Skull Session: A Tale of Two Jims, Jaxon Smith-Njigba is WR1 for the 2023 NFL Draft and C.J. Stroud Earns All-Bowl Team Recognition From PFF

By Chase Brown on January 9, 2023 at 5:00 am
Jim Tressel
Gary A. Vasquez / USA TODAY Sports
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Welcome to the Skull Session.

Ohio State football has some new faces on campus. Time to turn them into Buckeyes.

Let's have a good Monday, shall we?

 JUSTICE FOR TRESSEL. In case you haven't heard about it by now, the NCAA issued a Notice of Allegations to Michigan football and Jim Harbaugh last week, including four Level II violations and one Level I violation.

The first set of Level II violations are not considered serious, but the Level I violation is, as Harbaugh provided false or misleading information to the NCAA while they investigated the Michigan head coach regarding his contact with two high school prospects during the COVID-19 recruiting dead period.

My thoughts on this whole ordeal? Who cares.

Ari Wasserman of The Athletic shares those feelings with me. He wrote an article on Friday about how the NCAA no longer holds power over college football, leaving any action they take against Michigan and Harbaugh meaningless.

To prove his point, Wasserman reminded his readers of 2011, when the NCAA dropped the hammer on Jim Tressel and Ohio State for “Tattoogate,” a scandal in which a group of Buckeye players sold their possessions for cash and free services such as tattoos, causing Tressel to resign, Terrelle Pryor to leave for the NFL and the remaining players to serve lengthy suspensions.

If what Harbaugh did occurred 10 years ago, like Tressel, “Harbaugh would be called an evil cheater who does things the wrong way,” Wasserman wrote. However, the NCAA has changed a lot since then.

Remember when the NCAA sat on its hands during COVID and let individual conferences do whatever they pleased?

Or when the NCAA refused to create a comprehensive plan for NIL and let individual states across the country put their own laws and legislation into place?

Or when the NCAA, who championed the amateur sports model forever, let free agency come to college football without any restraints on the money that cash-rich boosters or collectives could dish out to high school recruits or players in the transfer portal? Oh wait, that's happening now...

Because all of that (and more) is true about the NCAA today, Harbaugh will get what? A slap on the wrist? A two-game suspension? And that’s if he doesn't dart for the NFL in the offseason.

It's all so dumb, and it makes my heart break for Tressel, who should have had the chance to leave Ohio State on his terms. To be spoken of as the coach who took over the rivalry with Michigan, who Broke the U in 2002 (shameless plug) and who put the Buckeyes back on the map.

Tressel
Ohio State honored the 2002 national championship team and former head coach Jim Tressel between quarters of the Ohio State and Notre Dame game at Ohio Stadium on Sept. 3, 2022. (Photo: Kyle Robertson / USA TODAY)

We should be able to do all of that without the mention of Tattoogate. Unfortunately, with how it ended, we will always have to include it as an asterisk to an otherwise brilliant coaching career with the Buckeyes.

As Wasserman wrote:

Time and perspective has healed plenty of the wounds Tressel’s resignation created. But on a day like [Friday] — when the mighty Michigan Wolverines, the program that does things the right way at all turns, are in the NCAA’s crosshairs — can we all just agree to let this stuff go? Can we come together to recognize how utterly ridiculous all of this is?

Everyone should remember Tressel for the man he was at Ohio State. Yes, his dominant record against Michigan and national title speak to his on-the-field accomplishments. But you also won’t find anyone who played for Tressel who wouldn’t stand by his side in battle. He was a wonderful man in the community. He made a difference to every single player on his team, and he’s as beloved of a figure as you’ll ever find in the Ohio State football record books.

When we talk about Tressel’s Ohio State legacy, is it possible for us to not feel forced to mention Tattoo-gate? Can we finally acknowledge how criminal — yes, criminal — it was that Tressel lost his job over that?

Yes, it was criminal. But that was over a decade ago. The NCAA's time is over, so we can talk about Harbaugh's violations as they are: Nonsense.

 JSN IS WR1. When Ohio State wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba opted out of the Peach Bowl and CFP to work his hamstring back to full strength and prepare for the 2023 NFL draft, he received criticism from quite a few people – Buckeye fans and non-Buckeye fans alike.

The most notable criticism Smith-Njigba received was from anonymous NFL scouts, at least in the words of ESPN’s Todd McShay, who said talent evaluators had concerns as to whether or not JSN was “healthy enough to play” in the playoff but chose the option of “protecting himself for the draft” rather than attempting to win a championship with his teammates.

JSN's father, Maada, and brother, Canaan, defended him on Twitter and claimed McShay’s report about Smith-Njigba's health was unfair to the Ohio State product's efforts to return for the Buckeyes this season. Despite those claims, McShay hasn't budged on where he's ranked JSN in the mock draft process since early December, ranking him as the third-best prospect at the position for 2023.

How-evuh, Matt Miller, another mock draft analyst for the alleged worldwide leader in sports, has officially released his top 10 receiver prospects for the draft, along with NFL comps for those players. Here is some of what he said about JSN:

[...] Scouts are unsure how to grade a player who missed so much time with a hamstring injury and who was not the No. 1 target at Ohio State during the 2021 season, when the Buckeyes had Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson on the roster.

"He's scary [as a prospect], because when he's out there, he's so good -- but hamstring injuries have a way of coming back," one NFC area scout said.

But another scout says they are not worried about Smith-Njigba's hamstring injury, citing Ja'Marr Chase and Micah Parsons opting out of their final year of college and instantly producing in the NFL. "As long as he's healthy in September, he's the only [wide receiver] in this class that is a true WR1."

“Smith-Njigba remains my top-ranked wideout because of what we have seen: eight straight games of over 95 yards to close out the 2021 season and the greatest bowl game ever for a wide receiver. He has shown excellent body control at 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds while showcasing the burst and agility to create separation against NFL-caliber defenders. The injury must be weighed in the evaluation, but a healthy JSN is the best receiver in the class.”

As long as he's healthy in September – and he should be a year after the injury, no? – he's the only receiver in the class that is a true WR1. That's high praise.

Miller’s NFL comp and team fits for JSN? CeeDee Lamb of the Dallas Cowboys (who is quite good at football!), while also tabbing the Atlanta Falcons, Houston Texans and New York Giants as great destinations for the Rockwall, Texas, native.

Speaking of Smith-Njigba and Rockwall, the future NFL receiver is now the namesake of an award presented to the best high school football player from schools in the Rockwall area, which is pretty neat. JSN tweeted about the honor over the weekend:

 C.J STROUD → ALL-BOWL TEAM. *Exhales*... *Inhales*... Those first two sections were a lot of reading, so I apologize. Let me do something brief for this section to allow us all to take a deep breath and refocus.

As bowl games wrapped up last week, Pro Football Focus released its All-Bowl Team. The headliner was C.J. Stroud.

According to PFF, Stroud's best performance of the season came in Atlanta as the third-year Buckeye received a 91.9 passing grade and a 70.1 rushing grade from the analytics-based website – good for a 92.2 overall mark.

Stroud's efforts in the Peach Bowl were unquestionably great as he put forth his best game of the season as Ohio State's quarterback, perhaps his best game across both years in the role. It unfortunately wasn't enough to send the Buckeyes to the national championship that will be played tonight, but it was fun to watch nonetheless.

 OLYMPIC VILLAGE. Folks, I can't talk enough about the Ohio State women's basketball team. Kevin McGuff’s squad is flat-out good and has a legitimate shot at reaching the Final Four, and that's not hyperbole.

The Buckeyes' latest display of greatness came against a 14-win Illinois team that visited the Schottenstein Center on Sunday. While Ohio State won the contest 87-81, the final score doesn't tell the complete story.

Ohio State trailed Illinois 47-37 at halftime and the Illini extended their lead to 17 points midway through the third quarter. The Buckeyes, amid a program-best 16-0 start to the season, could have waved the white flag and called it a day. Nobody would have blamed them. It wasn't their day.

Nope! That's not how this team rolls.

Behind a 31-point performance from Taylor Mikesell and a 22-point effort from Cotie McMahon, Ohio State stormed back from 17 down and beat Illinois to set a program record for the largest second-half comeback in program history and improve to 17-0 on the season. Simply phenomenal stuff.

If you haven’t hopped on the Ohio State women’s basketball train yet, do it now. This team is really, really fun. Let's see how far this team takes this puppy.

 SONG OF THE DAY. “Maybe IDK” by Jon Bellion.

 CUT TO THE CHASE. Luck, Wisconsin lives up to its name: Winning Megabucks ticket sold there... Stealing home? Man accused of burglarizing Brewers clubhouse... No cash, no bank heists in Denmark; criminals now go online... Wells Fargo executive fired, arrested after allegedly peeing on woman.

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