Eleven Warriors

None.
The high Towers decline before this woe,
The great river does not flow ahead,
But they’re strong – the locks of a dorm, stone,
And behind them – the quads, dark and low,
And the deadly Buckeye nuts are spread.
For some one, somewhere, a fresh wind blows,
For some one, somewhere, wakes up a dawn –
We don’t know, we’re the same here always,
We just hear the key’s squalls, morose,
And Alex’s heavy step alone;
Got up early, as for Mass by Easter,
Walked the empty capital along
To create the half-dead peoples’ throng.
The sun downed, the Olentangy got mister,
But our hope sang afar its song.
There’s a sentence… In a trice tears flow…
Now separated, cut from us,
As if they’d pulled out Urban’s heart and thrown
Or pushed down him on a street stone –
But he goes… Reels…  Alone at once.
Where are now friends unwilling those,
Those friends of my two years, brute?
What they see in the M*chigan snows,
In a circle of the moon, exposed?
To them I send my farewell salute.

Outlook:
You’ll come in any case – why not right now, therefore?
I wait for you – my strain is highest.
I have flicked out the light and left open the door
For you, so simple and so wondrous.

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/akhmatova/requiem.html

We caught up to several prospects at the Best of the Midwest Combine in Indianapolis to discuss the event, Ohio State and recruiting in general. Featured are videos of Ohio State commit Marcelys Jones, a guard from Cleveland Glenville, safety Erick Smith, also from Glenville, Gary (IN) West Side High School wide receiver Lonnie Johnson and Lima Central Catholic defensive back Darius West.

First up, G Marcelys Jones speaking about his performance at the combine, his Christmas Day commitment to Ohio State, his plans to visit other schools such as UCLA, Florida State, Kansas State and USC and what that means in terms of his commitment.

Another clip with Jones, in which he says he's helping to recruit Marshawn Lattimore and Erick Smith, his teammates at Glenville, to Ohio State: "I'm definitely going to try to work my magic."

Glenville S Erick Smith on his visits to Ohio State for the Michigan basketball and football games, and what he likes about Ohio State. Smith also claims the coaching staff at a school will be the most important factor in his decision. This bodes well for Urban Meyer.

Gary (IN) West Side WR Lonnie Johnson on his performance at the combine and some of the visits he's taken. On Ohio State: "The swagger of the school is just amazing."

Lima Central Catholic S Darius West on his communication with Ohio State: "I've been talking three of the coaches a lot: Coach Withers, Coach Coombs and Coach Hinton." On his biggest factor for making a decision: "The biggest factor is definitely academics."

We'll have more on 11W shortly, including a full breakdown of the combine's winners and losers, so stay tuned.

The 2012-2013 Buckeye Wrestling team has already improved on their 2012 performance in qualifying for the quarterfinals. In the inaugural 2012 tournament, the Buckeyes finished 2nd in the Stillwater, Oklahoma region to the eventual tournament runner-up Oklahoma State. In the 2nd tournament, the Buckeyes earned an automatic qualification to the quarterfinals due to their performance throughout the regular season.

Since they earned an automatic bid in the quarterfinals, it’s likely that the #5 Buckeyes will be one of the top 4 seeded teams, in addition to #1 Oklahoma State, #2 Iowa, and #4 Minnesota. Rounding out the field in the quarterfinals will be #8 Illinois, #7 Virginia Tech, #6 Missouri, and #10 Cornell (for this preview, team rankings are according to the latest NWCA team rankings, because it’s their tournament, thus their rankings).

The quarterfinal matchups will be announced on Tuesday afternoon, but at a glance, it’s likely that the Buckeyes will find themselves matched up with #6 Missouri. Based on the most recent NWCA rankings, 8 of the 10 weight classes will feature a matchup between Top 20 ranked wrestlers (if #10 Peter Capone of the Buckeyes is able to wrestle), including a pair of #1 ranked wrestlers with Logan Stieber of the Buckeyes owning the #1 ranking at 133 lbs and Dom Bradley of the Tigers #1 at Heavyweight.

With the 4 teams in the quarterfinals, the Big Ten conference is well-represented. Falling short of the quarterfinals but also competing in the tournament were the teams from Michigan, Wisconsin, Purdue, Nebraska, and future Big Ten team Maryland.

With a berth in the tournament, the Buckeyes have a chance to avenge losses earlier in the season to Iowa and Minnesota. The Buckeyes earned victories in the current campaign against Illinois and Virginia Tech.

The NWCA National Duals will take place on the weekend of February 22nd and 23rd in Minneapolis.

Core 6 Athletes brought a ton of talent to Cincinnati today to perform and compete against one another in the group's first event outside of Chicagoland. The fantastic event elicited attention from multiple media outlets and could eventually serve as a catalyst for some of the prospects in their climb up the rankings.

For Ohio State fans, a list of those attending included Clifton Garrett, Ian Bunting, J.B. Butler, Malik McDowell, Jamarco Jones, Dylan Thompson, Dominique Booth, Lonnie Johnson, and Nile Sykes.

The MVPs of the event were Jamarco Jones, Malik McDowell, Clifton Garrett, and Dominique Booth. All but Booth hold offers from Ohio State, however, Booth has received plenty of interest from Ohio State, visited Columbus twice, and has the Buckeyes in his top six schools.

Clifton Garrett was the most impressive prospect out of everyone that I saw. He continues to put on a show whereever he goes to perform. Garrett has also gotten quicker and his parents informed me he now weighs 225 pounds. His parents visited Ohio State with him and Urban Meyer and staff made quite the impression on the family.

Jamarco Jones was the top offensive lineman during the event. The massive Chicago tackle also recently visited Ohio State, and had nothing but good things to say about the school. A few more visits to other schools are in the plans for Jones, before making his college choice in August. 

Jones indicated that some of his best competition came from DL Malik McDowell. The Detroit (MI) Loyola lineman has incredible size at 6-7/285. His size and potential has many colleges drooling over him. Practically everyone has offered McDowell, who just took a visit to Michigan State. McDowell told me that the Spartans have made a big push for him recently. He will be visiting Michigan next weekend. A trip to Ohio State could happen sometime in the next few months.

DL Dylan Thompson has already been offered by Ohio State and the Windy City lineman talks to Urban Meyer often. Ohio State's presence in Chicago is no secret and Thompson is excited about the Buckeyes. A visit to Ohio State next weekend is on the docket for Thompson. 

Contrary to a few reports, WR Lonnie Johnson did not visit Ohio State over the weekend. Johnson did, however, showcase his raw ability and top of the line speed during today's showcase. The Gary, Indiana native will be visiting Nebraska soon, and made it clear to me that the Huskers were recruiting him very hard. When I asked Johnson if any schools were sticking out, Ohio State was the only school he mentioned.

Keep it locked here at Eleven Warriors in the upcoming week for more on the budding stars from Core 6 Athletes, the reports we'll have from tomorrow's Best of the Midwest Combine in Indianapolis, and more. 

Recap by Curt Heinrichs

As Head Coach Tom Ryan told me in an interview previewing the dual, Ohio State’ s match with Penn State last Sunday did indeed come down to bonus points. The young wrestling Buckeyes were able to keep the defending NCAA champion Nittany Lions within striking distance throughout the match, but were outscored 29-18 at the conclusion of the dual meet.

The Senior Day festivities (honoring seniors Nikko Triggas, CJ Magrum, and Peter Capone) kicked off the day and followed shortly with #13 continuing a tough weekend with a loss to #2 ranked returning All-American and NCAA finalist Nico Megaludis. Megaludus won by a score of 9-1 and was able to put the Nittany Lions on top 4-0 with his major decision.

Following the quick start from Cael Sanderson’s PSU team, defending National Champion #1 ranked Logan Stieber and brother #2 ranked Hunter Stieber were able to make good on Ryan’s prediction that the Buckeyes would need bonus points out of each Stieber to have a chance at knocking off Penn State. Logan was able to pin Jordan Conaway and Hunter stuck Derek Reber, both in the 1st period of their respective matches, to give the Scarlet and Gray a 12-4 lead.
Returning All-American Cam Tessari has been up and down this season, but was able to earn a signature win for the 2012-2013 season, upsetting #7 ranked Andrew Alton. Tessari (a high school teammate of the Stiebers) utilized an impressive ride of Alton to earn the 1 point bonus for riding time.

Alton’s brother Dylan took to the mat at 157 lbs toting a #5 ranking in the country against the Buckeyes’ #19 Josh Demas. Alton took a close 4-3 decision, but the bout ended in controversy as it appeared that Demas had a cradle locked up, which would have given Demas 2 points and the match. Alton’s win cut the Buckeye lead to 15-7.

Buckeye freshman 165 lber Mark Martin was unable to derail the David Taylor Express, surrendering a pin at the end of the 1st period to the Ohio native, who wrestled at Graham High School before wrestling for Sanderson at Penn State.

Nick Heflin scored a mild upset when he knocked off PSU’s #5 ranked Matt Brown with a late takedown to earn the 3-2 decision. Heflin improved his record to 12-2 on the season with the win over Brown, the 2nd 3-2 decision in favor of Heflin on the weekend.

In another match where Coach Tom Ryan said the Buckeyes needed to avoid giving up bonus points (the other being at 165), senior CJ Magrum was unable to fight off a pin from defending NCAA champ Ed Ruth as Ruth gave the Nittany Lions the lead 19-18, a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

Former NCAA champion Quentin Wright was able to earn a major decision over Buckeye Kenny Courts at  197 lbs before Jimmy Lawson took an injury default win over Buckeye Peter Capone to put a close to the dual meet. Heading into the heavyweight match, the Buckeyes were losing by a deficit of 5 points and a pin by Capone would have won the match. It wasn’t to be as Capone was losing before injuring a shoulder. The injury default gave the Nittany Lions 6 points and made the final score 29-18 in favor of Penn State.

The Wrestling Buckeyes ended the Big Ten Dual Season with a 5-3 record, good enough for 4th place in the conference. The Buckeyes will next be in action at the NWCA National Duals in Minneapolis on the 22nd and 23rd of February.

Sunday

Ohio State basketball lost to a team who can’t explain their mascot. Following their impressive basketball victory, Indiana’s athletic department announced its plans to create a football team by 2016.

Students who attended both the BuckeyeThon charity dance marathon and slept in Mattaritaville recovered from their decisions by staring blankly at a wall.

Monday

Ohio State revealed the black permanent marker used to create the school’s new athletic logo cost $45,000.

“Sparks” flew across campus as romance novelist Nicholas Sparks paid a visit.

First time CBJ game attendees found out “the Blue Jackets are really good!”

And Cardale Jones broke his cell phone.

Tuesday

Huntington announced it would begin putting branches of OSU’s official bank within individual dorm rooms.

The ROTC and marching band met on the oval in a bloody, Napoleonic turf battle. 

A freshman student finally worked up the nerve to try riding a COTA bus.

And zero Ohio State football players were arrested for any reason.

Wednesday

Ohio State’s foreign professors collectively announced they would no longer going to be having the office hour on Wednesday.

Woody Hayes finally got a statue of himself on campus (kind of) at the WHAC. Unfortunately, the statue’s artist was unable to get the legendary coach to stand up straight during the sculpting process.

President Gee gave up wearing bow ties for Lent.

And Brady Hoke gave up for Lent.

Thursday

Single students were glad they didn’t have to celebrate Valentine’s Day – also – extremely sad.

Ohio State basketball (barely) beat a team who should be called Northmidwestern if they’re honest with themselves.

And Huntington Bank followed up its decision to begin installing branches in dorm rooms by buying Ohio State. 

Friday

A University Village bus obnoxiously hit on CABS buses at every stop.

The Lantern wrote an article about how good it is at writing articles. 

OSU Student Wellness began offering free morning-after pills to students.

An economics major just couldn’t justify eating at Morrill Commons. 

And Ohio State just dug around on north campus for fun.

Saturday

Nothing, nothing at all, happened today. 

For more fake campus news, be sure to follow @TheFakeLantern on Twitter and check out thefakelantern.com.

Many moons ago, I feel like I botched the chance of a lifetime and ever since then I have this strange lingering feeling of regret that I just can't shake.  I don't dwell on it too often, but once in a while I reflect and wish I could go back in time and kick myself.  

A brief history of my fandom.  I was born in M*chigan, raised in M*chigan, my entire extended family went/goes to M*chigan, my dad played golf for M*ichigan, I grew up rooting for M*chigan, I had planned on attending M*chigan my entire life....just like dad.  That is until my family relocated to Cleveland, Ohio halfway through my junior year of high school.  Although I was hell bent on graduating from a big ten school, out of state tuition was just not feasible, so I decided to play JuCo Baseball for a couple years while I sorted things out, eventually it became overwhelmingly clear that I had to go to The Ohio State University.  I made my mind up without even visiting once.  Obviously the rest is history, I was born a scUM fan and by the grace of God.....I will die a Buckeye.  

My first quarter at Ohio State was winter quarter 2001 as I had played JuCo baseball prior to transferring to Ohio State.  Although I was considered an upper classmen I was content living in the dorms because I really didn't want to miss out on that experience.  When filling out my paperwork I specifically requested to live in Morrill Tower because I had read somewhere that that's where most of the athletes live.  Much to my surprise, I was assigned to a suite on the 15th floor of Morrill Tower.  Upon my arrival I introduced myself to my suite mates and as it turns out the two GIGANTIC quiet freshmen in the first suite were Ohio State football players Ryan Hamby and Reggie Arden.  At the time I remember thinking "that's pretty cool" but wasn't too impressed cause I hadn't heard of them as I had only been a Buckeye fan for like 15 minutes.  

As time went on I became friends with everyone and I got to meet a lot of cool people as Ryan Hamby turned out to be quite the social bug.  Marcus Green, Lydell Ross, Brandon Fushcheatham, Matt Sylvester and many more were constantly in and out of our suite hanging out and playing Play Station....Hamby used to get so upset with me because I was THE MAN at 007: Agent Under Fire and would constantly take him to school.  

One day after class, I believe in late March leading up to the spring game, after coming back from a four day weekend (everyone went home) Hamby came out of his suite and said it's probably best not to bother Reggie for a while.  When I asked what was up he told me Reggie had gotten a second DUI while hanging out with friends at home.  I felt really bad for the guy because Ryan had just been talking about how they moved Reggie to linebacker and how awesome he was doing and how mean he looked.  Needless to say I took Ryan's advice.  Not more than an hour later, I had forgotten about what Ryan had said, I heard a knock on the door of the suite.  I got up and checked the peephole and there where two massive black guys and a smaller older white guy standing outside the door.  I opened the door and who do you know is standing in front of me? JIM FREAKING TRESSEL!!!!! With blah-blah-blah and blah-blah-blah.  

I wish I was more familiar with the coaching staff at the time because I don't know who the two accompanying assistants were.  Now I can only assume they were position coaches.  I was so stupefied I didn't even know what to say, I remember thinking "Nobody is going to believe this happened!" Part of me wanted to shake his hand/give him a hug, or jump up and down like an idiot, but I just stared at him like a moron.  After a brief silence I uttered in a surprised voice "Coach Tressel? What can I do for you sir?" To which he replied "Is my guy Reggie around?" Pretending like I hadn't hear what happened over the weekend I said "Yeah, I'll show you to his door." (Like it was so hard to find).  I was quiet as a funeral home while he knocked on Reggie's door.  When Reggie opened the door Coach Tressel gave me a look that said "You can go about your business now." Which my business became to quietly knock on my other suitemates door to let me in so we could try and eavesdrop.  Let me tell you, putting a solo cup to the wall and pressing your ear to the solo cup DOESN'T WORK!!!! Solo cups suck for eavesdropping.  Expecting to hear a bunch of screaming and ass chewing, all we got was some very long winded soft spoken mumbling which was replied to with deep mumbling.  

After their 20 minute or so meeting, Coach Tressel reemerged and came to my door.  He made some small talk with me and asked that we keep his boys out of trouble.  For that 20 minutes or so I was thinking to myself, what should I ask him?  What should I say to him?  And all I did before he left was ask him to sign my Ohio State Flag that was hanging on my wall to which he obliged.  I felt pretty stupid for how I handled myself, I never considered myself to be the type to get star struck.  Obviously those weren't the best circumstances to make small talk with the coach of your favorite football team, but ever since then I'll look back from time to time and wonder what I would ask him if I were better prepared.  

Now it's time to play "What-If?".  

Let's say you're sitting at a bar on Urban's side of town (Muirfield) watching an irrelevant basketball game.  It's just you and the bartender and low and behold, my man Urban Meyer walks in and sits one bar stool away from you.  Now, if you're like me you're quietly freaking out inside like a giddy school girl at a Justin Bieber concert but I'm older now and I have more composure.  If this happens to you what five questions would you ask UFM?  Obviously the gentlemen's agreement would be that his answers are off the record, so you can literally ask him anything you want and expect an honest answer that reflects what he really thinks rather than the contrived responses you have to give in press conferences.....although I do believe Urban is genuine in his pressers.  

Now before I list my questions, I want to prequalify that I'm not confident my questions are the coolest, most unique or best questions one can come up with....I've probably had too much time to think about this.  Obviously these questions would come after a brief introduction and friendly handshake.  Also, an autograph before he leaves is a given so that can't be a question.  

1) Come on man, you mean to tell me you weren’t concerned AT ALL when Teddy Ginn ran that kick return back in the NCG?
2) Just between us guys, do you and the staff have any good nicknames for any of the coaches around the B1G?
3) I’m an out of state must-get blue chip quarterback and we’re in my living room with my parents….sell me Ohio State!  You have 3 minutes…..GO!
4) At this point in their careers, who would take who to school, Braxton or Tim? If you recruited both as freshmen, who do you think would win the starting job?
5) Apart from National Championships, what are your top three victories over another coaches in terms of, “Man, I really wanted to shut that guy up!”……Kiffin?

How do you think Urban would answer?  What questions would you guys ask him given the chance to hang with the coach for a couple drinks?  

*Another qualifier, if you're question is cooler or more interesting than mine and I run into the Coach sometime....I'm probably stealing your question.  Haha!

None. Thank god. I don’t know about you guys, but I could use a break. I smoke cigarettes. I know, right? I will keep it up. Sure, I can’t climb stairs, maintain an erection after four beers, or look in the mirror while swallowing, but I get to throw my butts everywhere and it doesn’t count as littering. WIN. I can flick a spent butt a good ten yards, which impresses, like, everyone. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT, CHILDREN.

Oh right, my point: For most people, turning off the TV and trying to think creatively is an unambiguously positive thing. But for a smoker, it’s TOXIC. I’ll open my laptop and try to write a joke about dog poop or a elegiac poem about dead squirrels, and 90% of what comes to mind is CIGARETTE CIGARETTE CIGARETTE NOW NOW NOW HURRY. So I can either be productive and chain-smoke, or I can flip over to an AV Club article about The New World and surf mindlessly through the comments for two hours. But don’t click on the pretty video of the ships! It’ll rile me up, make me smoke. Seriously though, the AV Club’s commenters are the best:

Outlook: OSU runs for 3,500 yards without a fullback, and this guy doesn’t care because he’s having the world’s grossest sex with his girlfriend.

I'm no expert on the subject, but architecture & stadium capacity & all those things that others may find boring are some of my interests. Based on Zach Smith's tweet about the HorseShoe changing forever & the specific use of the words "Numero Uno", I do believe that Ohio Stadium will be expanding. I happened to read many comments from people who don't think the structure of Ohio Stadium can hold more seats, so just to do something interesting, I decided to make this post explaining how I think it will be done. If we do expand the stadium, I think we'll do it the same way that Nebraska is expanding the east stands of Memorial Stadium to increase the capacity from 81,000 to 87,000. And as many would think, I do believe that expansion is most likely to take place in the south stands where the scoreboard is at. We would just build a new facade outside of the south stands, there-fore allowing the stands to expand out & grow taller in the process as seats are added to increase capacity. The old facade will most likely still exist as a large lobby when the new facade becomes the exterior of the south stands. I'm not the best at explaining this, but I hope the links below will help explain what I mean. Keep in mind that the east & west sides of Memorial Stadium were designed to resemble Ohio Stadium.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yHWG9gLUik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz3ykFuTaNk

Why does it make so much sense to me?

• Ohio State is the 3rd largest public university campus by enrollment in the country, & has the largest fan base in college football. So there's more than enough people to fill the seats.
• Ohio State is raising ticket prices. I don't know all the specifics, but it could be used to help fund expansion, maybe that was part of the plan all along.
• Ohio Stadium is the 4th largest stadium in college football by capacity. Who's number 1? None other than Michigan. And as we all know, we want to beat Michigan in every way we can. And when you consider we have a larger fanbase, campus enrollment & more recent success on the field, it just makes sense that we have the bigger stadium. It's likely Michigan won't consider expansion to retake that spot because they want to keep the traditional bowl structure of their stadium.
• We've been setting spring game attendance records like crazy, the demand is high
• It will leave no doubt that Ohio Stadium is the most intimidating atmosphere in college football by far & impress recruits. It will help the team win games by creating a more hostile environment for visiting teams & help lure more top recruits to OSU. Also, imagine if instead of simply making the south stands a taller version of what they currently are, we add another deck to the south stands. That would make Ohio Stadium a double deck stadium all the way around, imagine how insane the gameday atmosphere would be then. Visiting teams wouldn't know what to do, just all Buckeyes as far as the eye can see.

So that's my view on the subject. I hope you at least enjoyed reading this & found it interesting.

Hey guys I was wondering which current or recently retired buckeye will make the nfl hall of fame. It only took what seems like forever for chris "all he does is catch touchdowns" Carter to finally get it. Here is the list of current Bucks who are in the NFL. I personally feel that Hawk, Laurinaities, Jenkins, Winfield and Clements all have a legit chance to aleast beconsidered if they keep up their level of play. Although I do wish that we put more skill position players( wide recievers and running backs) that are really good in the NFL. All of the guys that I mentioned are tackling machines who can easily get 100 or more tackles aseason easily. Clements had a ok year but he can be a ballhawk even at his advanced age. I look forward to see more buckeyes in the hall of fame and maybe one being able to pass USC and Notre Dame on number of guys that we put in the NFL hall of fame. And I do love pulling up this stat to all of my SEC friends who swear that the Big ten players suck and that it is the SEC that dominates not only college but the pros. I point to the hall of famers and then they try to come up with a bunch of nonsense in order to support their claims that the SEC is better in the pros.  It is the pros that show how good a player really is and the Big ten and tOSU by far out shine the SEC.

http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/colleges.aspx

http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/nfl-active.html