Eleven Warriors

Good morning, fellow citizens of Buckeye Nation! 

Somehow, a random sidenote about my In-N-Out craving last week sparked one of the greatest comment-reactions I've ever seen on a Friday Skull Session. In fact, it may have even rivaled the reaction to the news that a special delivery, by the name of Urban, was Columbus-bound.

So, if you must know, I'd give up Ohio State's 2012 season bowl game for some jalapeño poppers from Jack In The Box right now. You're all thinking "Yuck, Jack?! How could you, Elika?!" I know, I know... but I'm a sucker for things that have jalapeños, are stuffed with cheese, deep-fried, or come with a side of ranch. You could pretty much do all those things to a tennis shoe, and I'd eat it. I wish I was joking (and, if my mom is reading this, she's officially ready to disown me)... but, few things in life can beat an option that fulfills all four of those requirements. (Even without a side of ranch, Urban Meyer is definitely one of them.) 

And, as we always do (eventually...), let's get to it.

THE SENIOR BOWL-FOUR. The 2012 Senior Bowl in Mobile, AL kicks off tomorrow at 4pm EST. Ohio State will be well represented in the game with four players participating (Wisconsin has the most players in the game, with five), including: Mike Adams, DeVier Posey, Dan "Boom" Herron and Mike Brewster. 

For Adams, Posey and Herron this game will allow them to showcase their skills that they had to sideline for much of the season this year (five, ten and six games, respectively). Posey, who needed it most of all, has had a pretty good week down in Mobile. Here's a brief interview with Posey from the Senior Bowl yesterday, where he discusses a variety of issues, including his trouble at Ohio State. If you prefer reading, to listening, there's this interview as well. Many Buckeye fans aren't too pleased with Posey, given his hand in the recent violations, but it's nice to hear his thoughts on the whole situation and where his head is at now.

Adams in particular has really turned some heads, particularly with the way he carries his massive size on the field. Here's an interview with Adams, if you're really getting into the spirit of Friday, and putting off your work until Monday.

For a more in-depth look at how these guys have fared throughout the week, check out Alex's post on the Senior Bowl. To see the results of all these practices and workouts, tune in tomorrow.

The #1 Google Image Result for "joe mcknight heisman", lol

Long before Twitter (which is hilarious to imagine the primitive lives we all lived before the mico-blogging service blew up), when Pete Carroll was at the height of his powers, I remember logging onto the internet one day and seeing the college football realm aflame with news of a highly touted running back from Louisiana heading to LA to play for Carroll. After a vicious recruiting battle, The Trojans had found the person to fill Reggie Bush's magical tap-dancing shoes. Joe McKnight, as recruitniks told it, was destined to pick up Heisman trophy at some point in his collegiate career. 

"That bastard!" I thought, as I envisioned Pete Carroll laughing at the rest of college football while surfing naked with two USC co-eds in the Pacific on a Wednesday morning during the off-season. This, of course, came on the heels of Florida wrapping Ohio State up in chicken wire and a $30 area rug from a Boca Raton Wal-Mart and tossing Alex Boone & Co. into the Gulf of Mexico after winning the 2006-2007 national title. The nation had yet to realize the Six Finebaum-headed SEC krakken Ohio State had awoken, and I was naive enough to believe Pete Carroll was one of only a few college football coaches gaming the system. (Everything in that last paragraph hurts my soul to type.)

The mailbag is overflowing with the goods

In case you don't know, our forums have become pretty popular over the last two months. They provide our readers and staff members another great opportunity to interact and discuss issues both regarding Ohio State and the rest of the world in general on other platforms than what is published on the site. If you haven't checked them out, I suggest you begin to do so.

While all of our staff members try to do our best to answer your questions inside our articles, your blog posts, and the forums, we can't always be everywhere at once. That is why, in lieu of the weekly 11W Recruiting Notebook, I wanted to give you all a chance to ask me whatever your heart desired as we stand less then a week until National Signing Day.

I couldn't get to all of your questions, but I promised I did my best. If there is something you wanted to ask, but didn't get around to submitting it or even if you have a new question pop into your head, please feel free to post in the comments section below, and I promise I will do my best to answer it. I hope to do this again, at least once a month, so hope you all enjoy it.

Enough of my rambling. Join us after the jump for the inaugural 11W Recruiting Mailbag.

The Urban Meyer recruiting process explained.

The Ohio State Men's Basketball Team this past week delivered the force of a thousand suns in laying waste to B1G cellar dwellers Nebrasketball and Penn State. Wednesday night's action went roughly as follows:

"Sorry, Penn State. We know you've had a tough week and all but, um, we got you this 24 point loss. We forgot to get a gift receipt. Sorry about that."

With the tyrannous empire of northern ill contempt looming on the horizon, Aaron Craft seems finally to be returning to form and who knows, maybe we could soon be watching a renaissance of The WB.

Alas, that's not why many of you are here. That's not why even those amongst us (present company included) that don't eat, sleep, and breathe recruiting have a purpose for the next week. National Signing day looms ominously with but a week to go for Urban Meyer to continue to make head coaches around the country both lose sleep and require weekly consultations with Dr. Paul Weston.

In order to get the straight dope and get you covered on all things recruiting, we welcome back 11W's Senior Editor and Director of Scouting/Recruiting, Alex Gleitman. While we certainly care about the future of the program and love to celebrate little victories as much as the next, Johnny nor myself are anything close to what you could call recruiting experts. After having taped this edition of the podcast, both of us were infinitely better for it. You will be too for having listened.

The blow-by-blow for this week is as follows:

• 0:37 - We rehash the Penn State game. It was such a thorough de-pants-ing, that well, it was kind of boring at times. That's still awesome sometime. We explain what the keys were, why Jared Sullinger is sometimes being forgotten/under appreciated, and also look briefly back at the cornpocalypse that was this past Saturday's game with Bill Nebrasky (roughly around the 4:18 mark). We also look ahead to the Michigan affair that will be anything but casual nor cordial.
• 7:39 - Alex gets on the horn with us and delivers a primer for recruiting devotees and casual Buckeye fans alike. If you want to own the water cooler on national signing day, listen to this segment. Seriously, do it. Amongst the topics broached:
• 8:13 - What did Urban Meyer's transition into the OSU recruiting sphere look like? Were there any trepidations about guys already locked up by Fickell, et al.? Did Meyer seriously consider pulling any scholarship offers or are any guys still on the fringe at all?
• 9:42 - What's the health of the Glenville pipeline post-Jim Tressel? Does Meyer have any new pipelines/relationships with power programs in the state on the horizon?
• 11:41 - A meta overview of Meyer's recruiting strategy as a whole, including how it compares to Tressel/Fickell before him and just what exactly a 'committable offer' is now that Urban Meyer's administration is in full gear.
• 13:50 - Who are some of the big names still on the horizon that could be added to this 2012 recruiting class? Alex also mentions an interview soon to hit 11W you won't want to miss.
• 18:10 - Which of the guys in this class could be the best of the bunch, regardless of what some of the traditional authorities think?
• 20:24 - Just how well will the entirety of the class fit into Urban Meyer's system?
• 21:38 - And can any of these guys be immediate difference makers and see the field in year one?
• 23:49 - Our wildly popular-ish, new-ish segment "Ask Us Anything" returns with four questions from actual commenters/readers. We cover everything from how the recruiting numbers add up to whether one has to have attended the university to be able to claim "true Buckeye fandom". You won't want to miss this. 

If you have any questions, OSU related or just hilarious real life queries apropos of nothing, shoot us an e-mail. You could find your question read allowed and answered on air.

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Our intro music today comes courtesy of White Rabbits' new single from their forthcoming album, "Milk Famous", titled "Heavy Metal". It's not available for purchase, but you can get it free courtesy of the band (don't say we never gave you anything). The post-guest transitional piece is The Men's next single, "Open Your Heart", from an also yet to be released record. The final number is the new tune from another unreleased record (notice a trend here?) by Grizzly Bear's Daniel Rossen, titled "Saint Nothing". Neither of those two are purchasable yet, however, you can probably find them easily digestible (and probably free) by doing a simple Google search. If you'd still like to help the site, I'd encourage this week, in lieu of buying some great mp3s, to donate using the button in the upper right hand corner. If you enjoyed the podcast, tip us just a couple of bucks, and when the site has a full-time beat writer, the kind of info we'll have will be even better.

Hi everyone, welcome to your Thursday morning Skull Session courtesy of ElevenWarriors.com. I am your humble guide for this morning's venture, where we'll take a look at some of the things that are happening in the world of the Buckeyes and sports in general. 

If you're looking for some form of sports to look forward to tonight on TV, may I recommend that you tune in to ESPN2 at 9pm for a glimpse at terrific 1970's basketball as #17 Indiana travels to #25 Wisconsin for a B1G match up of red and white, and I do mean white.

If you're not into watching dudes play hoops unless they are wearing scarlet and gray, remember that some of TV's best comedies are still on Thursday night on NBC. Even without "Community", the lineup is still solid with "30 Rock" returning; and "The Office" has had a solid season as well after losing nearly all its funny a year ago. 

Of course, neither of those two shows can hold a candle to "Parks and Rec" as the current king of network television comedy. If you disagree with me, you're wrong.

 BUCKEYES DO IT WITH 11 DUDES. Thad Matta's history of not using his bench "enough" has been well-documented throughout the last few seasons. Despite the success he's had, Buckeye fans (like myself) continue to clamor for more PT for the youngsters on his bench. Last night's 78-54 win against Penn State shut me up, for the time being anyway, and I hope it had the same effect on you.

The Buckeyes used nine of their 11 players in the first half on their way to a 20 point half-time lead against the Nittany Lions, including a bench high seven minutes for freshman freak-athlete Sam Thompson, and the reserves played well enough to deserve to stay in the rotation. In that first half, the bench played 19 minutes and was responsible for six points, two rebounds and one assist to go against one turnover (by freshman PG Shannon Scott). While those numbers may not jump off the page, they show a developing bench that is able to be involved at different points of the game without interrupting the flow on offense and while maintaining intensity on defense.

Cam Williams can't wait to play for Urban Meyer

It was just a few months ago that West Roxbury (MA) Catholic Memorial LB Camren Williams thought his college plans were all set. The longtime Penn State commitment was excited to be the next great player at "Linebacker U" in Happy Valley where he would play under the legendary, late Joe Paterno and help the Nittany Lions try to win Big Ten and National Championships.

Those plans quickly changed, as the Jerry Sandusky case emerged, Paterno was relieved of his duties, and the Penn State football program was in flux both on and off the field. At the same time, the son of former NFL veteran Brent Williams had a new school knocking on his door, as Urban Meyer took over Ohio State and rapidly moved in recruiting the top player in the state of Massachusetts.

A mid-December visit to Ohio State went well, but no decision was on the horizon as Williams wanted to stay loyal to Penn State and wait for a head coach to be named. He left Columbus promising Urban Meyer that he would return with his mother who didn't get to make the first trip, but also said he would visit Penn State officially to give the school of his verbal pledge a chance to show him why he should be a Nittany Lion.

Bill O'Brien was named head coach of Penn State, but because of his duties with the New England Patriots, was not able to recruit players as aggressively as PSU would have liked. This caused Williams to push back his Penn State visit to January 27, moving his Ohio State visit up to January 18, where he would return this time with mom.

Williams never made that Penn State visit, as things went as well as expected on his return trip to Columbus and he gave Urban Meyer and the OSU coaching staff his verbal commitment just a few days after, becoming the 23rd member of the recruiting class of 2012 to pledge to the Buckeyes.

We got the chance to sit down with Williams to discuss his commitment to the Buckeyes, what sealed the deal on his second visit, what he is telling good friend and fellow Buckeye target Armani Reeves, and much more. Join us after the jump to hear more about Camren Williams' commitment to Ohio State.

Craft owned Frazier, the conference's leading scorer

Ohio State opened with a 24-6 run and never looked back spanking the Nittany Lions 78-54 tonight in the Schott. The win was the 17th straight over Penn State and 37th in a row overall at home. 

Jared Sullinger led the Buckeyes with 20 points and 13 rips, good for his 4th dub-dub in the last six games and ninth of the season. 

William Buford had an excellent overall game with 15 points (3/6 3FG, 6/6 FT), nine boards and just one turnover in 32 minutes. Though he has a tendency to blow up against bad teams, hopefully this can still be a building block as he has just one turnover in his last 59 minutes. The fact he had a legit impact on the game despite taking only seven shots is good to see. He did a better job driving to the rack and getting to the foul line instead of trying to shoot himself out a slump. 

Aaron Craft was also a beast scoring 11 points on 4/4 shooting with three assists in just 22 minutes, 16 of those logged in a stellar 1st half performance. 

Showing no mercy from the opening tip, Craft dominated the much anticipated matchup with PSU PG Tim Frazier who came in leading the league in scoring, assists and steals.

In building the early 24-6 lead at the 6:10 mark, Craft tallied seven points on a game opening lefty layup off a nice look from Sullinger and two textbook pull up jumpers off the dribble drive, one of the and-1 variety. Meanwhile, Frazier was busy clanking 2/7 from the floor. Frazier's struggles were contagious as the Buckeye defense harrassed the Lions into just 3/21 from the floor to that point. 

Penn State would shoot 4/11 over the remaining six minutes but still trailed by 20 at the break, 38-18, as Buford got hot draining a pair of triples before a bucket from Thomas. The final highlight of the half came moments later as Craft attempted a lob from 30 feet to Sam Thompson and instead drained the accidental three though it looked like Helen Keller Mike Sanzere missed basket interference.