Folks, welcome to game week.
Word of the Day: Solicitous.
URBAN PICKS THE BUCKS. You'll be shocked to hear this, but Urban Meyer is picking the team full of players he coached and recruited to win a football team. And so is Joel Klatt – though quite a bit more reluctantly.
PREDICTION TIME @CoachUrbanMeyer, @joelklatt and @MattLeinartQB make their CFP Semifinal picks pic.twitter.com/EOJhi3QER1
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) December 21, 2019
It's crazy, Joel Klatt is even second-guessing the team he's been gushing about all year.
I'm almost impressed with how quickly the narrative has shifted from "Ohio State might be the most dominant college football team of all time" to "the Buckeyes will probably lose in the first round to Clemson."
It's fine though. It only takes two games to remind folks who the true kings are.
A “FATED” MATCHUP. You might not-so-fondly remember Jackson Carman as the local five-star teen who spurned the Buckeyes on early signing day, taking his Benedict Arnold ass to Clemson instead.
(Though maybe that sting didn't even last long enough to stick in your grey matter since Ohio State immediately replaced him with the only higher-rated offensive tackle in that class.)
As a reward for his defection, Carman now gets to spend the biggest game of his life acting as a turnstile for the best player in the country. The best part is, he thinks he's ready.
“I feel like it's fated. I just had a feeling whenever I came that we were definitely going to play them at some time,” Carman said of the upcoming Fiesta Bowl College Football Playoff semifinal meeting with Ohio State.
...
“If you just run at him and try to throw a super hard punch at him, he's going to take your hands and be gone,” Carman said. “You've got to sit back and play patient with him. Let him come to you, and then try to take up as much space as possible when he gets to you.”
...
“I went against the No. 4 overall draft pick every day last year,” Carman said, referring to former Clemson All-American Clelin Ferrell, who now starts for the Oakland Raiders. “I go against future first-round picks here every day, so I've just got to go do my job.”
I am praying that Clemson leaves him one-on-one with Chase Young. Absolutely praying. The Predator will have Sunshine folded across his shoulder faster than you can say "Petit-Frere."
YURCICH TO TEXAS? Ryan Day said he didn't expect any more changes to the full-time staff after Jeff Hafley's departure, but we could be looking at another one-and-done as Mike Yurcich could be heading to Texas to serve as offensive coordinator for a different Ohio State offensive coordinator-turn-head-coach.
Mike Yurcich, the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State for six years before becoming passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Ohio State, is the leading candidate to become Texas’ new offensive coordinator, sources told Horns247.com.
According to sources close to the situation, Texas coach Tom Herman spent the last few days vetting Yurcich with former employers and liked what he heard.
Herman called the offensive plays the last two years at Texas and said it was taking too much time and energy away from his overall head-coaching duties.
As much as I want to act aghast that he'd willingly take a downgrade of a job at an inferior program with a worse head coach, this makes sense.
Yurcich has called his own plays since he started coaching in 2006. I'm sure it sounds fine in theory to take a back seat to a guy like Ryan Day for a while, but it's tough to fault him if a program like Texas wants to hand him play-calling duties. I don't know of many offensive coordinators that don't want to call their own plays.
If Yurcich does join the Longhorns, The University of Texas is becoming quite the cradle of former Ohio State offensive coordinators. I'm honestly shocked they haven't given Jim Bollman an interview at this point.
THE DISRESPECT. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but noted 2002 championship game loser Jonathan Vilma spewed an egregiously bad one on national television this weekend.
Bulliten Board Material for Shaun and the rest of the Defense....... pic.twitter.com/lLsLM7au6a
— Daddy's Ball Podcast (@podcast_daddy) December 21, 2019
A few things...
- With a straight face, he uses last year's Alabama squad as a comparable team. This Ohio State team is the No. 2 passing defense in the country. Alabama barely cracked the top-50 last year. That's comparing apples to crescent wrenches. It's like saying "Clemson shredded Duke (a better passing defense than Bama) last year. Therefore, Ohio State has no chance."
- Shaun Wade could very well be a first-round talent, and pretty much every draft evaluator will tell you that if you ask (oddly enough, so will your eyes, if you use them). Just because he plays opposite of the best corner in the country does not make him ungreat. You'd be a moron if you spewed this same opinion about Denzel Ward in 2016 when he played with Gareon Conley and Marshon Lattimore, and he's a moron now.
- "The other matchup." Vilma actually told on himself here, because when he talks about "the other matchup," he should be talking about Damon Arnette, since Wade plays mostly nickel. So if the #take itself wasn't atrocious enough to let you know that he hasn't watched a damn second of film, that should do definitely do it.
Also, I love that Randy Wade is the one who posted the video. I'd say there's a safe chance it made its way to Shaun.
In any case, I certainly hope Clemson follows Vilma's advice and devises an entire gameplan around testing Shaun Wade.
NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. A defective soda machine killed two McDonald's workers in Peru... A court rules that British MI5 agents can murder, kidnap and torture... Six elementary school students stick their tongues to icy poles... A man caused a scene at a gas station after an employee refused to buy his can of Spam... Physicists the measured forces behind why Cheerios clump together in your bowl... A school project reveals that minestrone soup might combat malaria... How a teen pulled off a legendary punk rock show in the back room of a Denny's.
