Wednesday Skull Session

Good morning Buckeyes, friends, and other wayward college football fans, you've safely arrived at your Wednesday morning destination. 

I've never really been a fan of calling Wednesday "humpday", but it seems like today is a very important hurdle in our lives: tomorrow morning's Skull Session will mark the very first college football day of the 2012 season. 

There are actually some really cool matchups for tomorrow too (or maybe I'm just desperate for some football).

South Carolina plays an up-and-coming Vandy team (and one of two SEC teams it shouldn't feel too bad to cheer for) @7pm, as well as the return of the Pirate himself, Mike Leach and Washington State, @10:15 EST.

That's not to mention Boise traveling to Michigan State on Friday. All of these matchups should get you ready for Urban and company to storm the field on Saturday.

To aid your football-watching, an Oklahoma State blog, Pistols Firing, recently posted a great list of national college football must-follows on Twitter. 

It doesn't include any team-specific writers (which is the only reason @11W didn't make the list), but every person on the list is a good follow.

  SPEAKING OF STORMS.

Ive spoke to our weather people, they have doppler and from what I can tell you may need a boat to get to the game Saturday.

— BEAU BISHOP (@BeauBishop) August 29, 2012

So, yeah, that kind of sucks to a certain extent. I always imagined Urban charging into the stadium for the first time in sunny brilliance, but whatever. From a football standpoint, the twitter consensus is that the rain might help the defense stop the Zac Dysert-led Miami passing attack.

From the offense's perspective, it'll hopefully just be a field day for Carlos Hyde and the other backs, who should run inside zone until Miami's defensive line just decides to just enjoy the Gatorade from the bench instead. 

If you wanted to see Braxton throw the ball you'll still probably get your chance, however, as Braxton wants to get 18-20 passing attempts in on Saturday (given 25 or so called passes that turn into QB scrambles as Ross pointed out). 

As a reminder, Kyle detailed Urban's last meetup with Miami of Ohio:

In 2010, Florida's first post-Tim Tebow game, Miami led the Gators 3-0 after 1Q and trailed 21-12 in the 4th before UF won 34-12.

— Kyle Rowland (@KyleRowland) August 28, 2012

I expect the result will be much, much different this time around. 

 THE END BEFORE THE BEGINNING. Yes, it's just the beginning of the football season, but we can't get enough of end of the year lists and predictions.

The great Adam Jacobi has you covered here, with his predictions for Big Ten conference award winners. 

He certainly got it right, too, predicting that John Simon will take home the defender of the year award:

But for as many tackles as Wisconsin's linebackers promise to put up this season and for as physically dominant as Spartans DE Will Gholston is, the defender with the best shot of putting together the best season in the Big Ten is the Buckeyes' heart and soul on D, defensive end John Simon.

Gholston is a heck of a player and is a physical specimen, but I also agree that Simon's statistical production might actually jump this year because of the other star players on the defensive line.

Teams will have to also look out for Hankins, Spence, Goebel, Washington, Miller, and Bennett (not to mention the other legion of D-linemen we have), freeing Simon from double teams to make plays. 

Other notables on Jacobi's list are Deeeenard for offensive POY, Bill O'Brien as coach of the year, and Michigan State over Wisconsin in the championship game. 

Taking double teams so Simon can go HAM

 TWO GAMES TO RULE THEM ALL. Samuel Chi breaks down the 25 games that will likely determine who makes it in to the championship game this year, spreading the love to everyone pretty much except the Big East. 

Honestly though, this list could be condensed down to just two big game matchups: Alabama vs. LSU on November third, and Oregon vs. USC, also on November third. Quite a day. 

However, even though any of these four teams would make a fine preseason champion, the preseason polls rarely align with the end of year rankings, with many under- and overrated teams each season (warning: heavy numbers). 

Random upsets often derail otherwise stellar seasons, and I wouldn't be terribly surprised if a totally random matchup derails any or all of these four teams either. For instance, who would have predicted Oklahoma State rising to the very top of the pack last season and then lose to Iowa State? Or that Boise would knock off Georgia in their first game, then lose to TCU at the end? 

These kind of random upsets and surprise teams make college football great. 

TWITTER BAN RD 2. Probably because of the source, but much of Twitter (and the internet as a whole) got really up in arms about the decision to ban Twitter during press conferences, though this policy was dropped yesterday after a lot of Twitter-heat.  

The original reasoning for the Twitter ban is somewhat murky: 

After speaking with a couple of the school’s media relations people, the reasoning ranged from the success they had banning Twitter during some closed practices over the summer to how reporters can’t really listen to the news conference if they’re constantly tweeting what Meyer is saying.

I get the journalist anger here and am glad that I can get my news 20 minutes sooner now, but calling Urban a dictator or Scarlet and Gray steamroller is a bit unfair. 

Where do you stand on the Twitter issue (even though it's now resolved)? 

SPARE A NICKEL? One kind of unresolved depth chart issue is at STAR, or nickelback, where Christian Bryant, Corey Brown, and Devan Bogard are duking it out for time. 

Though the Buckeyes might stay in base 4-3 more this year than we've seen in the past, the STAR is nonethless an important position and one that hasn't been decided yet. What is certain is that Sabino and Shazier will stay on the field while Curtis Grant will likely come off, leaving "Guys that can play in space, guys that can pressure and blitz, guys that can obviously cover one-on-one.” 

This issue becomes even more important because Miami is a pass-heavy offense, passing around 55% of the time, as Lori Schmidt details. 

 PRETTY IN LINK. Shazier gets some fluff... Required reading for football strategists... Alex's list of players previously recruited by Urban... Half the team instagramed pics of their cleats today... Maps? Maps. And MAP... What else is happening in the B1G this week?... Might be an interesting read about Dantonio's recent success at MSU... Ben is just worried about the tough grass... Get on it, future explorers... Cyborgs are the future... This is just going to be the worst.