Thursday Skull Session

By Chris Lauderback on December 5, 2013 at 6:00 am
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Providing a quick distraction from the madness that is Ohio State's football Buckeyes being just one game away from playing for a national championship, Thad Matta's troops took to the hardwood last night and put a hurting on the Maryland Terrapins as part of the ACC/B1G Challenge behind 20 points from LaQuinton Ross and 14 from Sam Thompson. 

Ross splashed triples to the tune of 4/5 and I Am Slam ripped off four alley-oops as Ohio State finally looked like a Top 10 team in the land. 

After hitting just 10 of 44 shots through the first five games (23%), Ross has warmed up over the last two contests shooting 59% from the floor (13/22) and a scorching 62% from distance (8/13). Ohio State is clearly a different offensive team when Ross is doing his thing on the wing and the defense was once again spectacular last night holding the Terps to 39% shooting with 14 turnovers. The lone blemish came on the glass as Ohio State got punished 44-30 including a 19-6 deficit on the offensive backboard. 

As is typically the case with Matta's teams, the group appears to be getting better as the season progresses. With six non-conference games left – five coming against cupcakes – Thad will look to further define roles and solidify the rotation before the Bucks travel to Purdue on New Year's Eve to open conference play. 

With that out of the way, let's talk some football...

STARTING TO SEE THE LIGHT. While much of the national media has been busy drumming up a non-story as they tout Auburn's chances of passing an undefeated Ohio State in the BCS standings, Jerry Palm tried to help inform the minions with a comparison of the Buckeyes and Florida State, a squad that seems to get a free pass for playing a weaker schedule. A sampling:

In the old BCS strength of schedule formula, Ohio State would rank 55th, while the Seminoles come it at 59th. Those numbers include this weekend's opponents. Only one team has played in the title game with a lower strength of schedule in that formula, and that was Oregon in 2010, which lost to ... Auburn.

The Buckeyes also took on two bowl teams during the non-conference slate (Buffalo and SDSU) with the Seminoles playing zero. Sitting comfortably atop the BCS standings, FSU took on a pair of 4-8 teams in Nevada and Florida while also hosting Idaho and Bethune-Cookman outside of league play. 

On top of that, the B1G is considered the tougher league by all six computer polls but yeah, talking heads, I guess it does make sense to put nary a thought into your arguments and sheepishly feed the national narrative in the name of pageviews.

Does any of this mean FSU wouldn't handle Ohio State in the championship if it actually comes to that? Who knows. But to give the Seminoles the benefit of the doubt while piling on the Buckeyes is lazy at best and calculated at worst. For shame.  

Interestingly, Gary Danielson of all people, has come around on the Buckeyes:

I started the season asking how could you have a championship if the best conference isn’t represented. It’s only logical that the conference that produces the most NFL guys, has three out of the top 5 teams , seven out of the first fifteen. How could you have a championship where the conference that has won seven straight isn’t involved? I thought everyone else was playing for the other spot. What’s working against the SEC, this year, is Missouri and what they’ve done. For seven years, SEC fans have said nobody could bring that finesse offense and survive, and they did and now they’re in the SEC Championship game. I have to side with Ohio State. I did that 2001 season when everyone said they didn’t belong. If they win out, I think they deserve the chance.

No word on if CBS has made Gary turn in his SEC fan card in the wake of his statement. 

HATERZ GONNA HATE. The Silky Johnson of prose, John Feisnstein, has been hating on Urban Meyer, Ohio State and Jim Delany all week.

A few days ago Feinstein scribed away blasting Ohio State as unworthy of a BCS championship bid because won-loss record, while important, shouldn't be the overriding criterion. Not surprisingly, as pointed out by OBuck and others, Feinstein sang a completely different tune back in 2009. Less than four years ago, Feinstein had a different take on the importance on won-loss record:

I am writing to urge you -- no, implore you -- to cast your final ballot of the season with one team and one only team ranked No. 1: the University of Utah.

I say this not to demean the performance of Southern California, Texas or the winner of Thursday's Oklahoma-Florida game. All are fine teams that have had outstanding seasons. They have, however, one thing that Utah does not have.

A loss.

With his latest hit piece, Feinstein calls Urban Meyer "everything that is wrong with college football today" and accuses him of "being as smarmy as they come" thanks partly to the handling of Marcus Hall's meltdown after being tossed from The Game.

Feinstein then goes on the criticize Gene Smith and interim president Joseph Alutto for not taking a stand and forcing Meyer to suspend Hall for the B1G championship, lazily installing the "we just hope coach doesn't fire us" nonsense. With one last hot take in his holster, he moves on to Jim Delany for not "bringing sanity" to the situation as if Hall pulled an Artest and DDT'd three Michigan fans – all women in their 80's – before heading up the tunnel. 

Monday night, Delany took bold action of “publicly reprimanding” Ohio State and Hall. Wow. He really showed them, didn’t he? Of course it should be remembered that Delany would willingly give an arm or a leg if necessary to get one of the teams from his downtrodden league into the national championship game. He may very well be negotiating with the minions from “Despicable Me” at this very moment to hack into the BCS computers to be sure Ohio State remains ahead of Auburn should both teams win Saturday.

When all is said and done, the bottom line is the bottom line: Meyer cares only about winning although he will continue to pretend that’s not the case. The same is true for the leadership at Ohio State and the Big Ten.

They’re all pretty despicable.

John Knows Hyperbole. Makes me wonder if there's any chance he's the unwitting father of Clay Travis. 

Fox Sports 1 got into the act yesterday as well, going back to 2006 to examine this quote by Urban Meyer before his team earned a spot on the title game against Ohio State:

No need to mention that this argument was made as Meyer compared his one-loss SEC team to another one-loss team, Michigan, following Ohio State's 42-39 win, not an undefeated team he thought his one-loss SEC squad should jump. 

Roby ranks 30th in the B1G with 50 tacklesRoby ranks 2nd in the B1G with 1.50 passes defended/G 

FIRST THINGS FIRST. While it's clear the Buckeyes are in complete control of their destiny, the fact remains they have an incredibly tough last hurdle to Pasadena. 

Over at BTN.com, as of post-time, the ongoing poll there has Sparty as the slight favorite to pull the upset. They also look at 10 reasons why each team can win.

The biggest factor for the Buckeyes, from my perspective, are whether or not Braxton looks more like the quarterback that completed 73% of his passes for 13 touchdowns against just two picks over the first five conference games, or the guy that completed a dismal 49% of his throws (30/61) with six touchdowns against two interceptions of the the last three games. If he does have a bounce back effort, it will come against one of the most impressive back seven's in the nation

The next biggest key will be whether or not the Buckeyes can make Sparty a one-dimensional offense by shutting down tailback Jeremy Langford. In league play, behind a stout offensive line, Langford has quietly averaged over 117 rush yards per game with 12 touchdowns. With Conner Cook's steady improvement leading the passing attack, forcing Sparty into obvious passing downs will go a long way toward punching a ticket to Pasadena. 

Whether or not Ohio State can keep Sparty's offense in check could hinge on the play of Bradley Roby. Teams have gone right at Roby all year and while he has still performed at an all-conference level, only the homerist of homers would say he's been better this season compared to 2012. Even Roby admitted he got complacent mid-season and has been playing catch-up ever since:

"I was in a mind-set of, 'Yeah, I'm good enough to play in the NFL. When you start thinking like that, you stop doing the things you used to do, when you were hungry, when nobody knew who you were. It was kind of, 'Oh, I don't have to do this drill today. I don't have to watch film as much.'

"You kind of fall off."

Refocused on the team goal of a B1G championship, Roby needs to come up big Saturday night. 

SABAN TO TEXAS A DONE DEAL. The Football Brainiacs, an Oklahoma Sooners site ran by a handful of ex-players including Ryan Broyles, wrote last night that they have two sources confirming Nick Saban to Texas

We're not hear to tell you what to believe but those guys have to feel absolutely confident in their sources to put their reputation on the line like that. After going public with their report on twitter around 5:00 p.m., they reaffirmed their stance a few hours later. 

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