How many Big Ten refs are allowed to live in Ann arbor?

- Javon Ringer, as good as he was Chaminade-Julienne, curiously omits that the reason the staff wanted him to grayshirt was because he not only had the ACL tear in October 2004, but was failing to meet Ohio State’s increasingly high standards for admission. Ringer qualified for the playoffs his junior year by only a few hundredths of a percentage point and had not made enough progress towards being a full qualifier by OSU’s standards to warrant an offer. He’s also wrong on Ohio State kids forcing redshirts on their players, as the staff provides a player information about where he stands on the depth chart and allows them to make a decision. Entering 2005, the Buckeyes had only two returners at RB (Pittman, Haw and a much of nobodies that I don’t count.). Barring whatever lingering effects from the injury, it’s implausible to think Ringer would’ve redshirted if he got a scholarship and attended Ohio State. After all, Mo Wells, the other running back of interest for the Buckeyes in the 2005 class, was the second leading rusher (at tailback) on that team.

- I think the class being at its current size reflects more on the staff’s wishes to be done with recruiting before the season begins (so they can focus on the season) more than it does on Zook. As much as Ohio State’s staff hates to see talented Ohio prospects head elsewhere in the Big Ten, I think it would be wrong to attribute the class’ size to Zook.

- The early offer thing works two ways. While it works to Zook’s advantage to get the preliminary list of the top 20 in Ohio in the class of 2010 (and through 2022) and offer every single one of them a scholarship and be the first “big” offer they get, he also falls into the trap of being tricked by the hype. Zook fell head over heels for the Will Studlien freshman highlight tape hype, but now no one in the Big Ten wants Studlien (save Northwestern). Those highlight tapes can be deceiving…

- The easiest way to control for the Zook problem is to squash any claim he can have to being the first offer from a “big” program. I hope that starts this year in Champaign.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/bigten

here is what they said for those of you who were to lazy to click the link:

“The Ohio State blog Eleven Warriors takes a look at the Buckeyes’ projected starting offense and defense, complete with diagrams. Some good analysis here.”