Eleven Warriors

Friday brought the arrival of the Buckeye spring media guide and with that came tidbits that were delightful and at other times excruciating to the point you're questioning the existence of God. Take, for instance, the fact that Steve Rehring left Columbus after playing nearly twice as many minutes as Beanie Wells (891 to 504).

The release also brought 2009's first depth chart and while Alex noted some highlights Saturday, we cannot stress the joy of seeing a healthy Andre Amos in the mix. That and did anyone else catch Cameron Heyward listed as DE after spending most of last season listed at tackle? It's early and the opening roster could very well be different at a handful of spots, but it's nice to envision the roster currently in place.

Beyond that, perhaps the staff is learning a thing or two from USC. Sunday's practice was open to the press (photos here), startling Ken Gordon of the Dispatch. He did return with some nuggets, including:

• Andrew Miller was the starting left tackle, ahead of Mike Adams (who's listed as a one on the depth chart). Consider that some early season motivation for Mike and one more hallelujah for position battles.
• Taurian Washington and Jake Stoneburner stood out on offense, while Ohrian Johnson saw plenty of snaps at nickel with the first team defense.
• Posey short-armed a 50-yard bomb from Pryor that was a sure six.

The quote of the session came out of QB coach Joe Daniels when he turned to Pryor and said: "You know what? You're not as bad as you used to be."

Pryor for his part, looked crisp, though Gordon still sees some weirdness in his mechanics.

"As I've watched Big Ten basketball this year I don't think they're anywhere close to the Big East or the Atlantic Coast Conference. I think they're a long way from both of those conferences."

Those were the words of Bob Knight on Selection Sunday shortly after the Big Ten earned seven NCAA tournament bids. And he wasn’t the only one thinking that. Billy Packer mentioned the “tremendous disparity between the value” of the Big Ten and the Big East and ACC. A few days earlier, Digger Phelps went out of his way to point out how poor and low-scoring the conference was as he dismissed talk of the Spartans earning a one seed.

So it’s with such great pleasure that we turn to tonight’s matchup between the ACC’s best in North Carolina, and the Big Ten champ that just finished thumping two consecutive one seeds to get here. It’s only of minor importance that the aforementioned top seeds to get dispatched by the Spartans hailed from the mighty Big East, of course, or that Izzo's squad knocked off three of the top 13 teams in the nation per the final coaches poll.

Nor is it important that despite getting shafted with lower seeds (four teams ranked eighth or lower compared to one combined out of the Big East and ACC) and thus facing tougher roads, the conference saw its teams knock off two higher seeded ACC foes in the opening round, knock out the Pac-10 regular season and tournament champions and crush the Big 12 and Big East champs. And don't forget, the conference's 8th-best team knocked off Florida and Notre Dame on the way to the NIT championship. Scoffable, perhaps, but surely an indicator of depth.

No, all that is important is to watch a little basketball, observe the combination of hard, physical defense and manic officiating put on in the Midwest and declare the league overrated. Hey, it worked for ESPN and college football, didn't it? It's nothing short of lazy analysis by guys that should know better -- forgetting the fact that solid defense and rebounding can still win a game here and there.

This isn't to say that the conference is packed with teams as talented as the Spartans because it clearly isn't. And it's true, Wisconsin games are capable of permanently damaging your eyes. But unlike football, where you saw the warning signs building from the disastrous end of the 2006 campaign through the Appalachian State stunner to where we are today, the Big Ten has more than held it's own in college hoops this entire decade.

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney has noticed, and although the last time he went to bat for the Big Ten, he earned some deserved criticism, he's 100% correct this time.

Ahhh...This warms my heart.

As a Buckeye and Yankee fan I'm used to taking non-stop flak from opposing fan bases for differing reasons. For OSU, it's constant chatter about a weak conference and big game failures. For the Yanks, it's about not being able to successfully buy a championship.

To me, both arguments can go float in the toilet next to a thick steamer but I have to admit the hate only makes the love for my teams even stronger and now there's a nice link between the two on field generals.

Talking today about the two helmets behind his Yankee Stadium desk - a Northwestern helmet (his alma mater), and an OSU helmet signed by Tressel - Girardi offered up some love for the Vested One:

"I really admire what he does," Girardi says, "And I'm a Northwestern guy."

Maybe it's just me but I think that's good stuff. I wonder how many Rich Rod signed helmets are out there for similar reasons?

So the first depth chart for Spring Practice has been released and this is what it looks like.

Some interesting things to note here are that the Cordle-to-tackle experiment seems to be pretty solid as he is listed as the starting right tackle, Bryant Browning is listed as the starting left guard, Dexter Larimore gets the starting nod over Todd Denlinger at DT, and Tyler Moeller is the listed starter at the OLB slot opposite Ross Homan. It's also kind of interesting/funny that Dane Sanzenbacher is the back-up holder and that one of the back-up QBs or P/Ks couldn't hold down that job.

Other than the aforementioned things of note, there are not many surprises to this depth chart. I really like how the staff goes about making changes and trying to find the best places for the puzzle pieces to fit in Spring Practice so that when fall camp comes around the team is ready to roll at game speed. There are of course some injuries preventing players from competing this spring (Shugarts, Lawrence Wilson, Keith Wells, Zach Boren), but this first depth chart and the ensuing practices that will take place from now until April 25 should give us a good idea of which Buckeyes get the starting nod when they take on Navy on September 5.

Stay tuned for more as Spring Practice picks up in the coming weeks and we're able to find out more of what to expect from the 2009 edition of The Ohio State Buckeyes.

NFL Draft Bible and other non-MSM sources are reporting that USC's Brian Cushing and Clay Matthews tested positive for steroids at the NFL combine last month in Indianapolis.

There's been quiet speculation for some time that Trojan football players were maybe taking advantage of performance-enhancing elements (besides the free lodging for family members) and this report seems to confirm that could be true -- at least in Cushing and Matthews' cases.

Any idea how this might affect their draft stock? Sapp, Merriman, Castillo and others have been busted for the same in the past and in the case of Castillo it didn't really kill his stock, and for whatever reason, steroid allegations and offenses aren't frowned upon in the NFL to the extent they are in MLB.

UPDATE: Carroll claims the rumors are false.

UPDATE 2: So pretty much everyone and their brother is calling the report into question. Not much on the site's about page and the contact page is now 404'n (cached version). The proprietor of the site is a former producer at ESPN and when contacted by the NFL Network, stood by the report, so he's either going to burn every bridge he'll ever need in life or have something huge.

Now, we're bracing for the inevitable assault on the voracity of interweb sites. I get the argument that there's no accountability, because, hey, there really isn't. I could put out a post saying Laurinaitis eats babies and there'd be nobody to stop me, but all the hard work we've put into the site would be worthless after that. NFL Draft Bible may not have any accountability in the workflow sense, but you can bet that if they're wrong, they can say goodbye to any relevance going forward.

We'll get to some more spring football news and discussions next week, but in the meantime here is another great Woody photo. Give the above your cleverest caption and the winner gets to attend the Brian Hartline draft party. Not really.

LeBron isn't the only one hitting incredible shots on camera these days.

All that's left is to stay healthy.

Later this afternoon the Ohio State Buckeyes will hit the field for their first of 15 spring practices that should feature more competition than perhaps at any time during Tressel's tenure in Columbus.

Gone are Jenkins, Laurinaitis, Freeman, Robiskie and 24 other seniors. Gone also is one of the finest backs ever to suit up for the Buckeyes and two other juniors that have decided to try their game in the NFL.

The 2009 Buckeyes are young. And talented. Tressel mentioned as much in his press conference yesterday when he said that though the ones haven't been determined, we're likely to see more combinations of player groupings than we've seen in quite some time. This excites him as it does us as there's a feeling out there that plugging in all of these new faces may not be such a bad thing after all.

The offensive line will be breaking in two new starters, but the guys they're replacing won't exactly go down as greats in most fans' memories. Justin Boren and Mike Adams look to be the two biggest beneficiaries of the open spots and JT mentioned guard Jim Cordle may slide over to tackle this year (the move was spurred by Bollman who thought Datish had his best year outside with his quickness), which means we could be seeing three new starters if Browning doesn't find a spot. Regardless, the fact that there will be some good old-fashioned dirt-in-your-face position battles is a good thing.

Looking at the secondary, Tressel confirmed Andre Amos was healthy (as of this writing) and if that holds, he'll be a favorite to capture Jenkins's open cornerback spot. If that doesn't work out, there are no fewer than five youngsters that will battle for that position. The safeties, Coleman and Anderson Russell, are back, but it should be interesting to see how the staff gets Hines and Moeller onto the field.

Nowhere will the youth movement be more evident than in the linebacking corps. Homan returns as the hard-nosed run-stopper and you can bet that Sabino will wind up as one of the new starters, but who will win that third job? Maybe Hines has put on enough weight to slide in? What about Spitler, Sweat, Bell and Rolle?

Is this the year DeVier Posey makes a national name for himself on the edge? He certainly has the tools. Will Ray Small stay out of the doghouse? Has Dane added any bulk? The wide receivers will be a green group, for sure, but again, that may not entirely be a bad thing.

When you look at who is coming back with experience, you have to start with #2. If his desire to improve is half as good as what's been reported, Buckeye fans will have a lot to smile about this season. As a redshirt sophomore in 2004, Vince Young led Texas to an 11-1 record and a top-five finish in the polls. Pryor will be hitting the field this fall with more game experience than Young took into that season. This makes me very happy.

Another area of depth and experience is the defensive line. For a team breaking in new linebackers, the importance of this cannot be overstated. There were times last season when Thaddeus Gibson was unblockable (Michigan State, the first half of the Penn State game). If Lawrence Wilson manages to stay healthy, you're looking at two future NFL defensive ends on the edges. And we're not even talking about last season's breakthrough freshman, Nathan Williams (and Robert Rose, oh my). The interior still has something to prove, but the thing about sacks and monster run stops is that they're contagious. Expect Heyward, Larimore, Denlinger and crew to respond.

There's been talk of some offensive tinkering to take advantage of Pryor's unique abilities, and the staff visited the Research Triangle area of North Carolina to gather ideas in the offseason. Stops included Duke, Wake Forest, North Carolina and North Carolina State. While that list may not look like the four schools you'd want to go and learn things from, Tressel did correctly point out that the four had great staffs and were all moving in the right direction. More importantly, members of the strength and conditioning staff fanned out to Texas, Florida and the Tampa Bay Bucaneers

What we're probably most excited about is the new blood and hopefully the new attitude they bring to the table. There's no doubting the talent on hand, but the program has been in a big-game funk for the past couple of seasons. The players have been putting in the offseason weight and conditioning work and now it's time to see which ones will take those first steps towards establishing holds on spots before the three month break before fall camp begins.

As Woody liked to say, the Young Turks have to step up.

We heard you liked tilt-shifts, so we put a tilt-shift on your Buckeyes so you can smile while you shift.

Thanks to the original Buckeye tilt-shift for inspiration.

(Background on Sup Dawg -- probably NSFW. XZIBIT's response, which is completely safe for work is worth a read for a chuckle. You cannot defeat the internet, kind sir.)

The real news from OSU football will start flowing tomorrow as the Buckeyes take the field for the first time this spring, starting the process of replacing 12 starters and looking to rid themselves of the big game dark cloud that has hoovered over this program for the last 2 years.

The leaders of that group are gone and the debate over their legacy will last a few years, but most Buckeye fans are ready to quickly turn the page to a younger, perhaps speedier pack of Buckeyes. The buzz is growing, morphing recent basketball posts into heated discussions on football and all climaxing at the April 25th spring game.

There will be plenty of time to breakdown the current roster as we roll through spring and into fall, with the much anticipated Sept. 12th matchup with USC. So we thought it would be a good idea to take a different approach and focus on a few things that we probably won't see this April.

1. Tressel abandons the punt. Is there a better time now that AJ Trappasso is gone? It is well documented how much the Vest loves the punt, but why not go a little Madden '99 and just go for it every time. Most of their 4th downs should be 4 yards or less and with the dual threat of TP and speed in the backfield, it would be a perfect fit to liven up the predictable offense. Is there any doubt Pryor could pooch punt when necessary?

2. No RB's will be tapping on their helmets for a breather. For us at 11W, the RB position is open for the first time in 4 years. Yes, Boom Herron has the experience and presumed lead going into spring, but Brandon Saine is healthy and we have found out the freshmen backs are coming in ready to compete this fall.

We all had to get used to the Beanie tap last season as he fought injuries all year, but with this stable of backs, any tapping of the helmet for rest breaks could result in a slip down the pecking order. Herron and Saine will get the bulk of the carries this spring, but come fall the totes will become more precious and Tressel has proven he is not scared to play a newbie.

3. TP will line up in a tackle eligible super secret pass play. It was brought to our attention by Tim May on Sunday that Terrelle is continuing to work towards his bonafide freak status as an athlete, while trying to bring his passing fundamentals to that same level. Who knows exactly how much muscle he has gained since the season ended, but if he nears 250 he could at least equal some of Browning's efforts at RT last year.

The Bucks have struggled in short yardage situations recently and since JT already lined Pryor at WR, the next logical step is a tackle eligible. Laugh all you want, but this could be the reason the Vest wants practices closed to the public, no one can see the super secret USC killer.

4. Tight Ends will be featured in the offense. The TE position has been the least utilized aspect of Ohio State football since the arrival of Jim Tressel. With a movement towards the spread and only 3 tight ends on the roster, there is no reason to believe this is going to change. Nicol and Ballard combined for 13 catches last year, but seemed open at least 4 times a game. Finding the TE is part of TP's evolution, but something tells us that won't come until his pro days.

5. Tressel goes a Twittering. What would Woody have thought about Twitter? A man such as Tressel keeps it close to the Vest and shies from the limelight, so don't look for him to be giving Carrol-like updates or filming self produced videos encouraging others to join the flock. There is no guarantee JT would wax tweet-like poetry such as Zook, Brewster and RichRod, but imagine if Tressel started giving his media updates only through Twitter.

Feel free to discuss any other ideas of what we won't see this spring, otherwise I'm sure the comment section will take a life of its own throughout the day and especially after Tressel's kickoff press conference at noon.