In Earle’s Under the Fedora piece from last week it was observed that Monday was the lone day of the week without a non-staff member dedicated submission.  I shamelessly volunteered my talents keystrokes to fill that void.  I didn’t even come up with the name.  Hell, I don’t even know which direction to drive this bus.  Per usual, I’m just here to collect the upvotes.  Anyway, thank you in advance for reading my drivel…..I hope it inspires makes Monday morning tolerable.

Ok, enough of the nicey-nice.  Let’s get grumpy.

I had originally intended to have this entire thread center around the Buckeyes (of course), but I couldn’t possibly start a Meltdown thread by ignoring what happened in Ann Arbor over the weekend.  There are a thousand ways to describe MSU’s miraculous victory, but this cartoon is my favorite:

Troll on, Mark Dantonio.  Troll on.

And we should all meltdown over the results of the TTUN-MSU because …well….hang on …I’ll think of it….*checking my notes*…. ok damn, I admit it, I’ve got nothing.  It was BEAUTIFUL in every conceivable way. That’s not the way I wanted to start the Monday Meltdown concept, but I just can’t help acknowledge true beauty when I see it.  I need a shower.

Traveling back down RT 23…it’s time to meltdown over #BlackSaturday.

I’ve got 3 things about our 38-10 victory over our fake rivals that we can get good and pissed off about on this Monday morning:

1.  The dead guy next to me;
2.  Superfans; and
3.  Fans and Round .. (ok I’ve lost count) of #QBmageddon.

1: The dead guy next to me.

I was lucky enough to have really good seats in the ‘Shoe for the game.  It was under the lights.  Big conference game.  Alternate uniforms.  Defending a national championship.  The players deserve a big-time atmosphere.  The noise actually helps the team win, particularly against a pocket passing quarterback.  I was clapping, yelling, etc. every time the Nittany Lions had the football.  Then, I looked to my right. 

I shouldn’t have done that.

Sitting next to me was a nice enough gentlemen.  In any other circumstance I’m sure he and I would be pals.  However, he didn’t clap the entire game.  Ok ….so he’s not a clapper (I’m not sure how he turns on his Christmas lights, but I digress).  He also didn’t make a sound the entire game.  1st down: no. 2nd down: no.  3rd down: no.  4th down: again, sadly, no.

But he stood and cheered when Zeke eluded a half dozen Penn St. defenders and scored a touchdown, right?  Negative.  

I was looking around for a mirror to hold in front of his face to see if he could fog the damn thing.

Wait Alum, you’re being unfair, he probably just didn’t feel well or had something wrong with him.  Give him the benefit of the doubt.  Yea, I hear you, except he was perfectly healthy enough to hike down to the concession stand to get a bag of junk food and come back to munch on snacks for 2 hours.   :|

Little frustrates me more at Ohio Stadium than fans who don’t understand (or just refuse) to participate in the outcome of the game.  THE OUTCOME OF THE GAME. THE. OUTCOME. OF. THE. GAME.  Noise matters in football and that’s the one thing all us football junkies can do that doesn’t cost us a cent yet actually helps the team win.  I mean just clap when it’s third down and the other team has the ball.  That’s not perfect, but it’s better than sitting there and doing nothing!

Exhale. 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.

Ok.

The one thing I will say about the near-dead Buckeye fan to my right:  he wore black.  Urban asked and near-dead Buckeye fan stepped up to the plate.  Props to you, sir. At least you got that right.  Others, well, not so much.

2. Superfans.

Most of the stadium wore black on Saturday night. 

Thank you BuckeyeNation and students for an incredible atmosphere last night! That was a WOW! pic.twitter.com/YvHVxvc8Zk
— Urban Meyer (@OSUCoachMeyer) October 19, 2015

It was a cool spectacle IMO…something different that the players (and fans) will remember for a long time.  Most people were willing to play along.  There were some that didn’t.  I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the casual Buckeye fan (I know, we can’t imagine, but they’re real).  However, the Superfans (Big Nut, Buck-I-Guy, et al) are not casual fans.

I believe that they love the Buckeyes.  I also believe that they follow the team. So, what gives? Why not wear black to a blackout?  [To be fair, I only saw Big Nut at the game ….in part because he wasn’t wearing black].

Maybe they just hate the color black?

Good point, BvtW.  I’m not going there.

Maybe they’re self-promoting attention whores?  That seems much more likely - and it’s annoying.  Urban Meyer wore a white jacket to the game so the players could find him easily on the sideline.  It’s important that he be identifiable.  He’s running the show after all.  Superfans?  Well…..

That pretty much sums it up.

While near-dead Buckeye fan and Superfan(s) are annoying, at least they’re just annoying.  The fans in my section with all their smoking hot takes on #QBmageddon took things to a new level.

3. Fans on Round .. (ok I’ve lost count) of #QBmageddon.

Full disclosure:  I spent the entire offseason thinking that Cardale Jones deserved a chance to begin the season as the starting quarterback.  He jumped into the fire last year and helped us win 3 of the most significant games in Ohio State football history.  You can’t just get up off the couch and pull that off (despite what we all think).  He deserves a ton of credit and a ton of respect for those accomplishments.  Had he not been on the roster at the time JT went down, all those beautiful deep balls to Devin Smith never would have happened.

It’s for all those reasons that I felt really torn on Saturday night.  JT gave the offense a spark, albeit with his legs more than his arm.  He was great last year before his injury.  The BTN Elite program (recommended if you haven’t seen it yet) cast JT in an even better light if you can believe that.  Given Cardale’s recent struggles, JT probably deserves a shot to start a game and see if he can recapture what he had going last year.  I would love nothing more than for JT to start and light up the scoreboard, not only because it’s fun for me to cheer for a winning team, but because it’s great to see any player (JT included) be successful.

Back to being torn.  I’m torn because the only way JT grabs a hold of the full-time reigns of this QB position is if Cardale is relegated back to 2nd string duty.  If JT deserves it then JT deserves it – no argument from me.  However, even if JT deserves it, there’s still the unpleasant reality that Cardale is out there doing everything he can to raise his level of play to the place it was at the end of last year and he just seemingly hasn’t recaptured the magic.

With that backdrop, I heard 2 distinct messages from our crowd on Saturday night:

Message #1: Chanting “J-T, J-T, J-T.”  That was awesome when he came in for his scheduled red-zone duties.  It was (in my opinion) less awesome when Cardale throws an incomplete pass at midfield.  I know it’s a pro-JT chant, however, let’s be honest, Cardale is likely hearing “You’re not good enough, you’re not good enough, you’re not good enough.”  That’s got to be tough.  Thus, while I could observe that Cardale was struggling, I just couldn’t chant along with the rest of the stadium.  I’m not saying you’re a bad person if you did .. I just couldn’t.

Message #2:  “What the fu** are you doing, Cardale? Put JT in the fu**ing game, Urban. What the fu**.  This is fu**ing stupid.  Booo.  Booo.  Booo.”  Yes, there was a group of these fans in my section too.  This is the portion of our fan base that really frustrates the hell out of me.  I ultimately don’t care whether Cardale or JT plays … the coaches know better than I do…but whoever plays deserves to be treated like a human being.  (Yes, even the TTUN punter.)  Spouting that nonsense from the stands is worse than annoying.

Fun experiment:  I wonder if “Boo Cardale” fan would be down with all of us crowding into his office to watch him do his job and then bitch about how bad he sucks and then complain to his manager that he should be replaced?  He’d probably (rightly) tell us that we don’t know what the hell we’re talking about.  Makes you think.

At the end of the day, I guess the public will always be the public.  What do we know about the public, Mr. Swanson?

Hot take, Mr. Swanson.  Hot take indeed.

TL; DR:

It’s Monday. TTUN’s loss was cool. Near-dead fans are annoying. Superfans are annoying.  FU Cardale fans are worse than annoying.

Parting shot:  Shout out to the OSU student sections (North and South stands).  Penn State loves their "WE ARE..PENN ST" chant.  Our students came strong with "YOU SUCK..PENN ST." I loved it.