Eleven Warriors

The game of football has changed. A lot.

Barker has waited patiently, is he over it?

Those changes have been for the good in some cases – like the commercialization of the sport which helps mid-major colleges gain television exposure they never would have had access to in years past – and bad for the game in some cases, like the commercialization of the sport which has taken college student-athletes and turned them into celebrities to the nth degree. 

As the game has changed on the field, and the attention paid to it off the field has increased, the attention paid to recruiting and recruiting websites (thankfully) has also increased exponentially, prompting thousands of fans and prospects alike to flock to Twitter, Facebook and whatever other medium that can be found. Day in and day out, overzealous fans pimp their favorite programs, hoping to somehow lure the nation's elite to whatever college campus serves as the home for their glory days. At the same time, recruits and their families work tirelessly to promote themselves and their talents so that they can land whatever offer they covet the most. 

It's actually kind of beautiful. The passion, the intensity, the love of the game; but the rush ends at some point, the appeal of non-stop attention ends at some point and when it's all said and done, the recruit who was so fawned over during his recruitment becomes just another small potato at a football factory pushing out order after order of large fries. It's a constant push for attention and affection from schools that offer much with little guarantees, and the players eat it up, often without truly considering half of the schools that offer them a scholarship, yet each offer is met with screams from the mountaintop.

One prominent Midwest high school football coach can't really understand that concept. Why clamor for offers and yet not truly consider every school that's willing to pony up hundreds of thousands of scholarship dollars for your services?

"Why do they want offers if they never take visits?" he said. "I don't understand it. How do you truly know what you want? I just wish kids would make sure. If you've waited your whole life for one school, then jump on it, but it's folks who never explore their options that I worry about. I'm just trying to make sure our kids see more schools, it's good for everyone."

COME AT ME

"Urban Meyer straight up died today," ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo! Sports, and literally every sports news website in the world will say. "We tried to warn him, ask him how his heart was doing, but did he listen? No. And now he is dead. Super damn dead. Here's what his heart looks like: phhhbbbbtttt."

It's what they're looking for, right? Seriously, they don't put most athletes through the same kind of wringer with regard to health questions that they do with Urban Meyer. Now almost a year and a half into his hiring, he's still fielding questions about his health, as he did in this ESPN segment. To wit:

 Asked by ESPN to compare the current Urban Meyer to the one who won the national 2006 national championship at Florida, Meyer said, “I’m in a good place right now. I think once you hit a certain point in your life you don’t want to go back there. I feel great and I’ve got a bunch of good guys I’m working with and I trust my staff, and in the off-season I’m off. ”

So, story over? Of course not! Why would you listen to anything that comes out of Urban Meyer's mouth? The dude is a walking boil of pent-up rage and heart palpitations, literally seconds away from blowing an indeterminate number of valves in front of a recruit and destroying the WHAC in the process. He and his family (who affirm that he's in full Jimmy Buffett mode) cannot be trusted to give accurate information about personal family matters.

There are not many spots left in the Ohio State 2014 recruiting class. Some experts say there may only be 10 spots left; others are a bit more optimistic and think the Buckeyes could stretch it from the current seven commitments to upwards of 20. There are a number of names that are well known still on the board that have been talked about ad nauseam like Raekwon McMillan, Dante Booker, Demarre Kitt, Jabrill Peppers, and any number of quarterbacks. 

Jalen Jelks is gaining recruiting steam

There are lots of opportunities for the next group of young men with the talent and the desire to join Urban Meyer's "Chase" for the next Buckeye crystal ball.

One player who does not yet have the chance to say "yes please" to the Buckeyes, but would be more than happy to receive that call is Phoenix (Ariz.) Desert Vista defensive end Jalen Jelks, a 6-foot-7, 250 pound lineman who has recently picked up major scholarship offers from some of the nation's elite football programs.

Arizona, Arizona State, Boise State, Oregon, Oregon State, Tennessee, Washington and Wisconsin have all offered the junior, who was born in Sidney (Oh.) but raised in Arizona since he was four years old, despite the fact that he's only played two years of competitive football.

"I played freshman football, but got injured and couldn't play," Jelks said. "I was able to start on JV when I got back and was moved to varsity."

When you're 6-foot-7, it's easy to get attention, but Jelks admits that he was not really ready for this sudden surge in recruiting interest. He is aware, however, of the best way to handle it.

"It was all very overwhelming at first," Jelks said of the attention, some of which got started on the forums of Eleven Warriors.

"Over time you just have to try and get used to it and make sure you make the right decisions."

It's essentially a dead period for Ohio State fans. The baseball season is ongoing, and the baseball Bucks still have a very good shot at winning a regular season Big Ten championship before thinking about the NCAA baseball tournament. Further, men's tennis is obliterating everything in its path with the goal of securing that elusive NCAA championship in a sport that the Buckeyes have dominated regionally. However, these are unlikely to elicit a statewide focus, though the author encourages the reader to attend a few baseball games and invest in watching the men's tennis program pursue a national championship.

J.T. Barrett

Alas, it's football that dominates the Ohio State fan's attention in April and Eleven Warriors' series previewing the incoming freshmen continues here. In the 10th installment of the fifth edition of this now 24-part series titled Better Know A Buckeye, I profile J.T. Barrett. Barrett, a quarterback from Wichita Falls, Texas, committed to Ohio State fairly early into the recruiting process, roughly three weeks after an unofficial visit in the spring of 2012. A very promising quarterback prospect who is recovering from a significant injury to end his senior season, Barrett enrolled at Ohio State in January to get started on what could be a very bright collegiate career.

His recruitment is retold below, focusing on the eclectic offers he had as well as his interest in Ohio State as the total package. Thereafter, I include a breakdown of strengths and weaknesses, focusing the latter mostly on the extent of his leg injury and how he recovers. I include highlights, a projection of a redshirt (spoiler alert: yes), and some miscellaneous things about Barrett you may find interesting before I conclude he is better known. He is put on "the board" accordingly.

Height: 6'1
Weight: 230 lbs
Fake 40: 4.6
High School: S.H. Rider High School; Wichita Falls, Texas

Follow @Jt_theQB

Conference realignment has been a source of frustration for fans since the first momentous shift in the summer of 2010. Nebraska abandoned its home of more than 100 years to join the Big Ten, while Colorado left behind more than a half century of traditions and memories for the Pac-12. 

The Cornhuskers were charter members of the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association when it was founded in 1907. Save for two years – 1919 and 1920 – Nebraska enjoyed a 101-year relationship with what would eventually be known as the Big 12 Conference. But in the senseless era of conference expansion, it all came to an end.

Now athletic directors, who have been supportive of realignment largely because it fattens their wallets, will live the hindrance firsthand. It was reported last week that the Big Ten will move to a nine-game conference schedule, similar to what the Big 12 and Pac-12 have already instituted.

This scheduling philosophy will always have kinks because it requires a handful of teams to play more road conference games than home games. But it makes sense why a 10-team league like the Big 12 would be in favor, because it allows a round-robin format where every team plays one another.

For the Big Ten and other leagues with more than 10 members, the addition of one game to the conference schedule makes less sense when you consider the 14 teams will not match up together. What it would do is add even more value to one of college sports’ most valuable brands.

Naming things is hard.

Every year, millions of people are born into the world, and every year some parents name their children weird things. In spite of all the reasonable people naming babies Joshua or Olivia, a few radical souls name their children Morpheus or Moondog or Apple or something. These people may not be insane, but rather become overwhelmed by the enormity of naming a person who's going to be around for decades.

That's hard enough as is. Now imagine that you have to name a corporation. If you get it wrong, you're not screwing up a kid (you can always make more kids anyway), you're screwing up the effort of dozens or hundreds of people.

To make a long story short, trying to come up with a fancy name makes rational people lose their minds from the pressure in the process. This is the rationale I assume is behind the announced name of the new college football playoff... the College Football Playoff. The website is here, and the Twitter handle for it is here.

It's not impressive — milquetoast isn't bland enough to describe it — but it's accurate and parsimonious. If you ask for more creativity from these people, you'll get ideas that make Leaders and Legends look as sensible as East and West. At least Jim Delany has a dry sense of humor about the thing:

"I'll be happy with whatever. Obviously I'm not great at names."

The name of a playoff doesn't change much about the NCAA: the inconsistencies of wealth distribution, big money games, and movers and shakers remain in place. We still don't know many specifics about the playoff, other than six (!) sites hosting semifinals. But the name change makes college football a little more intellectually honest, and college football can be redeemed with more honesty.

The Ohio State coaching staff has done excellent work landing elite cornerbacks the past couple of years, thanks mostly to the impressive recruiting jobs from head coach Urban Meyer and defensive backs coach Kerry Coombs.

Jabrill Peppers is a five-star safety.

In the 2012 class the Bucks landed high upside corner Armani Reeves. They followed this up in the 2013 class by landing a stellar list of names including the likes of Eli Apple, Cam Burrows, and Gareon Conley.

This good run continues with the current class with the pledge of Detroit Cass Tech's Damon Webb, considered by some to be the best player in the state of Michigan.

You can never have enough elite corners, however, and many are still considering the Buckeyes. The list of cornerbacks on Ohio State's radar includes Jabrill Peppers, Jalen Tabor, Tony Brown, and Quincy Wilson, among others.

Saying that, the staff will probably only accept one more commitment from a corner, unless it's Marshon Lattimore and another corner who both want to commit since Lattimore could play on the offensive side of the ball at the college level.

Join us after the jump for a look at where Ohio State stands with Peppers, Tabor and some of the other corners mentioned above.

On the way to seven national titles, 34 B1G championships, and the sixth-most wins in college football history (837), Ohio State fans have seen literally dozens of truly special single-season offensive performances turned in by Buckeye greats. 

Reflecting on some of those special performances during a hops-fueled debate a few weeks back, myself and a couple buddies were trying to determine exactly which Buckeye of the modern era (loosely defined as 1970 to today) indeed had the most dominant offensive season.

We quickly ran into issues comparing monster seasons by quarterbacks like Troy to receivers like Glenn to running backs like Archie, so when a pretty girl slowly sauntered by the table, no doubt turned on by our gawks, we completely forgot what we were discussing and ended up chatting about how cute it looks when couples chooses to sit on the same side of a booth.

But back to football. I figured I might as well do a little bit of digging in an effort to identify, by skill position, exactly which Buckeye greats had the most transcendent single-season offensive performance. Today, we'll take a look at the running backs followed by the wide receivers next week before rounding things out by examining the quarterbacks.

As I scanned my memory bank, various publications and the records books, three individual seasons by running backs initially jumped out as worthy candidates: Eddie George's ridiculous 1995 season earned him a Heisman, Keith Byars went off like the mob in 1984 and Archie picked up his first Stiff Arm trophy following an incredible 1974 campaign.

Chico Nelson, Lorenzo Styles and Dennis Maag were part of a team that took a 16-game unbeaten streak to Ann Arbor.

Hey, remember when Ohio State went 12-0 last season?

Aside from being predictably exhilarating, that perfect outcome represented a fairly reasonable prediction. The Buckeyes were returning a whole bunch of seasoned players and had Urban Meyer, a manageable schedule and no title pressure all on their side.

Running the table wasn’t a given – it never is and never will be – but it also wasn’t terribly far-fetched to think of 12-0 as a strong possibility heading into last summer, even coming off of the forgettable 6-7 disaster that preceded it.  

Perfect record fantasies are generally ground into a fine hash and smoked in pipes, but if you’ve only recently been released into the wild from the comfortable sanctuary of college or your parents’ home, this is all your young life as a Buckeye fan has ever processed: Realistic title dreams.

That’s what you expect now. Every offseason, every year – even heading into that forgettable 6-7 disaster. “Tempered” expectations for the Buckeyes begin with double-digit wins regardless of the schedule or circumstances. You're not certifiably crazy to at least anticipate perfection anymore.

For you young Buckeyes who know of no other world: This padded room of ours turns 20 in 2013. It’s still a baby, just like you.

Our long national nightmare may finally be over. And we have the ACC, the unlikeliest of all organizations to thank.

For three years, teams have crisscrossed the nation, swapping conferences like t-shirts and jeans. Some joined leagues only to never even play one game in their new landing spot. Above all, traditions vanished and fans were marginalized all in the name of the almighty dollar.

But what seemed like a never-ending journey that would send college football into oblivion is nearing its final hour. On Monday, the ACC announced a landmark media rights deal that all 15 member schools – yes, the ACC now has 15 teams – are set to agree on.

The Grant of Rights will prevent fellow conferences from pilfering ACC schools because, in essence, it gives a team no value if it leaves. If a school decides to go elsewhere, it relinquishes its media rights. As we know, that is the No. 1 moneymaker in college athletics.

The deal coincides with the ACC’s current TV deal with ESPN, which expires after the 2026-27 season. What was once a $17 million deal for each school could rise to more than $20 million due to Notre Dame’s inclusion and the impending ACC Network.