Friday Skull Session

By D.J. Byrnes on April 11, 2014 at 6:00 am
94 Comments

Friday, with an OSU football game tomorrow? PINCH ME.

  • Spring game rosters are set. You can check them out over here.
  • For the record, the game begins at 1:30 P.M. on Saturday. For those who can't attend, it will be on BTN and streamable on BTN2GO.
  • If Xs and Os are your thing, Kyle Jones has a great breakdown on what to expect Saturday.
  • The NSFW Anti-Work Banger: 2pac featuring Snoop Dogg - "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted"

ONLY 26K TICKETS SOLD THUS FAR. *furrows brow*:

I realize most tickets are sold at the gate for the spring game, but 26,000 is not a very good number. 

I think the price ($20/ticket) is a much bigger issue than losing the last two games. And yeah yeah, I know about the lacrosse game; it'd be more of a draw if anybody outside of Columbus' affluent suburbs knew anything about lacrosse.  

I mean, it'd cost $100 to get a medium-sized family through the gate. That's a steep price for an event headlined by a public practice. Plus, it's on TV and the internet.

Perhaps Ohio State overplayed their hand, and the spring game bubble is about to burst? I guess we'll find out on Saturday.

OK THEN, COREY SMITH. The word on the street last winter was Corey Smith, by the end of the year, was clearly the most talented receiver on the team. Alas, it was too late to burn his redshirt.

He has two years of eligibility left, but if he makes plays like this regularly in the fall, he may only be around for one:

Those are two dynamite plays (and great throws by Cardale) but part of me is cringing at the defensive tackling and the coverage.

LUKE FICKELL HAS A THEORY. Speaking of the specter of atrocious defense:

I buy into this somewhat. It's no fun getting shellacked repeatedly, especially in a hyper-competitive environment Urban Meyer is known to breed within his teams' practices. Fickell is right, however, it's definitely on the defensive coaches to make sure their players don't cope with the shellacking by checking out of the process altogether. 

MEET AN SEC BAGMAN. A couple weeks back I told an anecdote about an old roommate of mine. He had been a highly-touted recruit and always had some war stories about his recruitment. One of his main refrains was about the SEC having a "system" of taking care of their players and it being "on another level."

Turns out, he wasn't bullshitting.

Steven Godfrey of SB Nation peeled back the curtain on the SEC's shadowy network of bagmen that grease the recruiting wheels and make sure kids get paid. It includes this immortal passage:

There are jokes about kids getting cars, but that's actually pretty easy. We all have dealerships all over. You practically have to nowadays, anyway, just for the coaches. Think about it. Most schools, all the football, basketball, and baseball coaches and their wives are getting some kind of vehicle for free as part of their contract. Then they're turning them in every three years or so. That's a fleet right there. You need a lot of guys with dealerships, and you need them in different towns. Then getting a clean title on a member of the family is pretty easy."

Whatever the minimum of necessary paperwork to absolve a player of improper benefits received is, it's not a problem. A title for a moderately priced SUV can be created in a relative's name, as can a receipt of sale for a reasonable price.

"Hey, how'd he get that ride? His uncle bought it. How did his uncle buy it? Paid cash. Paid cash, how'd he do that? Shit, we don't know, but here's the receipt where he paid cash, and now y'all ain't got shit. Go tell the NCAA you think we're cheating because this kid's uncle bought him a used Tahoe in cash, you racist."

And apparently the going rate to get a recruit to not visit a campus is $2,500. Seriously, the read is fascinating. I give it two Marionaire gunz up. (For the unfamiliar, that's the highest award a Marionaire can bestow upon someone/thing.)

You know who probably doesn't find this story fascinating, however? The Internal Revenue Service. 

It also amuses me it took until 2014 for a piece like this to be written about college football. 

THOSE WMDs. Most popular job in every state... Garish Fleur de Lys estate that just sold for $102 million IN CASH now renting for $400k/mo... 13 photos of BB King performing at Hard Rock Live... "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas," by Hunter S. Thompson... Profile of a literary star who wrote about his real life & now hates himself for it.... An ode to aging... The many cons of Cassie Chadwick... The new face of heroin... So, uh, how do you sell a $3,000 vacuum?

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