Eleven Warriors

The college offseason is interminably long. The calendar tells us that it lasts only a few months but that’s only because scientists refuse to admit that their evil experiments with time travel have created warps in the space-time continuum that slow the passing of days from spring football to fall kickoff.

How do you get through it? The NBA and NHL playoffs can only get you so far. You could watch baseball, but that just makes the time pass even slower. There must be a way to get from the spring game to opening day without losing your mind.

I’ve given it a great deal of thought, so you don’t have to. There are things you can do to make the time pass more quickly, or at least to occupy your mind while you’re waiting. This is important in helping you to retain your sanity and keep your blood pressure down.

Here is an A-Z primer on what to do to during the college football offseason:

Anticipation: You could simply spend the offseason waiting for the Buckeyes to return. This way madness lies. There’s no sense in just building your excitement because you are not Kerry Coombs and therefore you can’t handle the level of intensity you’d reach with at least two weeks to spare. Your head might literally explode. This is a dumb idea and I don't recommend it, but the offseason would eventually creep past.

Better Know Buckeyes: It’s never too early to get to know the incoming freshman class. Because you are already an 11W reader, which speaks to your impeccable taste, you don’t even have to go digging for information. Our very own Vico is already providing all the info you need in his award-winning* “Better Know a Buckeye” series. (*Jason gave him an “atta-boy” and there is no honor higher than that.)

It starts early in the morning before 8 a.m. Football players pile into the school wearing their jerseys, cheerleaders in their uniforms. After noon, people line up outside Purple Rider Stadium to secure their seats for the football game – at 7 p.m. It’s game day in Martins Ferry.

The gates to the 5,550-seat stadium open at 5:30 and the 2,700 seats on the home side are filled by 6, an hour before kickoff.

“Friday night in Martins Ferry actually starts Friday morning,” said athletic director Kim Appolloni. “Friday nights in the fall are exciting days around here. People pack the home side every game. It’s an exciting time for the kids and the community.”

This working class town of almost 7,000 sits in the middle of the Rust Belt where steel mills once dotted the landscape along the Ohio River, extending from Youngstown to Marietta. Martins Ferry, the oldest settlement in the state of Ohio, was once home to 15,000 residents, steel mills, glass factories and coal mines.

Just a day after hearing that Meyer and Herman had offered a second quarterback for 2014, two more potential Buckeye signal callers were offered yesterday. 

Yes, that's right: start the forum topic, "Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Trust Urban's Quarterback Recruiting Plan." 

Zach Darlington and Brandon Harris were the lucky pair to be offered following Kyle Allen, and each one looks like a fine potential addition. 

Harris has expected an Ohio State offer for a little while now, but Darlington was caught by surprise. Even as a surprise, it's one that he has been hoping for: "That’s the one I’ve really been working for, Ohio State."

Herman obviously came away impressed by his 4.43 speed and arm strength in person, but Urban was so impressed by his film that he approved the offer from afar: 

“He hasn’t seen me in person yet, but he said from what he’s heard and seen on film that I remind him a lot of [Tim] Tebow because of my willingness to work and my will to win,” Darlington said. “He’s coached Heisman Trophy winners and numerous national champions and coached numerous guys to the NFL and for him to say that … it’s a pretty big compliment.”

Harris, meanwhile, possesses arm strength and athleticism that are off the charts, but he needs the usual college level work in his mechanics and footwork. 

 HEY, THAT'S OUR PRIVATE COACH. Harris isn't the only one to get some quarterback coaching, as Michigan quarterback Devin Gardner picked up some training time with noted QB coach George Whitfield Jr.

With the long and winding offseason ahead of us (and with the Stumbler retired), it was high time to launch a new weekly column. After weeks of deliberation in an undisclosed location, 11W's finest minds spawned, “Turning Points.” 

What is Turning Points? In essence it will be a look back at one game each week and the pivotal moment in which that contest turned its gaze toward the Buckeyes and whispered, “I’m yours.” The perfect turning point is one in which NOTHING is going right for the Scarlet and Gray until a single play serves as the catalyst for a massive change of fortune. However, some turning points are a little less dramatic, requiring a series of plays to turn the tide in the Buckeyes’ favor.

So, now that we’re all up to speed, let’s kick this series off with the 1994 contest against Michigan State.

The Buckeyes are overdue.

No, not for a national championship — or even a B1G title — but for an overhaul of their on-field football brand. In the interest of expediting a sartorial change, I distilled my own thoughts on the topic — what works in a uniform, what doesn’t — and created what I believe to be the perfect uniform for the Ohio State football Buckeyes.

Like Alice, I've been known to fall down rabbit holes every now and then, though in my case they're of the Internet variety. I've been susceptible to them ever since I was tying up my parents' phone line because a Yahoo! search for Friends spoilers somehow led me to reading about the nightmare fuel history of infamous serial killer — and Michigan Man — H. H. Holmes. 

Wikipedia and IMDB are usually the main culprits, but countless other sites can be similar time-suck distractions like, as a Twitter follower reminded me last week¹, TV Tropes. For those unfamiliar with it, TV Tropes is an online encyclopedia overflowing with information on commonly used characters, storylines, and even dialogue in pop culture.

The hero Ohio State deserves and needs

Examples of a certain trope cover several different mediums — TV, film, literature, comic books, video games, etc. — but many could just as easily apply to sports and more specifically, college football. 

May brings us the start of summer blockbuster movies and the conclusion of the traditional TV season. So what better time than now to look at which archetypes and narrative devices relate to Ohio State and the rest of the college football universe. 

Braxton Miller: The Reluctant Hero

"I just want to be normal" is a sentiment shared by many characters who were either born with or given special powers. As we know, Braxton Miller boasts otherworldly moves, but being the Buffy-like Chosen One to lead the Ohio State football team is, much like a 55-yard touchdown run, harder than it looks. 

He was thrust into the job as a freshman, a year earlier than anticipated, and it often showed with hesitant decision-making. Even though there was still plenty of room for improvement his sophomore season, Miller's growth was evident as the offensive catalyst who guided the Buckeyes to an undefeated season. The expectations, and responsibility, will be greater this season.

And that means even more attention will be on him, something that his QB coach Tom Herman claims he hates. He may prefer playing without the spotlight shined on him, but a normal life for an Ohio State quarterback is a pretty futile wish. 

Football and men’s basketball will always be the cash cows and interest gatherers at Ohio State. Men’s hockey isn’t going to be paying the bills for the country’s largest athletic budget. But the program did turn heads in recent weeks when it fired Mark Osiecki, the coach that made Ohio State hockey relevant again.

One line in the university release announcing the decision raised eyebrows. “There was a difference of opinion over the management of the program that could not be resolved,” athletic director Gene Smith said. An air of secrecy and uncertainty still hangs over the firing. Asked weeks later, Smith said he would not comment on personnel decisions. Senior associate athletic director Chris Schneider, who oversees the hockey program, used the typical administration speak when addressing the topic – “moving forward” being the most popular phrase.

“I can agree with our fans when I say our men’s hockey program is doing great things,” Schneider said. “We believe that on the ice, our men’s program has evolved very well in the last three years.”

Nine days after Osiecki’s dismissal, the Buckeyes hired the only person they interviewed for the position – Steve Rohlik. The career assistant counts Osiecki among his closest friends and most recently served as his top assistant at Ohio State the past three seasons. The university’s decision was confirmation that it was fine with the re-emergence of the hockey program; it just wanted a change at the top.

#BIGMEANIES

So, the internet almost caught on fire yesterday after the NCAA Football Rules Committee announced, as part of a no advertising on the field policy, the placement of hashtags and URLs is now strictly prohibited within the boundary lines of the actual field of play. 

Of course, schools are still permitted to use the logos of the NCAA, conference, college/university name and logo, and team name and logo. 

Wielding an even larger stick, the committee set minimum and maximum size limits on player towels (which can now only be white), in addition to updating the rules for ads on end zone pylons, limiting them to no more than three inches across.

Just think how grateful you'll be for that pylon advertisement amendment during each five-minute TV commercial bonanza following each change of possession. 

And people want to criticize any part of this grand organization?! Blasphemy, you sheep.  

In all seriousness, by the NCAA's public relations standards, the release is as sterile as it gets.

Schools can still advertise via hashtags and URLs in 99% of the stadium, including just beyond the out of bounds lines, and I'm all for maximizing the sheer beauty of a plush, classically painted football field. I mean, who wants college football fields and stadiums to move any closer to NASCAR territory anyway? 

The connection between winning the turnover battle and winning the entire game is well documented and empirically tested. 

The secondary will need to step up the number of takeaways

In fact, some would argue that turnover margin (the difference between takeaways and turnovers) is the single most important statistic for predicting how well a team will perform.

Tom Herman agrees, telling Rivals in 2011, "If you win the turnover margin and the explosive-play margin, you will win almost all of the games. There was an NFL study about 10 years ago that looked over five seasons. And teams that won those two areas won 97.5 percent of the time." 

This appears to be true when looking at Alabama, which has led the SEC in turnover margin over the last five years.

It's easy to criticize Alabama quarterbacks as only game managers, but Saban coaches his quarterbacks to be risk averse for a reason. 

As the Buckeyes prepare for "The Chase" this upcoming season, they will fight to approach Alabama's turnover margin in terms of both maximizing takeaways and minimizing fumbles and interceptions. 

The Buckeyes were 48th in the country last season in turnover margin. Disaggregating this ranking, the Buckeyes were 69th in takeaways and tied for 29th in turnovers. 

Compared to Oregon, who led the country last season, the Buckeyes were among the best teams in terms of not turning the ball over (Oregon turned it over 19 times compared to Ohio State's 18), but were extremely behind in takeaways. 

Meyer has a history of leading the country in turnover margin, finishing in the top 25 in 2005, 2008, and 2009. Between 2005 and 2010, his Florida teams were second in the country in number of passes intercepted. 

The 2012 Buckeyes were just average in passes intercepted and poor in fumbles recovered. While this didn't affect the Buckeyes' win total, it certainly didn't make it any easier. 

It's midweek, it's 4:30 p.m. and it's time to talk Buckeye recruiting.

Kyle Allen got a long-awaited call.

This week we're taking an in-depth look at what is happening with Ohio State's oft-discussed, even more oft-lamented quarterback recruiting for the class of 2014. The Buckeyes have taken their time, dissecting and reviewing a number of talented quarterbacks over the course of the last year and a half, and at this point have struck out on the only two that have garnered a scholarship offer, Jerrod Heard of Texas and Deshaun Watson of Georgia. 

It was the decision of Watson last week that may finally have accelerated the Buckeyes' efforts at arguably the game's most important position, but in the meantime a number of talented, yet not offered players have made their choice to stop waiting for the Buckeyes to call. 

Of course, it is Ohio State football and there are a number of players still hoping for any sort of interest from the Buckeyes, and new names are being tossed around nearly every single day as Urban Meyer's staff "plants flags" across the country.

Who has said goodbye? A number of players have committed elsewhere in recent weeks, including Caleb Henderson (North Carolina), Darius Wade (Boston College), William Ulmer (Maryland) and Will Crest (West Virginia). All were on the "short list" to replace Watson and are now off the board.

But just a moment ago, the Buckeyes made their decision on "who's next" at quarterback.