Welcome to the Skull Session.
Heard some reports about The Ohio State University men's basketball team on Thursday.
A lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of good players.
— Ohio State Hoops (@OhioStateHoops) January 31, 2025
BUCKEYES WIN #Team126 | #GoBucks pic.twitter.com/yuFuhY3zlH
Have a good Friday.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. Jay Moseley, full-time Ohio State men’s golf coach and part-time comedian.
This week, Moseley poked some fun at the “golf-cart incident” involving Ryan Day, Will Howard, Cody Simon and a poor College Football Playoff staffer after the national championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Public Service Announcement pic.twitter.com/XhIoWVo9X3
— Ohio State Mens Golf (@OhioStateMGOLF) January 29, 2025
In an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Day discussed his experience with the incident, explaining how it made him “come right back to earth” after Ohio State won the national title.
“Well, you’re stressed during the game. You finally take a deep breath. And we get in the golf cart to go to the press conference and we are just gunning it through the field. I mean, just dodging around people,” Day told Fallon. “I’m grabbing on (to the cart), and then we took the corner and hit the wall. If you look back, Will Howard’s laughing his tail off, and so is Cody Simon. And I’m looking like, ‘You got to be kidding me right now.’ It’s just amazing how you come right back to earth like 20 minutes after (winning the championship).”
Fallon noted that the incident looked like a scene out of Austin Powers. Day agreed.
“That’s what I said! I said, ‘We’re in Austin Powers right now.’”
.@ryandaytime reacts to @OhioStateFB winning the College Football Playoff National Championship! #FallonTonight #B1GFootball pic.twitter.com/L7R7SY1O2j
— The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) January 28, 2025
That’s too good.
A MOVIE IN THE MAKING. This past season, Emeka Egbuka, Jeremiah Smith, Carnell Tate and Brandon Inniss received the most attention in Ohio State’s wide receiver room. Yet, there were more than four pass-catchers in Zone 6 – 12, to be exact. One of those 12 was Nolan Baudo, a sophomore walk-on from Chicago.
This week, Tim O’Brien of Baudo’s hometown news outlet, The Beverly Review, interviewed him to learn more about his experience winning a national championship with the Buckeyes. Baudo, whose Ohio State bio states that he is one of the most popular people on the team, had some excellent stuff to share.
The article, like Ohio State’s championship run, started with the team’s loss to [REDACTED].
“The loss to [REDACTED] was a heartbreaker. I don’t even know how to describe it,” Baudo told O’Brien. “That (players-only) meeting though, that will be a movie one day. When we walked out of that room, I thought, ‘There is no way we’re not winning the national championship.”
Baudo, Tate’s teammate at Marist High School before Tate transferred to IMG Academy, said he and his teammates are still processing the emotions of the roller-coaster season that ended with a College Football Playoff title.
“It was unreal. I’m just so happy for the guys and the team,” he said. “The work we put in to be in that spot is indescribable. We showed everyone in the country who we are. The game brought me to tears. I was bawling my eyes out and hugging anybody I could find. It was just so amazing. This team, these guys will be legends in Columbus forever.”
Baudo’s emotion comes as a result of The Brotherhood, he said.
“The love I have for these guys, it’s real. We’ve created that brotherhood at Ohio State,” Baudo said. “These are my best friends for life. The win wasn’t about me. Seeing what the guys did working to get the win, it was awesome.”
As I said, Baudo had some excellent stuff – except for one part, being the last part: The win wasn’t about me. Seeing what the guys did…
No, Baudo didn’t earn a snap in the College Football Playoff or score a touchdown in the championship game, but Ohio State’s championship is as much about him as it is about Egbuka, Smith or Tate. Day repeats the phrase, “We are gonna need everybody,” all the time. That means everybody, from head coach to walk-on to low-level staffer – everybody contributed to the Buckeyes winning the title!
“I’M STILL FEELING IT.” It’s been over a week since the national championship game, yet Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard is still recovering from the shots he took from the Silver Bullets in Atlanta.
“I’m still feeling it. Those dudes could hit. I took a lot of them,” Leonard said at the Senior Bowl, where he is one of five quarterbacks at the event, along with Alabama’s Jalen Milroe, Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart, Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel and Laurier’s Taylor Elgersma.
Leonard carried the ball 17 times for 40 yards and one touchdown against Ohio State, numbers that include Sonny Styles’ 11-yard sack and JT Tuimoloau’s 2-yard sack in the third and fourth quarters.
Of his 17 carries, nine (!) occurred on Notre Dame’s first possession. After Leonard plunged in the end zone to cap off an 18-play, 75-yard, 10-minute scoring drive, the 6-foot-4, 216-pound quarterback ran to the sidelines, vomited and stumbled to the bench area, according to Molly McGrath of ESPN. He finished the game 22-of-31 passing for 255 yards and two touchdowns. Both of those passing touchdowns came in the second half, as Leonard connected with wide receiver Jayden Greathouse for 34 and 30-yard scores.
I have a ton of respect for Leonard and his performance. He pushed himself to the brink, and he never quit – even when Notre Dame was down 31-7 with seven minutes left in the third quarter. That’s admirable!
BIG NUT, BIG SCHOLARSHIPS. His name is Jon Peters, but we know him as Big Nut. Following Ohio State’s national championship, Big Nut will award 16 scholarships worth $500 each at 14 high schools in Northwest Ohio.
“For me, knowing that I’m not a Buckeye graduate, it’s a form of healing for me because it helps me deal with the fact that I’ll never have that feeling, the ultimate feeling, of walking across the stage and receiving that diploma from Ohio State because I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, as some people say. I’m a blue-collar guy. I work in a factory,” Peters told WTGV Action News in Toledo.
Peters, 64, has worked at Whirlpool in Clyde, Ohio, for the past 42 years. Although he never received a degree from Ohio State, he appears to have made a decent living. Throughout his years supporting the Buckeyes, he has awarded $330,000 in scholarships to attend the school. He’s awarding more this year to celebrate the program’s ninth national championship.
“It was just phenomenal,” Peters said, reflecting on Ohio State’s win over Notre Dame. “That’s what you play for, first and foremost, is to win that national title and be No. 1.”
Big Nut.
Big Scholarships.
Massive W.
SONG OF THE DAY. "Everything In Its Right Place" - Radiohead.
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