Skull Session: Why Everyone Loves Joe Burrow, Michigan Looking to "Blue Out" Buckeyes, and Greg Oden Stars in Local Commercial

The Bengals are in the Super Bowl.

I'm resisting the urge to turn this Skull Session into a de facto Bengals Blog, because I know my audience and realize a solid portion of you could not be any less interested in that, but I'm going still going to get a little personal anyway. So buckle up, or keep on scrolling. Your call.

For those of you who don't know, my mom passed away pretty suddenly in September, and I was not prepared for it at all (as if you ever could be). That sort of thing stings a lot immediately, but the real pain comes in the countless times you recognize that empty hole in your life during everyday events in the following days, weeks, months, and probably years.

A place I never really expected to feel that emptiness was during this Bengals playoff run.

Now, I want to be perfectly clear: my mom did not personally give even the slightest shit about the Bengals, the Buckeyes, football, or really even sports in general. But she sure did care about me. And that was enough to make her the biggest (insert team here) fan in the world.

I've oddly missed her yelling "intercept! intercept!" whenever the Bengals are on defense. I've missed her having no clue about the score of the game until somewhere late in the third quarter. I've missed her gigantic gameday spreads that feature far more snacks than a reasonable family could consume in a week. I've missed her being so, so excited when our team wins, simply because *I* care.

I never imagined I'd be watching the Bengals in the Super Bowl. But I especially never imagined I'd be watching the Bengals in the Super Bowl without my mom.

It sure stings, and she would have been so excited for me. But I know I still have so much love in my life surrounding this historically terrible team.

I have a brother-in-law named Keith who taught me to be a Bengals fan when I was very small and they were just awful. I say in-law, but he's been in my life as long as I can remember and has never treated me any less than a real brother. And from a very young age, he took me with him everywhere – including Paul Brown stadium.

He took me to my first Bengals game in 2000. They were 4-12 that year and was one of the coldest games in team history with a windchill hitting -20. But they won, beating the Jags. I attended my second game in 2002 when the team was just 2-14 – they won that game too, beating the Saints. I did the math: the odds of me attending two games in those two seasons and seeing two wins is slightly above 3 percent. I guess I should have gone to more games.

Keith introduced me to the Bengals, and we've bonded about that (and Star Wars, and the Cincinnati Reds) ever since. But when I moved to Georgia, my dad helped fill that void. With how local the NFL product is, we couldn't watch from home and NFL Sunday Ticket wasn't offered. So my dad took me to a local sports bar to watch the Bengals play – every single Sunday. Like my mom, my dad wasn't the most interested in sports, but he was interested in me. And he was more than willing to give up his day off from work doing something I loved with me. I'll never forget that.

Now I have a beautiful wife who grew up in northeast Ohio, was a casual Browns fan and truly could not care less about the Bengals. But she's been along for the ride and cares because I care – which is becoming a pattern. She has bought me some surprise Bengals gear the past couple of weeks and even got herself a sweatshirt since "now we have to do the Bengals forever."

I won't get to watch Sunday's game with my mom. I probably won't get to watch it with Keith or my dad, either. Fortunately, my wife doesn't really have a choice, so she'll be watching with me. But no matter what, Sunday's game is going to give me plenty of feels that have very little to do with anything related to the team, the game, or the outcome.

And honestly, that's why we watch sports, isn't it?

Word of the Day: Maul.

WHY EVERYONE LOVES JOE. The whole "is Joe Burrow a Buckeye?" debate is fascinating to me because I don't think I've ever seen so much debate about a player's allegiance or who can "claim" him in my life.

It's not just Ohio State, either. Southeast Ohio claims him. Ohio University students claim him. LSU fans sure claim him. Cincinnati claims him. Everybody with any sort of tangential tie to Joe Burrow claims him.

The simplest explanation would be that he's just very good and everyone is hopping on the bandwagon. I'm sure that's true to a point, but it doesn't explain everything or else Ohio State fans would have been going nuts for Jameson Williams this season and beyond.

The real reason is that Joe Burrow might be the most likable high-profile athlete on the planet right now. And it's not because of anything he does on the field, but how he carries himself off of it.

The dude just always seems to do and say the right thing. Even at the smallest moments. And people pay attention to that.

“He’s a pretty deep guy,” Saltzman said.

“Super, super confident, and he’s not a jerk about it,” Williams said. “But he’s gonna let you know.”

How popular is Burrow in Ohio? Well, if he wins his next game, he’s in the neighborhood of space-traveling John Glenn and title-winning LeBron James. His comps are astronauts and kings.

...

But the Burrow’s reach doesn’t stop with the football program. It touches Leslie Blanchard, an adjunct professor at LSU also serving as executive director of the school’s Leadership Development Institute. Burrow took three graduate-level courses on leadership under Blanchard, all electives he pursued because he simply wanted to grow as a leader. She joked with him in the summer of 2019 that she wanted him to sign his final paper and send it back before he won a Heisman and a national championship.

After the season — and thanks to her new friendship with Burrow’s mother — Blanchard checked her mailbox. Burrow’s final paper was signed “Joey B” with the message, “Thanks for all the help.”

“I won’t lie to you, I fist bump the air every time a commentator or reporter says, ‘This man shows such great leadership for his age.’” Blanchard said. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, he does!’”

And then there's this:

At the end of the day, I truly do not care where he was developed, where he learned to throw a football so well, where he learned to be a leader, or where he learned what he knows about the game.

I would just like to have a reason to root for and personally attach myself to someone as all-around awesome as Joe Burrow. And I have a hunch that's where most Buckeye fans are, too.

DOES GREG EVER SMILE? The NIL era has its pros, cons, challenges and opportunities.

But without doubt, my favorite thing that it has brought to me is the glorious local commercials.

Like this masterpiece:

Were dealin! #ricksintern pic.twitter.com/l3qp5y0ohc
— Greg Oden (@Daddyluv2250) February 9, 2022

I don't care what NIL does to collegiate athletics in the long run, as long as I keep getting a steady stream of cringingly hilarious local television commercials featuring Buckeye players, I'll consider it a net gain.

BLUE OUT. There ain't much in life worse than losing to Michigan in football, but losing to Michigan in anything else is up there too. The Basketbucks are looking to avoid that this weekend, and it looks like they'll be doing it in front of a hostile crowd.

Rumblings that Michigan vs. Iowa hoops was going to be moved from its Feb. 17 date, but it's not still Thursday the 17th in Iowa City. Also, Saturday's game with OSU is a "blue out" with 10K rally towels being distributed at Crisler. #GoBlue
— Chris Balas (@Balas_Wolverine) February 10, 2022

Let's turn that "Blue Out" into a "blow out." See what I did there?

More seriously, I don't think I'm emotionally prepared to hear a "just like football" chant in Ann Arbor ever again. So let's go ahead and make sure Ohio State wins this game and that it isn't even close, cool? Cool.

HOLD ON, WHAT NOW? I'm unsure if legal action can be taken at this point, but I just thought all my fellow alums needed to know this information.

Man osu alum did yall know laundry is free on campus now????
— celly (@lgndary) February 10, 2022

To be fair, nothing that's "free" on campus is actually "free," but when you're a student, any fee that's baked into your tuition feels a hell of a lot different than having to pony up cash every time you need your clothes to not smell like Natty.

SONG OF THE DAY. "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses.