Skull Session: Ohio Stadium Needs New Turf, Ohio State Will End Its Regular Season With Six Straight Noon Games and Several Buckeyes Bring Home Accolades After the Purdue Game

By Chase Brown on November 12, 2024 at 5:00 am
Will Howard
Samantha Madar / Columbus Dispatch
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Welcome to the Skull Session.

I like Diebler Ball. I like it a lot.

Have a good Tuesday.

 THANK YOU, VETERANS. I goofed on Monday. I goofed hard. I failed to remember that Monday was Veterans Day! 

While I didn’t acknowledge Veterans Day in the Skull Session, I spent some time on Monday reading about Buckeyes who served in the military. One of them was the late great Woody Hayes. Before Monday, I knew Hayes loved the military, but I didn’t know he served during World War II. At least, I don’t think I did. Regardless, discovering more about the coach’s tenure in the Navy inspired me, so I decided to share what I learned here.

In the summer of 1941, Hayes enlisted in the Navy. He requested active duty and became a Lieutenant Commander during World War II. Hayes commanded PC 1251 in the invasion of Palau and the USS Rinehart in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Hayes was crossing through the Panama Canal when his alma mater, Denison University, hired him as its head football coach.

“People talked about how devoted Woody is to football. He was just as dedicated to the Navy,” Hayes’ wife, Anne, said. “Why, we had been married only five days when he asked for sea duty. He didn’t get it at once, but he did request it. Stevie (their son) was nearly nine months old before Woody saw him for the first time.”

When Hayes’ five years of service ended, the military never left him. Throughout his coaching career, he lectured players on military history and used war analogies to explain football to them. Hayes even designed a running play for Pete Johnson called “Patton,” named after United States Gen. George Patton. 

In addition to coaching football, Hayes was an associate professor at Ohio State. As such, he spent a lot of time at the Faculty Club discussing the American Revolution, Civil War and both World Wars with the school’s other professors and academics. Patton, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon were among Hayes' favorite people to quote in those conversations.

Believe it or not, Hayes and Nixon were close. The former president eulogized Hayes at his funeral in Columbus. Nixon told a story about their first meeting, one in which Nixon wanted to talk football and Hayes wanted to talk foreign policy.

“You know Woody,” Nixon said. “We talked foreign policy.”

He continued: “For 30 years thereafter, I was privileged to know the real Woody Hayes. I knew the man behind the myth. Instead of a know-nothing Neanderthal, I found a renaissance man with a consuming interest in history and a profound understanding of the forces that moved the world.”

The legendary Wayne Woodrow Hayes. May we all strive to be like him, men and women, with a consuming interest in history, a profound understanding of the forces that moved the world – and a love for the Buckeyes… that, too.

 NEXT UP, NEW TURF. I want to write a letter to the Ohio State athletic department that reads:

Dear Ross Bjork, 

Ohio Stadium needs new turf.

Signed,

Chase Brown

I have considered it. I won’t do it. But I have considered it.

Ohio Stadium needs new turf or a grass surface. That’s been a message I’ve seen circulated on social media since Saturday when Will Howard and several other Buckeyes and Boilermakers skated all over the stadium’s slit-film turf – turf that was installed two years ago! 

Despite its newness, the turf has looked unsafe in the 20 games Ohio State has played on it since the start of the 2022 season. And it’s not like the turf looks aesthetic, either, as the great black gobs of greasy grimy pellets overwhelm the green, scarlet and white turf.

The bottom line is that Ohio State’s turf is a bad look for one of America’s top college football programs. It will continue to be a bad look until Bjork and the school’s athletic department make changes.

Now, I’m not a turf expert. I won’t pretend to know what those changes should be. However, I do know that Ohio State receives between $80 million and $100 million annually from the Big Ten’s media deal with FOX, CBS and NBC – a deal the Buckeyes have earned in 2024 with six games on FOX (!) as well as two on CBS, one on NBC and one on Peacock. (More on that in a moment).

Perhaps Bjork and the athletic department can head to Ohio State’s top-10-ranked turf management school, talk options and then invest some of that cash to improve the turf, install new turf or, the best of all three options, install some grass. 

No matter the solution, Ohio Stadium’s surface needs to be better – It needs to be better! – and I hope the Buckeyes work to improve it as soon as possible.

 THAT’S WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR. The Buckeyes will end their regular season with six straight noon games. Six… straight… noon games. 

Yes, it’s outrageous – it's unfair! But it’s the reason Ohio State has made and will make mountains of cash from FOX, CBS and NBC until 2030. As one of college football’s premier brands, Ohio State carries the Big Ten’s water. It’s done that this season. It will do that next season, and the season after that, and the season after that.

In the current media contract, carrying the water also means falling on the sword. FOX receives the top three picks in the annual television draft, and then CBS, NBC and Big Ten Network get their selections. That means a lot of noon and 3:30 p.m. but not a lot of 7:30 p.m. or 8 p.m. for the Buckeyes – now and in the future.

I don’t know what Ohio State’s coaches and players think about that (the Eleven Warriors team should ask them), but most fans think it's ridiculous and stupid. I hear you. But I also hear the bill counter in Tony Petitti and Ross Bjork’s offices sorting Benjamin Franklins. In today’s college football, the latter sound wins 1000 times out of 1000.

 PLAYERS OF THE GAME. On Sunday, Ohio State named TreVeyon Henderson, Jack Sawyer, JT Tuimoloau and Caden Curry as its Players of the Game from its win over Purdue.

Also on Sunday, Eleven Warriors selected Henderson, Jeremiah Smith and Tuimoloau as our Three Stars of the Game.

And on Monday, the Big Ten named Will Howard as its Offensive Player of the Week and Smith as its Freshman of the Week.

That’s a lot of accolades for the Buckeyes.

I guess that’s what you get when you demolish a Big Ten team 45-0!

 SONG OF THE DAY. "Slipping Through My Fingers" - ABBA.

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