Skull Session: Justin Fields Ready for Pro Day, Nick Vannett Is More Than a Blocking Tight End and Buckeye Wrestlers Are All Over the Olympic Trials

By Andy Vance on March 30, 2021 at 5:00 am
Justin Fields
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Hello Friends. We're a little more than a week until The Masters tee off at Augusta National, and Jim Nantz will open the mic with his stock phrase. A few years back he told fellow Ohioan Dan Patrick the origin of his now long-running intro.

I thought of it this morning because this is my first Skull Session since joining Eleven Warriors, and like many of you, I've made so many incredible friends here. Thanks for stopping by to say hello.

The Skully's a big deal. Wish me luck! I'll try not to drive it into the ditch.

 Word of the day: Sesquipedalian.

 SCOUTING THE FIELD(S). If you follow NFL Draft Twitter much, you know that there's a certain amount of manufactured drama out there with regard to what super-obvious pick is going to fall to some crazy spot later in the Draft, actually.

Hey, it's a living, I get it. These clicks don't manufacture themselves! But seriously, Justin Fields is a guy who is going to get picked pretty early in the draft. How early? You may have been fooled into believing that quite a few prospects are going ahead of him, including new betting favorite Mac Jones to the 49ers with the third overall pick.

So while many of us thought private workouts weren't a thing this Draft cycle, don't give up on the 49ers making the right call so quickly, it seems.

Fields will get his shot to impress execs from the Jets, the 49ers, the Falcons, the Eagles, the Panthers, the Broncos and the Patriots at Ohio State's Pro Day this afternoon. As Albert Breer notes at Sports Illustrated, QB1 has his script down pat:

 Fun twist to all this—the architect of Justin Fields’s workout tomorrow is ex-NFL quarterback John Beck, the guy who also drew up Zach Wilson’s workout. Fields will start with four quick throws from under center and then the gun to show how fast he can get rid of the ball, and that’ll give way to a 65-throw script. There’ll be under-center throws that mirror what is typically done at the combine, staple throws from Ohio State’s offense, throws with NFL play-action concepts, and some movement throws. Then, there’ll be a few where space is shut down around him, and he has to plant his feet and throw out of a “crowded” area. The idea here is to showcase how capable he is of throwing out of any situation, which of course will highlight his high-end natural gifts. (If he runs a 40 in the low 4.4s, as the Ohio State staff thinks he will, that’d do that too.)

Hey, doesn't that sound a lot like a plan you'd draw up if you wanted to show how well you'd fit in the system of a certain team out by The Bay?

 NEW ORLEANS BUCKEYES GETTING [ANOTHER] GOOD ONE. At last check, the professional football team in the Big Easy has roughly 47 alumni of The Ohio State University on its active roster. Or close to that, at least.

It reminds me of when I started dating The Stunning Mrs. Vance, who is a lifelong fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. There were more Buckeyes playing in Pittsburgh than there were in Cleveland and Cincinnati combined, and their defense was orchestrated by The Venerable Dick LeBeau, one of the greatest Buckeyes of all time.

The latest Buckeye-turned-Saint is free agent tight end Nick Vannett, who told John DeShazier at the team's official site that his former college teammates are pretty much walking sales pitches for playing in New Orleans:

"A lot of guys I played with in college are on the team – Mike Thomas, Marshon Lattimore just to name a couple," he said. "I've talked to Mike Thomas a few times. It's not really so much what he would say, it's just kind of from the outside looking in, if you open up any social media, you'll see all the fun that the Saints have and that they have in the locker room after the game, after they win.

"It just looks like the camaraderie of the team is super special and that's very rare to find. It's very rare to find that in the NFL. When I started my career in Seattle, I think that was another place that had a very strong culture, a very strong camaraderie within the locker room. I just remember how much I enjoyed that and being a part of that.

Vannett is known for being one of the best blocking tight ends out there, but he said Saints head coach Sean Payton also wooed him by promising to – get this – throw to the tight end. Crazy talk, right?

 WE'RE GETTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER. Thad Matta to Indiana in a newly created associate athletic director-type role wasn't something I had on my bingo card, but I think it's a smart move for all parties. What kind of influence will Matta have over new head coach Mike Woodson's program?

Good question:

I'm not putting too much stock in this one, but it's worth noting that Dickerson's just 24-64 at USC-Upstate (the SC in this case refers to South Carolina, FYI), so relocating to Bloomington to work with his old boss may be one of those offers you just can't refuse.

The more interesting potential hire mentioned yesterday was Adrian Wojnarowski's news that Woodson was in discussions with 80-year-old Hall of Famer Larry Brown about an “on-campus, non-recruiting slot” on the Hoosiers staff.

I mean, why not, really. It's not like anything else Indiana has done since firing Bobby Knight has worked, so what the hell. You do you, Bloomington.

 OHIO STATE: FUTURE OLYMPIANS DEVELOPED HERE. If you thought I'd miss the chance to promote wrestling in my very first Skull Session, you thought wrong. This weekend is the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Trials in Fort Worth, Texas, and Ohio State has qualified more men for the Trials than all but one school.

Not bad, when you think about it! Headlined by Olympic gold medalist and three-time NCAA Champion Kyle Snyder, the delegation of former Buckeyes includes four-time Big Ten champ and and 2015 NCAA champion Nathan Tomasello, three-time All-American and two-time Big Ten champ Joey McKenna, four-time All-American and 2016 NCAA champion Myles Martin and four-time All-American and three-time Big Ten champion Kollin Moore.

Logan Stieber, one of only four men to win four NCAA championships, is the sixth Buckeye qualified, but will not be competing as he's retired from competitive wrestling (though not from coaching).

There are two storylines I'll be watching: first is how well NaTo (Tomasello, for those who are just now joining wrestling fandom) does in his return to competition, where he is the No. 7 seed at 57 kg in a deep, tough class.

The second is 97 kg, where Moore is the No. 1 seed. If he runs through the field, he'll face J'den Cox, the two-time reigning world champion at 92 kg in the finals Friday night; the winner of that match gets Snyder in a best-of-three series on Saturday to determine who wrestles for Team USA in Tokyo.

Matches will air either on NBCSN or stream via NBC's Peacock streaming service.

 NOT LAX ABOUT TAKING IT TO THE WOLVERINES. An Ohio State victory over That Team Up North should always be celebrated, don't you agree? The Buckeye men's Lacrosse team did the deal Saturday:

Shoutout to MOD NavyBuckeye91 — hell, shoutout to the entire MODSquad, for that matter, those guys are real dude's dudes — as he slowly but surely tries to teach me about the game of lacrosse. I'm really clear on the part where you use the stick to get the ball into the net to score points, but I'm still working on the rest of it.

That said, not only did our men's team handle their rivals to the north, but our women swept our top-10-ranked not-rivals to the east:

Taking care of business against Penn State vaulted the women back into the rankings, landing them at No. 19 in the polls this week. Nicely done, Ladies.

 DEEP THOUGHTS FROM JACK HANDEY ANDY. I got my Shot at The Schott Monday; Ohio State is on track to administer 3,000 vaccines there per day... Plant-based gets all the press, but beef is still king of the grill... Just in time for summer, COSI is reopening June 3rd... Americans waste way too much money on being dead.

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