Tonight, we will all be administered the last dosage of Ohio State football available until the Spring Game. For the true cynics who believe spring football is an atrocious bootleg, it's the last dose available until late August. Yeah, the math on that equation is just another reason I have never trusted math or numbers in general.
The body-blows leading up to the 2014 Orange Bowl continued yesterday, when Urban Meyer announced senior safety Christian Bryant was not granted a medical redshirt. It was an important victory for the NCAA, who is the only watchman of the sacred amateurism unicorn our nation has left.
I still don't know what to expect from tonight's game. I hope the Buckeyes are ready to play in a glorified exhibition game, and that they haven't been partying in South Beach the whole time down there.
~*~flashes back to being an 18-21 year-old~*~ Oh nonononono.
TEENS BE WHIMSICALLY TWEETIN'. Yesterday was the Under Armour All-American game, a show-case event where our nation's athletic teens are turned into hideous billboards for billion-dollar athletic companies. Alabama and FSU continued to unnecessarily horde diamonds like they're ancient dragons. LSU received the commitment of the next Adrian Peterson. Hell, even ol' Rich Rodriguez stole a five-star cornerback from Alabama's grasp. (Seriously, we need to start a Kickstarter to put this billboard on I-94 near Ann Arbor.)
Attention now turns to Saturday's Army All-American game. Two OSU targets who were set to announce are Cleveland Glenville's Marshon Lattimore and Erick Smith. (Marcelys Jones is the 3rd member of "the Glenville Trio" and has already committed to Ohio State.) It had long been thought all three would be attending Ohio State, but it appears there could be a bit of a shake-up:
People is going to be surprised by me and Erick decision
— SHON (@_Shon2) January 3, 2014
Lattimore, after admitting to "having fun with the media," added in a subsequent tweet he will be announcing on Saturday. Erick Smith has said he won't announce on Saturday, and 247's Steve Wiltfong says the Glenville safety plans to take visits to Michigan and Michigan State.
So what the hell does this all mean? SOMEBODY GET ME THE TEEN WHISPERER.
COACHING CAROUSEL HIJINKS. As shitty as the lead up to the Orange Bowl has been — and sorry, purists, but there's no other word that embodies the lead-up to the Orange Bowl as effectively as shitty — it sure beats the living tar out of not being in a bowl game or even worse: having to deal with a head coaching search.
We start with Penn State, who has called on their greatest minds to serve on a committee in charge of hiring their third coach since Prohibition. Al Golden has been a name gathering steam in Penn State circles:
If you all want a guess, I say Golden stays put. But a lot of people around that school are flat-out worried. We shall see.
— Tim Reynolds (@ByTimReynolds) January 2, 2014
Penn State could do A LOT worse than Al Golden, but I think Miami would appeal more than Penn State by a country mile. It's a lot easier to recruit kids to Coral Gables than it is Happy Valley. Joe Paterno cultists aren't as numerous down there either. Penn State would need a train of Brinks trucks.
Speaking of trains of Brinks trucks, Texas is still in search for their next head football coach:
Texas is interested in UCLA coach Jim Mora as a possible replacement for Mack Brown, per sources.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 2, 2014
Now, Texas is sitting on fertile recruiting ground and 98% of the gold reserves in the world. They could offer Mora a kingdom.
But... damn, I could die and wake up on UCLA's campus, and I could probably be convinced I was in heaven. And it's not like UCLA is on food stamps either, nor is their fanbase nearly as nutty as Texas'. It'd take a whole lot of zeroes to get me out of Westwood. (For the record: I am not Jim Mora Jr.)
Either way, both dudes are about to get paid, and both these reports could have been placed by each man's camp. And when both these men receive salaries that belong on those goofy checks they give golfers, please remember the NCAA's defense of "amateurism" and their denial of Christian Bryant's medical redshirt.
BARRY SWITZER RIDING HIGH IN NAWLINSBARRY SWITZER: STILL A BOSS. Barry Switzer is a legend in the coaching game. He's one of a handful of coaches to ever win titles in college and the NFL.
Yet, if the NCAA rulebook is the moral code of the world, then it turns out Switzer was downright blasphemous during his collegiate coaching days:
HEY COACH SWITZER, HOW'D YA LIKE WINNING SOME MONEY IN NEW ORLEANS?
I haven't carried this much money around with me since I recruited.
Now that's some candor I can get behind.
What's the statue of limitations on something like this? Because I would like to volunteer my services to write Johnny Manziel's tell-all book whenever those run out.
JIM TRESSEL TO THE ALMIGHTY BROWNS. As a Cleveland Browns fan, it's from the bottom of my heart I say: I hate the Browns. Beyond a handful of players and 99.5% of fans/stadium staff, the Browns are a franchise that deserve nothing but contempt.
And yet, after watching this wonderful video, I did not want to crush these kids' idiotic idealism or wonder why their parents pimped them for YouTube views (you're off the hook, Under Armour!); I was nodding my head. Why hadn't I thought of this genius plan before?
JIM TRESSEL TO THE ALMIGHTY BROWNS! I PLEAD THIS TO YOU, BASED FOOTBALL GODS.
(The Browns are definitely hiring a failed retread or an unproven coordinator. Nobody else will come work for those stooges, sad to say.)
THOSE WMDs. Industrial smoke in Cleveland, 1973... College athlete transfer protocol could be getting a big change... Damn, Wayne Gretzky is crunk... Thunder players hang out, Kendrick Perkins wonders why he wasn't invited... Best screencap ever... National Geographic releases stunning 3-volume, 43-lb. collection of 900 images... Fourteen year-old can deadlift 300 pounds...
