (81.8%) with a remarkable 12.3 yards per carry. Weber had big hits of 47, 43, and 22 yards in compact situations.
More than comfortable with Weber and Dobbins getting most of the short-yardage work. Eventually Haskins will eventually make a team pay for cheating with their safeties, too.
BOILER UP? The Big Ten is more fun when Purdue is legit. But only to the point where they threaten teams that aren't Ohio State. Unfortunately the Buckeyes travel to Wast Lafayette this year.
Ohio State will be the better team. The Boilermakers' chances of winning will be more than 0%.
From cleveland.com:
Chance to beat Ohio State: 10 percent. It's the second-highest number we have given to a Big Ten opponent. Penn State was the highest at 53 percent. So it is a massive gulf between the two games. But under first-year coach Jeff Brohm, Purdue showed it can be a tricky team to deal with. And Ross-Ade Stadium has provided its share of nervy moments for Ohio State, including losses in 2009 and 2011.
I consider Purdue's chances to be higher — let's say 15% — if only because I suffered the worse hangover of my life while watching Terelle Pryor turn over the ball roughly 12 times during a noon banger in 2009. I can still remember writhing on my Iuka Avenue coach and asking, "IS THIS REAL LIFE? while trying not to throw up on my living room carpet.
SPRINGS EVOLVES. Former Ohio State cornerback Shawn Springs prepared his entire life to become an entrepreneur. As it turns out, the trauma his body suffered throughout his career was the perfect staging ground for his venture.
From The Washington Post:
Windpact is a small company with big ambitions. Springs wants to crack the market serving athletes, soldiers, recreational facilities and workplaces where people are at risk from blows to the head and body.
The company is tackling a competitive space dominated by growing concern over chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a widespread degenerative brain disease found in athletes and others.
“We are focused on any sort of impact protection,” Springs said. “If you think of an impact, we want to solve for it. A roller coaster padding for the head. An older person who falls. We can do panty pads.”
Props to Springs for finding his niche. As any budding business owner can attest, that's more than half the battle.
WISCONSIN: WHAT IS ALREADY DEAD CANNOT DIE. Wisconsin has had the same team as long as I've been alive. Stingy defense. Beefy adult sons on the offensive line. Powerful running backs and mediocre quarterback play. (Basically a rich man's Michigan).
It will be more of the same in 2018. The Badgers will need a big road win to realize their goals.
From Bill Connelly of sbnation.com:
Offense gets a little better, defense gets a little worse, ship keeps sailing smoothly. Wisconsin is projected to fall in S&P+, but only to 12th, 24 spots ahead of anyone else in the Big Ten West. The Badgers are favored by at least eight points in every West contest and should blaze through a non-conference slate that includes three teams that have had good seasons in recent memory (WKU, New Mexico, BYU) but probably won’t in 2018.
That said, the road slate is about as tricky as it could be. The Badgers face maybe their three biggest division challengers (Iowa, Northwestern, Purdue) on the road, and from the East, they travel to Michigan and Penn State. Even with a significant advantage on paper, they’re one road upset loss away from going about 6-3 in conference play, which could open the door for a division challenge.
Of course, they’re basically one road upset victory away from being a CFP contender again, too.
Badgers would be a perennial playoff team if they played every game in Camp Randall. Until then, they won't break into Tier 1 until they pull off that elusive road game.
STEALING SIGNALS. Stealing a team's signals is a lot like negative recruiting: It's something every team denies doing but only the bad ones actually don't do.
It can be a lucrative profession if you've been blessed with the talent like this coach who has worked in every Power 5 conference.
From Bruce Feldman of The Athletic ($):
Well, actually he’s a defensive assistant coach. He also has a rare talent that can — and on several occasions has — changed the course of a college football game. This isn’t a case in which it’s a guy who used intel he brought from a previous staff to burn an old employer. This is next-level stuff. Armed with his trusty binoculars, pen and a pad, he can deliver wondrous bits of info and become an offensive coordinator’s worst nightmare.
He agreed to share some of his secrets with The Athletic to provide insight on the practice of signal stealing in college football. We agreed to not disclose his identity or the details of the teams he’s worked for or faced.
One example of his handiwork came against a conference rival. “I got their stretch, boot and power signals as soon as I saw their first series,” he says, acknowledging the simplicity of the boot giveaway. It was someone on the sideline gesturing as if they were putting boots on. “It’s too simple sometimes because they have to communicate it to the players and they don’t want to add another layer onto the players to not screw it up.
It's with a heavy heart I report I will soon abdicate my Skull Session throne to pursue a career in stealing signals. Don't worry, I'll still only ply my trade in favor of the local team. I don't know any other way.
THOSE WMDs. Deleting a species... You're speaking Emoji... Netflix revolutionized the economy of entertainment... Complexity of searching for medical advice... 52 places places to go.
