Welcome to the Skull Session.
This is March.
ALABAMA STATE TAKES A LEAD IN THE FINAL SECOND #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/TktQHBcwo9
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 19, 2025
Have a good Wednesday.
START FROM SCRATCH, “BUILD FROM THERE.” There are several reminders of Ohio State’s national championship run inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center – a championship banner and the College Football Playoff trophy among them.
Still, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day said Monday that the team’s leadership committee has expressed its desire for fewer championship mementos around the practice facility. Why? Because the 2025 Buckeyes don’t want to live off the 2024 team’s laurels.
“They realized that we didn’t win a national championship. Last year’s team did,” Day said. “That was a good start because that’s the right mentality to have. We’re going to start this thing from scratch and build from there.”
I love this mindset.
Ohio State is hungry to defend its throne!
That hunger starts with Ryan Day and the leadership committee.
“When I had the chance to become the head coach at Ohio State, you walk down the hall, and you see Woody Hayes and (Jim) Tressel and Urban (Meyer) and (John) Cooper and Earle Bruce, you pinch yourself. But a month later, you wake up, and you’re like, ‘I’m the head coach of Ohio State,’” Day said. “It’s the same thing with winning a national championship. Some days, you wake up, and you almost forget you won it. Life moves on. It just does. And so it’s on to the next challenge. It’s on to the next group of guys.”
“WE JUST HAVE TO GET OVER THE HUMP.” In an appearance on WOSU’s All Sides with Amy Juravich, Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork expressed disappointment that Jake Diebler and the men’s basketball team missed the NCAA Tournament this season.
“We’re always disappointed,” Bjork said. “We really played some meaningful games down the stretch. Excellence is the standard here. Anytime you miss out on postseason opportunities, of course you are disappointed. When we hired Jake, Jake has done a great job of changing the culture, changing the mindset. How we operate the program is at a completely different level than the previous regime. Now we just have to get over the hump. We need to be in the conversation of competing for Big Ten championships, a strong run in the postseason.”
Bjork also seemed discouraged with how Ohio State finished the season, which is understandable. I certainly was. Heck, remember when I said the Buckeyes could win each of their last 11 games? I said that – I really said that – in a Skull Session I wrote on Jan. 29…
Ohio State didn’t win each of its last 11 games, but it was still poised to make a triumphant return to the NCAA Tournament after a 73-70 win over Maryland. The Buckeyes then finished year 3-6 with wins over Washington, USC and Nebraska and losses to Michigan, Northwestern, UCLA, Indiana and Iowa. Their matchup with the Hoosiers was seen as a play-in for the Big Dance, and despite a five-point lead with five minutes remaining, the Buckeyes floundered to a 66-60 loss.
Bjork, like all of us, wonders how it all fell apart for Ohio State.
“Anytime you’re in this competitive world, you want to win at the highest level, so when you have those disappointments, you analyze, ‘OK, what do we need?’” Bjork said. “How do we finish these games where we had the lead with five minutes left, with seven minutes left? Those are the things we have to get over. Jake knows that. The staff knows that. The players know that.”
Bjork then explained Ohio State’s choice to pass on the postseason, though he basically repeated what Diebler said on his radio show, like team health, the transfer portal — you know, that whole spiel. However, Bjork acknowledged the decision does little to build enthusiasm for the program; therefore, he has tasked Diebler with rebuilding it via roster construction this summer.
“We have work to do in many aspects,” Bjork said. “We need to change the narrative around the scope of the program. We’ve got to get our fans plugged in. Disappointment is the word, but now we’ve got to go to work. Jake is already at work building that roster and making sure we’re in the competitive landscape.
“We’ve got the right ingredients. We’ve been in the hunt for a long time. Jake’s the right guy. He’s got vision. He’s got energy. He relates to the players in this modern era. We’ve just got to get over the hump, and there’s a lot of work happening behind the scenes to get that done.”
HE’S GOT A POINT! While College football programs like Texas, USC and Nebraska canceled their spring games, Colorado is looking for ways to revolutionize the offseason scrimmage.
On April 19, ESPN will televise Colorado’s spring game on ESPN2. It will be the Buffaloes’ first nationally televised spring game since 2023, which drew 551,000 viewers.
“We got to sell this thing out and pack this thing, because the way the trend is going, you never know if this is going to be the last spring game,” Sanders said Monday. “I don’t believe in that, and I don’t really want to condone that, and I would like to play – I actually would like to play against another team this spring. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Syracuse coach Fran Brown posted on X that he would be willing to take Sanders up on the spring game idea. An NCAA rule change would need to occur before Sanders gets his wish, however, as current bylaws prevent college football teams for playing against one another in the spring, an NCAA spokesperson told ESPN.
.@DeionSanders we will come to Boulder for 3 days https://t.co/RFkyveLPv1
— Fran Brown (@FranBrownCuse) March 17, 2025
“I would like to style it like the pros (in the preseason),” Sanders said. “I would like to practice against someone for a few days, and then you have the spring game. I think the public will be satisfied with that tremendously.”
Look, I like the Ohio State spring game. I used to love it, especially when it was Kenny Guiton and Team Gray against Braxton Miller and Team Scarlet, but now I just like it. However, I think that love would return if the Buckeyes faced Akron, Bowling Green, Ohio, Miami (OH), Kent State or another in-state school in a scrimmage.
I don’t see a downside to it, really. Ohio State gets to face a fresh opponent, and an in-state Group of Five school gets to improve (and gets paid) without adding a loss to their record. I also think Sanders is correct; I think the public would be satisfied with it, too. I don’t know. Am I wrong about that? Let me know in the comments.
HOT OFF THE PRESS. In a Skull Session a few weeks ago, I featured a few pieces of artwork from an Etsy user named CodeyDraws.
What did Codey draw?
Jack Sawyer’s scoop-and-score in the Cotton Bowl and Jeremiah Smith’s 56-yard catch in the national championship game.
A few weeks later, I am here to share that Codey drew even more.
This week, he completed his collection of comic-book-inspired artwork depicting Ohio State’s national championship run with one of TreVeyon Henderson’s first touchdown run against Tennessee and Emeka Egbuka’s one-handed catch against Oregon in the Rose Bowl. Here’s a look at the complete collection, available for purchase on Etsy:
Yeah, I’ll need that ASAP!
SONG OF THE DAY. "1990" - Jon Bellion (Demo).
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