Welcome to the Skull Session.
Give it up for Ohio State's latest DUDES OF THE WEEK, Emeka Egbuka and Lorenzo Styles Jr.
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) February 14, 2024
@emeka_egbuka x @LorenzoStyles_ pic.twitter.com/i3TOLBF2w3
Have a good Friday.
WELCOME TO THE BIG LEAGUES, 33. In a press conference on Feb. 7, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day said he still needed time to evaluate who will become his 10th full-time assistant coach and what role that coach will fulfill for the Buckeyes.
“We’ve had multiple conversations,” Day said. “We can go multiple different directions. But we’re still not ready to make a decision there yet. We’ve talked to some people, but we’re probably about a week away there.”
One week came and went – yet, there was no announcement.
Then Thursday arrived. At long last, Day promoted James Laurinaitis to linebackers coach.
Laurinaitis was the logical choice to become Ohio State's 10th assistant. He was a three-time All-American and Butkus Award winner for the Buckeyes. He was a defensive stalwart for the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints. He was a graduate assistant for Notre Dame in 2022 and Ohio State in 2023.
“I have been impressed,” Day said of Laurinaitis last week. “I think he has a bright future in coaching. He’s only been doing it a couple of years, but playing has allowed him to get perspective. He has credibility with the guys. That was part of it, too, was being able to get (him) on the road for a couple of weeks. He had never done that before because he didn’t come up as a coach. That was good for him to get out there. He’s done a really nice job. He’s a big asset.”
That was tremendous praise. But Day's actions would speak louder than his words. After a week – more like a few weeks, as Ohio State fired Perry Eliano and Parker Fleming in January – the Buckeyes still hadn't promoted Laurinaitis.
It became fair to wonder if Day would add a second defensive line coach as a succession plan for when Larry Johnson retires. (Ohio State had been connected to Miami defensive ends coach Jason Taylor, a Pro Football Hall of Famer who played college football at Akron). Day also contemplated the addition of a new special teams coordinator.
Whatever direction Day chose, he wanted to hire the correct person, someone who could make an impact organizationally and culturally.
"Finding the right guy will be what’s important," Day said.
Ultimately, the right guy was there all along.
It was Laurinaitis.
I can't wait to see the kind of impact he makes as an assistant. If it's anything close to the one he made as a player, we will be in for a treat in 2024 and beyond.
THE FORMULA! With every Buckeye returning next season and the addition of five instant-impact transfers, Ohio State has the second-best odds (behind Georgia) to win the College Football Playoff in 2024. This week, Bill Connelly of ESPN revealed his preseason SP+, and – you guessed it – the Bulldogs and Buckeyes are the top two teams in the rankings.
Guess who's all coming back? Every Buckeye.
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) February 5, 2024
Spring practice pic.twitter.com/ihTlbdSCtT
Here’s how Connelly creates the preseason SP+:
1. Returning production. The returning production numbers are based on rosters I have updated as much as possible to account for transfers and attrition. Combine last year's SP+ ratings and adjustments based on current returning production numbers, and you're pretty far down the projections road.
2. Recent recruiting. This piece informs us of the caliber of a team's potential replacements (and/or new stars) in the lineup. It is determined by the past few years of recruiting rankings in reverse chronological order (the most recent class carries the most weight). Beginning last season, I also began incorporating transfers -- both the quality and the volume -- into the recruiting rankings part as well.
3. Recent history. Using a sliver of information from previous seasons (2-4 years ago) gives us a good measure of overall program health. It stands to reason that a team that has played well for one year is less likely to duplicate that effort than a team that has been good for years on end (and vice versa), right?
I will update these numbers in May and August after there have been further transfers and roster changes. And I learned my lesson last year: While I have historically begun my season preview series in February following the release of these projections, I am waiting until May this time around. There's no point in telling you about my 10 favorite players in Conference USA or something when seven of those players might leave a week after the preview goes up.
A reminder on SP+: It's a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking. Along those same lines, these projections aren't intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather to date.
Here’s what the top 10 looks like as of now:
| TEAM | SP+ | OFF. SP+ | DEF. SP+ | ST SP+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GEORGIA | 34.5 | 46.9 (2) | 12.5 (5) | 0.7 (4) |
| OHIO STATE | 30.1 | 35.9 (20) | 5.8 (1) | 0.5 (20) |
| OREGON | 29.3 | 47.2 (1) | 17.9 (15) | -0.2 (85) |
| TEXAS | 28.7 | 44.6 (5) | 15.9 (10) | 0.5 (17) |
| MICHIGAN | 27.0 | 32.9 (32) | 5.9 (2) | 0.6 (7) |
| ALABAMA | 26.6 | 42.3 (7) | 15.7 (8) | 0.7 (2) |
| PENN STATE | 25.6 | 36.1 (18) | 10.6 (4) | 0.4 (28) |
| OLE MISS | 25.2 | 43.1 (6) | 18.0 (16) | 0.5 (26) |
| NOTRE DAME | 24.1 | 39.8 (10) | 15.7 (9) | 0.2 (53) |
| LSU | 23.5 | 46.2 (3) | 22.7 (34) | -0.1 (83) |
With Oregon, Michigan and Penn State also in the top 10, Ohio State will have quite the road to the College Football Playoff, as the Buckeyes will travel to Eugene (Oct. 12) and State College (Nov. 2) before it hosts “That Team Up North” in The Game (Nov. 30). If the Buckeyes can beat the Ducks, Nittany Lions and Wolverines, there should be no doubt that Ryan Day and Co. can win the whole f— thing in 2024.
“HE’S ALWAYS GOT ANSWERS.” The past week of Skull Sessions has been full of Chip Kelly #content, and I want to take this chance to apologize... to absolutely nobody ... because I have loved all of it.
On Thursday, Bruce Feldman of The Athletic talked with six coaches who either worked with or coached against Kelly when he was at Oregon (2007-12) and UCLA (2018-23). Feldman asked those coaches about Kelly's renowned run game, how his offense has evolved and how he creates matchup problems for defenses. Here are some of their comments:
Chip Kelly with Ohio States talent? What will the Buckeyes offense look like in 2024? Coaches whove faced him and whove worked with him explain why his offenses are so tough to defend: https://t.co/jfrLii8BH9 https://t.co/jfrLii8BH9
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) February 15, 2024
The Run Game
“As a play caller, he sees the entire field better than anyone I’ve ever been around and can really see the deficiencies in a defense,” said a veteran coach who worked with Kelly at UCLA. “He’s very creative. You’re gonna get something different every single week. You’re gonna get a different formation, motion, shift — he’s gonna build the solution like he’s doing something else, but really he’s doing the same stuff. You just don’t know what you’re gonna get. One week, you could be spread out and be in 10 personnel, and then the next week, it’ll be in 22 personnel. That’s the hardest thing about defending him.”
“Everything has got a triple-rule off it,” [a coach who worked with Kelly] said. “You could be reading the backside end, and the QB could be pulling it or he could be kicking it out on an RPO. If you look at his offense, he’s doing it out of 11 and 12 personnel, but it’s really 22 personnel with all of his scan series. If you think you’ve got him by bringing an extra safety down into the box, he’ll have an extra guy to go scan to go block him. He’ll always have a hat for a hat. He’s never gonna run into a situation where someone is gonna run free. ... He’s always got answers.”
How Kelly's Scheme Evolved
“He does a good job of creating leverage with his motions and his formations,” said a defensive line coach who faced Kelly’s UCLA team at multiple schools. “He really pushes you in terms of your alignment, and once he finds a way to attack you, he stays with it until you get it fixed. ... He’ll scheme you up on these small, minute things that’ll give you problems. And that’s the hardest part about coaching. It’s not getting up and mimicking all these defenses and offenses. It’s: Can you adjust and fix problems on the fly?”
How Kelly Creates Matchup Problems
“It’ll be just a few complements off their core stuff that is really challenging,” said a defensive coordinator who faced Kelly once at UCLA and lost. “You can go and scout them and you’ll see there’ll be certain plays that only showed up against one team. But you don’t know if that’s gonna come back and cycle back to you. He’s got a big rolodex, especially when you’re talking about the different window dressing. When we broke him down, we said, this showed up as one of their top plays, but 90 percent of it was all against one team.”
“What gives you problems is that he’s gonna have his package of plays just for you,” the coordinator said. “It’s stuff that you haven’t scouted. It’s stuff that you haven’t necessarily prepared for. So, you’ll have to do a very good job in-game of thinking: What is he trying to do to you? What are those plays? Because you’re gonna see them again.”
“He does a good job of taking whatever the quarterback’s best at, and he’s gonna major in that,” said one of his former UCLA assistants.
Another comment that Feldman included in his article was from one of Kelly's former assistants. The assistant told Feldman that Kelly “doesn’t give a f— about what people think,” and that he is "not scared" when he calls plays.
I love that.
One of the few criticisms I have had for Day as a play caller is that he tends to shrink in high-pressure situations. He adopts a conservative approach even when he has talent like C.J. Stroud and Marvin Harrison Jr. at his disposal.
According to the coaches Feldman spoke with, Kelly is unafraid to push in his chips in high-risk, high-reward scenarios – and he'll probably come out on top, too. I can't wait to see Kelly lean on his “Rolodex” of formations, motions and shifts at Ohio State, where he will have Will Howard, TreVeyon Henderson, Quinshon Judkins, Emeka Egbuka and more executing his vision. That will be all kinds of fun.
IT’S BACK! After years of will they or won't they between Electronic Arts and the release of its announced college football game, the company revealed a trailer video for EA Sports College Football 25 – the official name of its new game – on Thursday. The company also confirmed that it will release the game this summer, with a full reveal for the game scheduled for May.
Yeah, Its really happening! Coming this summer. Full reveal in May #CFB25 pic.twitter.com/yMMXz7OeR8
— EASPORTSCollege (@EASPORTSCollege) February 15, 2024
EA Sports last released a college football game in 2013. It was called “NCAA Football 14” and had Denard Robinson on the cover. Around the time of its release, lawsuits over players’ name, image and likeness focused, in part, on video games. While EA Sports said it was open to compensating the players, the NCAA wouldn’t allow it (classic). To prevent further litigation, EA Sports ended the franchise...
... until 2021.
On Feb. 2, 2021, EA Sports announced the game would return. With NIL now in place in college sports, real players will be in the game – not QB #6, RB #32 or WR #18.
The compensation to players for being in the game is expected to be finalized at some point over the next few months, according to Matt Brown of Extra Points. OneTeam Partners will handle group licensing for the game. A lawsuit against EA Sports by another group licensing company, The Brandr Group, was withdrawn in November amid a settlement between the companies.
EA Sports College Football 25 is created with the current Madden engine. However, Chris Vannini of The Athletic reported the game will not be “a simple reskin of Madden.” Dynasty and Road To Glory modes are expected to be emphasized once again. The transfer portal and an expanded playoff will be included, and the game will have an unprecedented amount of detail, from stadium angles to music and jerseys.
In October 2023, Ohio State submitted TBDBITL songs and other gameday traditions for EA Sports to use in the game, including "Across the Field," "Hang on Sloopy," "Buckeye Battle Cry," "Script Ohio" and "Carmen Ohio." Other stadium chants, such as the "O-H-I-O" cheer that circles around Ohio Stadium and "Seven Nation Army" during kickoffs were also submitted to EA.
SONG OF THE DAY. “Mistakes” - Lake Street Dive.
CUT TO THE CHASE. Caught at border with pythons in his pants, New York City man fined and sentenced to probation... Another lunar lander rockets toward the moon for a touchdown attempt... Countdown begins for April’s total solar eclipse... Delta flight forced to turn back after maggots fall on passengers from overhead compartment... Cillian Murphy Is the man of the moment.
