Eleven Warriors

Fossils.

I love 'em! Little ancient monster bones buried in the dirt, they're like terrifying Easter eggs put in the ground for weird kids and weirder adults to dig up and show off to other weird kids and weird adults.

And if you were a weird kid (I was), you likely spent a fairly large percentage of your waking hours looking for fossils, hoping that by some insane stroke of luck you'd find a T-Rex femur or Deinonychus claw stuck in the sheet rock that your neighbors used to edge their lawns. After all, that's more or less how dinosaur fossils were found in the late 1800s, and if it was good enough for Othniel Marsh then it was good enough for Johnny Ginter.

One advantage that I had was that I grew up near Caesar Creek, where I did a lot of fishing and staring at rocks in order to find the remains of whatever goofy thing the Cambrian era decided to spit out into the universe. I was fascinated by the sheer amount of fossils around and how incredibly crappy most of them were; sometimes you would find a petrified shell thing, which was awesome, but most of the time it was just bits and pieces of an evolutionary dead end that we'd now serve as an appetizer at Red Lobster.

State fossils gave me hope. Because dagnabit, if there's enough of a certain type of fossil within a state to make it the official state fossil, it stands to reason that there must be literally trillions of the things buried in the ground, and all I needed to do was dig around with a trowel in my backyard long enough and I'd find one, probably way more though because I labored under the impression that I was smart.

I wasn't, and I'm not, and I never found anything cool outside of Caesar Creek or apologized to my mom for tearing up her yard. But official state fossils are still pretty rad. 

Part of the infamous clown show, the Ohio State receiving corps was coming in with little fanfare in 2012.

A year prior, the combination of an inexperienced freshman QB coupled with an offense in the absence of Jim Tressel gave the receivers few chances to showcase their abilities (See example A). The terrible mix ultimately lead to a team high 14 receptions over the course of the season.

Heading into 2012, it was evident the receivers’ heads were swimming as they struggled to grasp Coach Meyer’s spread offense.

Dropped balls, shoddy routes and a lack of a clear number 1 had everyone in Columbus fearing the worst for the passing game.

Luckily the group stepped up. While far from the best receiving corps in the country, the likes of Corey Brown, Devin Smith, Evan Spencer and Chris Fields presented themselves as a serviceable unit, able to make plays when called upon.

By now, you’ve probably seen the 2014 Ohio State and/or Big Ten football schedule. As with any football schedule, there are easier and tougher games and stretches along the way.

The Buckeyes have a schedule that seems to settle somewhere between easy and difficult, although much can happen before the 2014 season arrives. The purpose here is to take a way-too-soon look at Ohio State’s road in 2014, and also to check out some of the more interesting aspects of the B1G schedule.

Ohio State’s schedule starts with a rare neutral site contest in Baltimore on Aug. 30, against the option attack of the U.S. Naval Academy. It’s currently the only non-conference game away from Ohio Stadium. Should the Buckeyes prevail, they’ll carry all the momentum into…a bye week.

There’s still time to add a game for Sept. 6 down the road, but perhaps Urban Meyer will opt to keep that open date to adequately prepare for a home tilt against Kent State. The Golden Flashes will bring their brand of MACtion to the Horseshoe on Sept. 13

The 2014 non-conference highlight occurs seven days later when the Virginia Tech Hokies of the ACC visit the banks of the Olentangy. The non-conference schedule concludes Sept. 27 against Cincinnati. Things can get unnecessarily close for comfort when the Buckeyes and Bearcats dance.

Rod Smith is not Ohio State’s starting running back entering his junior year. His career trajectory hasn’t been in lockstep with the mental map drawn up his senior year of high school, but don’t let his place on the depth chart fool you. Smith factors in nicely for what head coach Urban Meyer and offensive coordinator Tom Herman hope to accomplish on offense.

There was no competition for the starting running back spot in the spring. Carlos Hyde’s nearly 1,000-yard season and subsequent return for his final season as a Buckeye put an end to any musical chairs. But the second-string competition also was nonexistent, and that’s because of the flare Smith displayed in Ohio State's 12-0 year.

When it comes to making the most of opportunities, Smith took the ball and ran – literally. He only received 32 carries in nine games, but his total rushing yards added up to 215, an average of 6.7 yards per carry. Two plays stick out from the others: a 33-yard touchdown run against Nebraska that included five broken tackles and a 51-yard touchdown reception versus Illinois.

Good morning. Ohio State emerged from a huge sporting weekend with mixed results – baseball lost its grip on a Big Ten crown, men's lacrosse was throttled by Cornell in NCAA quarters, and men's tennis ended USC's four-year run of NCAA titles, but it's Deshaun Thomas that leads our Monday morning.

At the NBA draft combine, teams poked and prodded Thomas, recording the vitals and metrics that will be used to evaluate where he goes. Ohio State officially listed Thomas at 6-foot-7, 215 pounds and he checked in at 6-7 in shoes (6-5 without), weighing in at 219.8 pounds.

His wingspan was 6-foot-10, not great, but not terrible, either, while his body fat – 9.1% – put him in the top five of all players tested. Or is that bottom five? At any rate, it was the second straight year a Buckeye entered the combine with higher than average body fat. Jared Sullinger's booty alone was good enough to register half of his 10.7 percent body fat last year.

I'm not sure whether that really means much. Sullinger was off to a solid NBA rookie campaign before back surgery ended his season and the NBA has seen many players on the plus side, from Charles Barkley to Shaquille O'Neal, play well while carrying a few extra pounds.

Thomas listed "Do what you do" among the bits of advice he's received from former players and coaches and that apparently means attempting to annoy the grumpiest coach in the league.

If the San Antonio Spurs choose Deshaun Thomas in next month’s NBA draft, they might have a hard time reaching him to tell him. That’s because when the Spurs asked the former Ohio State star for his phone number Wednesday night, he refused to give it to them.

Thomas said teams asked him plenty of difficult and interesting questions during his interview process at the combine. But the most interesting, he said, was the fact the Spurs’ first question was for his cell phone number and his e-mail address. He gave them the e-mail, but not the phone number.

“I can’t go around giving it out to everyone,” Thomas said Thursday with a laugh. “Now if they want to draft me, I’d be happy to give it to them.”

Umm... Yeah, Pop will love that.

The 11W Community Interview is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people. You submit the questions, vote on them, and then we pass the top ones on to the biggest names in the world of Ohio State athletics.

The subject of tonight's 11W Community Interview – our first – is Cleveland St. Ignatius junior linebacker Kyle Berger. After narrowing his list to Ohio State and Michigan, he chose the Buckeyes to become the 7th commitment in Urban Meyer's 2014 class.

We caught up with the 6-foot-2, 218-pound tackling machine a month ago, but we felt he'd be a great candidate to kick off this new series. He answers readers' questions on everything from nicknames, recruiting, school and the origin of his Twitter nom de plume.

The disappointment was brief. The dream may have been shattered, but in a matter of moments the end result was ultimately the same: an opportunity to play in the NFL.

Jake Stoneburner was not drafted. It came as a surprise to many, especially after an impressive series of workouts leading up to the draft. Stoneburner displayed the skills to front office personnel that made coaches and fans so giddy when he was being recruited. Ultimately, though, he slipped through the seven-round process.

But it’s a big boy business and that isn’t lost on Stoneburner. That’s why the mood was upbeat when the Green Bay Packers contacted him to become an undrafted free agent.  Stoneburner will keep that undrafted status in the back of his mind for a little extra motivation. 

“Teams didn’t pick you for a reason,” he said. “You’ve got to figure out what that reason was and you’ve got to take that and critique it. Take it with you to Green Bay and show teams they made a mistake in not drafting you. You don’t want to act too crazy up there and act like you’re some nut job that wishes he’d have been drafted, but you definitely have to have a chip on your shoulder.”

Photo: @OhioState_MTEN

The revenge tour for Ohio State men's tennis marches on. Two days after avenging an early season loss to No. 12 Texas A&M in the round of 16, Ty Tucker's squad knocked off USC, the tournament's four-time defending champion, in a 4-3 thriller at the University of Illinois' Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex.

The Trojans had knocked Ohio State out of two of their last four NCAA tournament appearances.

The two teams split in singles play, but the Buckeyes won the doubles point when Devin McCarthy and Ille Van Engelen won a 9-7 tie-breaker over USC's Emilio Gomez and Roberto Quiroz. The win was a bit of an upset as the higher-ranked Gomez and Quiroz had represented Ecuador in Davis Cup play in April.

The win was Ohio State's 25th in a row, but things only get tougher from here. Next up: a date with top seed UCLA (28-1) in the national semifinals at 2 p.m. Monday.

If it'll help you find these Saturday Skull Sessions any more enjoyable, just know that this feature will be replaced with game previews and afternoon open threads in just over three months. As it is, we'll talk about some miscellanous news items here and there in the wide world of college sports.

MAURICE CLARETT TRYING HIS HAND AT RUGBY. File this under the category of things of which Ohio State fans have known for some time. However, national media is picking up with this story on Maurice Clarett and running with it, so we can talk about it.

Relax: it has nothing to do with a stolen car from ten years ago, nor should it make Kirk Herbstreit afraid to send his hypothetical college age children to Ohio State to play football.

Though Maurice Clarett had a stint with the UFL's Omaha Nighthawks for two years following his release from his prison, his gridiron days may be coming to an end. Clarett is 29 years old, which is an advanced age for a professional football running back. Clarett takes diligent care of himself and the time in prison equates to less figurative tread on the tire, but that does not change his position much. As a result, Clarett is trying to make it in a similar sport: rugby. He announced not too long ago that he was serious about being an Olympian in the sport. The upcoming 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will see rugby debut as a medal-awarding sport.

Yesterday, the Columbus Dispatch announced that Maurice Clarett will be playing in the Tiger Rugby-sponsored Ohio Rugby Sevens Invitational in Mechanicsburg on May 25. Tiger Rugby is the rugby development program, based in Columbus, Ohio, that has the task of selecting a team to represent the United States in Rio in 2016.

We obviously wish Maurice Clarett well as he pursues this shot at glory in 2016. He will be 32 going on 33 when the Rio games come, but this age should mean less in rugby than in professional football. What's more germane to the conversation is learning the differences between the two games that belie their prima facie similarity.

Really, one wonders if this is the next step for former college football players and NFL washouts. Professional football has no real development program like Major League Baseball's farm system, nor does it have the multi-layered hierarchy of professional squads like European soccer. If players don't land one of 53 roster spots on a given NFL team, the options are UFL, Arena League, or Canadian Football. This would be acceptable if college football wasn't churning out prospect after prospect every year. This could become a new thing, provided there is sufficient fan interest in rugby across the United States to keep the enterprise afloat.

It been a couple of weeks since our last edition of the Ohio State Football Recruiting Notebook and quite a bit has happened in the world of OSU recruiting over that time.

The biggest news occurred this past Sunday when Gary (IN) West Side wide receiver Lonnie Johnson made a surprise Mother's Day announcement and committed to the Bucks over Kentucky and a couple of other schools. We'll have a little more on his commitment later in the notebook.

There were also a couple of recruits on campus yesterday. This marks the first time in a while the Buckeyes have hosted any prospects on campus. We'll have a little more on the two visitors Noah Furbush and Hjalte Froholdt later in this edition notebook.

There is also a report that perhaps the best defensive player in the country will be committing in a couple of weeks. This player was once very high on the Bucks, but is likely to commit to a B1G rival.

We also saw the staff continue their trek across America where they extended a bevy of offers. We'll tell you all the players who received an offer from OSU over the duration of the last seven days.

Finally we will tell you which former Buckeye targets committed to other schools and we'll take a peak into the future of Ohio State football recruiting in this week's edition of the Recruiting Notebook.