Friday Skull Session

By D.J. Byrnes on July 25, 2014 at 6:00 am
Mirror Lake Islands, 1909 via The Ohio State Archives
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We start today with a tip of the cap to The Ohio State University. There were easier, more clandestine routes they could have taken with the The Best Damn Band in the Land's culture problems, but in the end, they chose the most honorable one. (Sorry, haters.)

There are a lot of embarrassing, pig-headed comments in the thread about the firing that made me shake my head in disgust. (I'm from Marion, so disgusting me is not easily done.)

If you're trying to make excuses for Jon Waters or think firing him was anything less than 100% the right decision, please log off and take a walk around the block.

Jon Waters was massively talented, but it also appears his talents were equaled by his idiocy

I'll let my man Ginter handle it from here:

THE LIGHTS OF FRIDAY NIGHT. You may have heard about a small event happening tonight. Elite high school prospects will travel from all corners of the country to compete in drills at The Horseshoe. (Here's a list of all the expected visitors, including Torrance Gibson and Kentucky commit C.J. Conrad.)

Friday Night Lights — Urban Meyer's recruiting innovation he brought up from Florida — is finally upon us, and as always, the Eleven Warriors team will have you covered with pieces looking at the extravaganza from multiple ankles throughout today.

In the meantime, here's Jordan's Friday Night Light primer with all pertinent details.

And in case you're thinking of skipping the event, Mark Pantoni has put all Ohio State fans on notice:

 B1G CHAMPIONSHIP TICKET SALE DEETS. You may have heard by now, but in case you haven't: Ohio State's football team will be pretty dang good in 2014. They'll be so good, in fact, they have a pretty good shot at making it to Indianapolis to play in the 2014 B1G Championship game.

If planning in advance is your thing, here's some pertinent details via a release from Ohio State:

Tickets for the 2014 Big Ten Football Championship Game will go on sale to the general public on Saturday, August 2 at Noon ET. The fourth annual Big Ten Football Championship Game will be played on Saturday, December 6 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind. The game will be broadcast nationally on FOX with kickoff set for 8:17 p.m. ET.

Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster at www.ticketmaster.com or by calling (800) 745-3000. Tickets will range from $50 to $90 depending on the seat location and each order will be limited to eight tickets. In addition, every Big Ten Football Championship Game ticket includes complimentary admission to the Big Ten Fan Fest presented by Dr Pepper, to be held at the Indiana Convention Center on Friday and Saturday, December 5-6.

Tickets and VIP premium ticket packages can also be reserved at bigten.teamtix.com, a ticket reservation system launched by the Big Ten in partnership with Forward Market Media (FMM) and BTN. Powered by FMM’s proprietary software platforms, fans can go to bigten.teamtix.com to purchase, for as little as a $10 reservation fee, the right to buy “TeamTix.”

GET DUMPED THEN, IOWA!!!! (Yeah, I said it.)

PLAYERS LOVE THE NEW LOCKER ROOM. Ohio State dumped $2.5 million into its locker room, and it shouldn't surprise anyone that the players (and Mark Pantoni) are enamored of it:

So yeah, that should be a selling point with recruits for the foreseeable future. (Can't say I'm too impressed with that "waterfall," though.)

LES MILES' DILEMMA. With Urban Meyer bringing SEC-styled recruiting to Ohio State, I found this Sports Illustrated article on LSU's dilemma of playing time/early declarers very pertinent:

Since winning the SEC title and playing for the national title in the 2011 season, 21 Tigers have forfeited their remaining college football eligibility to enter the NFL draft. Those aren’t all juniors who played as true freshman and left after three seasons on campus. A few of those players redshirted and left after their fourth season. But all leftLSU eligibility on the table. The Tigers do lead the nation in that category since the 2012 NFL draft. And it isn’t even close. SEC West rival Alabama is second with 10. Florida State, Stanford and USC are tied with nine. On one hand, the number indicates that LSU has had a lot of talented players. On the other, it means LSU has remained perpetually young while most of its peer programs have occasionally enjoyed the benefits of solid veteran leadership.

[...]

The Tigers must deal with youth again this year. They’ll probably start true freshmen at receiver and in the secondary. Given the lofty comparisons offered on Wednesday, they’ll almost certainly start one at tailback. “Michael Jordan wasn’t coached into being Michael Jordan,” Miles said, answering a question about newcomer Leonard Fournette. “Michael Jordan expected himself to do something special. That’s the kind of player Leonard Fournette is.” The Tigers might even start a true freshman at quarterback. If they don’t, their only other scholarship option is a sophomore.

[...]

The LSU staff wants players who come in with enough swagger to unseat a veteran. After the Tigers whipped Washington early in the 2012 season, defensive coordinator John Chavis summed up the attitude quite effectively. “We play a lot of people,” Chavis said. “We don’t recruit guys to redshirt. If you’ve recruited the right kind of people, they’re not going to be here for four years anyway.”

It's been a minute since Les Miles hoisted that crystal football — do you guys think Urban's hyper-recruiting could lead to some of the same problems at Ohio State? I could see it. Not saying it will happen, but I could see it.

THOSE WMDs. SMDH if true, Fred Davis... As a man, there isn't enough money in the world to rectify this... ZANESVILLE, STAND UP... TBH, I would be a fan of trainfights... The Great American Twitter Novel... Even baseballers are bad at throwing baseballs... Athlon Sports names Ezekiel Elliot a B1G breakout player... The Day I Left My Son in the Car... An article on one of the best Backgammon players in the world... Stranded and hallucinating in a Hawaiian snowstorm.

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