Friday Skull Session

By Chad Peltier on June 14, 2013 at 6:00 am
33 Comments

The Buckeye Mount Rushmore got a little bit more crowded yesterday with the addition of fourteen new members, including twelve athletes and two coaches. 

What's amazing is that some people are questioning whether or not he deserves a spot on the Buckeye Hall of Fame.

Even when you ignore the fact that "He won 111 games, three Big Ten titles, a Rose Bowl, had two teams finished No. 2 and five in the Top 10" as Kyle mentioned yesterday, Coop still helps out at the university, is in the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame, and has long been inducted in the overall College Football Hall of Fame

So congrats, coach (and the other thirteen inductees), and thanks for representing the great state of Ohio. 

IT'S ALL ABOUT DA U. The NCAA opened up hearings for Miami yesterday and invited half of the school's weekly football attendance to speak.

Maybe that one was too easy. University President Shalala, Coach Golden, AD Blake James, and a few former assistant coaches joined in to defend the university against the accusations leveled by former booster Nevin Shapiro. 

Their defense is expected to rest on how the NCAA completely bungled the investigation, but this doesn't hurt either:

Virtually all of the individuals who were named by Shapiro in claims published by Yahoo Sports in August 2011 are no longer at the university, and several people the NCAA wants to talk to have refused to cooperate.

The NCAA is nobody's friend right now, but that might actually be bad for Miami. It might act like a wounded animal and lash out against any school that fights back. On the other hand, maybe it will cave in to the embarrassment of messing up this investigation and let the U off. 

The SportingNews summarized this one pretty well, saying that, "Both parties, the NCAA in its state of disarray and Miami in its state of desperation, come in to this week’s hearings bruised and hopeful for a restored image." 

President Shalala seemed comfortable with the proceedings during lunch, smiling and flashing the U to the reporters at the 2-3 day hearings. It's anyone's guess how the U will fare from these hearings, but unfortunately we won't find out for another six to eight weeks. 

 WHEN FANDOM GOES BAD. Clemson's historic Howard's Rock was vandalized a few days ago, with some individuals breaking its protective case and then chipping off part of the rock. 

So what's next, superfans? What other historic traditions will be vandalized or destroyed by rival fan bases? The Howard's Rock incident comes just as Toomer's Corner-poisoner Harvey Updyke was released from prison. 

Kevin Scarbinksy has a suggestion:

Do the NCAA and local law enforcement authorities throughout the South have to put together a joint task force to protect and defend the things that football fans hold dear? This is not a joke.

Call it the Updyke Law. If you're found guilty of damaging a college football icon, in addition to whatever justice a judge hands down, you get a punishment similar to that of a disassociated booster. You can't join a booster club, purchase tickets through official channels or set foot on campus at your favorite program or at any program your team plays.

The rock is dead! Long live the rock!Howard's Rock took a beating. 

It seems like a fairly reasonable suggestion to me, but you have to wonder why the threat of jail time doesn't already deter this behavior while losing booster privileges would.

This is yet another time I feel lucky that no Ohio State or Michigan fan has sullied the best rivalry in all of sports by doing something stupid like this *knocks on wood.* 

 PENN STATE'S QB DEPTH. Are you feeling so desperate for football news that you care about the depth chart battles of a Big Ten team that is currently in the midst of a long bowl ban?

No? Well, tough luck, because this QB battle between Ferguson and Hackenberg is probably the only thing keeping those Nittany Lions fans alive for the next couple of years.

O'Brien trimmed down his QB depth chart to list JUCO transfer Tyler Ferguson and true freshman Hackenberg as co-starters already.

Neither player has received a single snap against a Big Ten defense, but confidence is fairly high that BO'B can turn one of them into a big time star. He pretty much has to, especially since they are the only two scholarship QBs on the roster. At least one person isn't happy about Hackenberg's chances though: 

That would be former PSU QB Steven Bench who was supplanted during the spring and then transferred to USF

TIME FOR SUMMER CLEANING. The OHSAA reorganized its high school football playoffs, making some drastic changes that included the creation of a super Division I and a new Division VII. 

Each division will still have 32 teams and one state champion will emerge from each of the seven divisions. Interestingly, Division I will be split into just two regions - Northern and Southern. Columbus schools will be in the Southern region.

Speaking of Ohio high school football, Youngstown's Cardinal Mooney (John Simon's alma mater) is under investigation for potentially recruiting two Struthers Middle School students. Don't worry guys, it's never too young to get involved in recruiting violations! 

 GIVE ME A LINK OR EIGHT. Tag your #OSUtips... Longtime UConn assistant is retiring at 73... Robbing the cradle for some recruits... The top 15 QBs in NCAA '14... Cussed out for going to class?... The Gators are still losing to Louisville... There are a lot of surprising teams that currently top the recruiting rankings. Nice work, Northwestern... The ACC is really weird.

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