Eleven Warriors

The more I keep doing these, the more I run out of creative ways to open these Saturday Skull Sessions. I already used a Loverboy reference some months back.

I would reference Sam Cooke's lonely cry that I ain't got nobody, but I do have some money because I just got paid. Alas, Jason doesn't want me writing a Saturday Night Skull Session, nor would the 11W commentariat care much if I mention that I met a woman, who bore a strange resemblance to a cat named Frankenstein.

Plus, who names their cat "Frankenstein" anyway? That's weird.

 TEXAS A&M GOING BIG AND REDESIGNING ITS HOME. There is usually not much to mention for the sports you care about this time of the year. This is usually a good thing more often than not. No one should want to revisit the summer of 2011.

The Southeastern Conference dominated the headlines this week, which follows neatly from it being a rather quiet news cycle that would allow the conference to be the top story with its SEC Network project. One conference member, in particular, made some waves. And it wasn't the Rammer Jammers.

Texas A&M is wanting to revamp Kyle Field in order to push the stadium into one of the upper echelons of the college football experience. Texas A&M already has the distinction of having one of the most — if not the most — unique student body experiences in college football. The "12th man", complete with the Midnight Yell Practice, is an imposing bunch.

However, Kyle Field itself isn't a particularly impressive venue. It has one open end (that cameras strategically avoid showing) and the fans are a little further from the action than they are in a place like Ohio Stadium, where the fans almost figuratively sit on top of the field. In some respects, Kyle Field seems quaint despite its capacity of 82,000+.

Texas A&M's board of regents just approved a $450 million redevelopment plan to address just that.

May is finally here. The month is off to a quick start as we already have a couple of big news stories to touch on.

Kyle Allen is the newest OSU QB offer

In last week's edition of the Recruiting Notebook we touched on the fact that Deshaun Watson, formerly Ohio State's top quarterback target, would be staying solid on his commitment to Clemson. The Buckeyes needed to find a new quarterback to target and they made a bold move by offering three over this past week.

They started things off by offering Scottsdale (AZ) Desert Mountain quarterback Kyle Allen on Wednesday. They followed that up by offering both Bossier City (LA) Parkway quarterback Brandon Harris and Apopka (FL) signal caller Zack Darlington on Thursday.

It will be interesting to see how this quarterback situation works itself out in the upcoming weeks as we know the staff wants to have a quarterback as part of this class.

Notre Dame scored commitments from two players who held offers from the Buckeyes this past week in running back Elijah Hood and offensive lineman Quenton Nelson. There were a couple of other players who also spurned the Bucks for other schools. We'll touch on that a little later.

We'll have more on that, the quarterback situation, and much more in this week's edition of the Ohio State Football Recruiting Notebook.

Around the Oval is Eleven Warriors' weekly love letter to Ohio State sports that don't get the coverage they should.

Having already dominated the regular season, it was a safe bet to assume that the Ohio State men's tennis team would get the job done in the Big Ten Tournament, especially with it being played on their home turf. Of course, we all know what can happen when we make assumptions, but this one proved prophetic: After three 4-0 wins against Purdue, Illinois and Michigan, the Buckeyes were once again Big Ten champs. 

Both the Boilermakers and Illini were dispatched in quick fashion to set up a final against the Wolverines, Ohio State's final regular season opponents only a week earlier. That Sunday in Ann Arbor saw identical doubles results as the final in Columbus, with the Buckeye teams of Peter Kobelt/Connor Smith and Blaz Rola/Kevin Metka earning their team yet another doubles point. Singles competition also produced a similar outcome, with Constantin Christ the only different winner from seven days before.

The tournament victory is Ohio State's seventh in eight years, and it punches their ticket to the 2013 NCAA Championships. As the tournament's No. 5 seed, the Buckeyes can host the first two rounds, and their first opponent is Cleveland State. They'll host the Vikings next Friday at 1 p.m., and should they progress, they'll meet either Notre Dame or Washington the next day. 

In addition to the team competition, three Buckeyes will compete in the NCAA individual championships at the end of the month. Blaz Rola and Peter Kobelt will represent the team in the singles category, while Kobelt and Connor Smith are the team's representatives in the doubles. 

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.