Saturday Skull Session

By D.J. Byrnes on July 18, 2015 at 4:59 am
108 Comments

Achievement unlocked: One more Saturday closer to Buckeye football.

ICYMI

WE'RE TALKIN BOUT... INDIANA? I don't really mess with Indiana because, cosmetically, it's an annex of some of Ohio's most boring scenery. Indianapolis isn't bad, for a bootleg Columbus. But outside Indianapolis and its 500 laps... hard pass.

Its football team has provided solid comedy though.

From Ryan Ginn of Scout.com:

None of the players in this year's game were alive the last time Ohio State lost to Indiana...

The Hoosiers' sucking longevity is almost impressive.

And therein lies the problem for the Hoosiers, whose defense can generously be described as porous. It's been six years since Indiana's defense surrendered less than 30 points per contest, and they'll be going up against a buzzsaw in a matchup that will open conference play for both teams. For all the benefits of having quarterback Nate Sudfeld at the helm, there's still the simple problem that for any success the program has had against the Buckeyes, there's always been a Jalin Marshall on the other side of the field to snatch it away.

Ginn ranked this game's enticement above Hawaii, Western Michigan, Northern Illinois, Rutgers, and Maryland.

The only quarrel I have is I desperately want to make the journey to Piscataway, New Jersey, for the OSU/Rutgers night #banger.

My reasons are somewhat selfish. I want to party with this man before him or I die:

narcotics.jpeg

 

I refuse to Google anything about Piscataway. In my mind's eye, it's wild and a land of gutter enchantment. I've watched Indiana get taxed 1000 times, sometimes under their candlesticks. That's old news to me.

We should rent a party bus and just party the whole way there. After we link up with Rutgers Jesus, we won't even need the ride back home.

BUCKS DOWN TO (-14) IN BLACKSBURG. Dubber Silver Bullet 10 was kind enough to live-blog D'Angelo Russell's final Summer League game last night in full. (Go upvote him.)

Silk showed here he can do more than create; he can also finish at the rack on the run:

In the end, the Lakers fell to the Jazz, 84-78. The Lakers finished the Summer League at 1-4. That's probably the clip at which they'll win in the regular season, only with a surly-ass Kobe Bryant thrown into the mixer. Should make for riveting television.

11W IN LINDY'S, OUT NOW. ELEVEN WARRIORS WORLDWIDE LLC teamed up with LINDY's MAGAZINE to produce an all-you-need preseason preview magazine. (I'm famous now, btw.)

You can order online, or pick it up at the nearest Barnes and Noble.

WHAT DO THESE IDIOT KIDS EVEN WANT ANYMORE, MAN? Ohio State is targeting the 2016 football season for a rollout of full-access, public Wifi in Ohio Stadium. Even though students are still packing the Shoe (at least in purchased tickets), many folks see this as a #millennial bait. These dang kids these days... they can't go 30 seconds without taking one of those selfies, amIrite? 

New research, however, is here to crash that #take's shindig. 

From Ben Cohen of WSJ.com:

The most recent support for this surprising result comes from a new survey by the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators and Oregon’s sports marketing center. It asked almost 24,000 students across the country to rank the factors that influenced their decision to attend games. By far the most important was a student’s interest in that sport. By far the least important was a stadium’s cellular reception or wireless capability.

The study is so counterintuitive that it seems like it must be an outlier—except that it is supported by similar polls in places where college football is massively popular.

At Michigan, when the student government asked undergraduates why they go to football games, what they found clashed with conventional wisdom: Michigan’s students simply didn’t care that much about mobile connectivity. In-game Wi-Fi wasn’t as essential as lower ticket prices or better seat locations. Among the seven possible improvements to the game-day experience, in fact, students ranked cell reception last.

"A better football team," was undoubtedly Michigan students' No. 1 possible improvement to game-day experience. Mr. Cohen didn't write that explicitly, but I'm going to go ahead and assume it's true. 

And yes, the idea of a bunch of Michigan students reading some paltry student government survey, squinting incredulously, and then furiously scribbling "a better football team" delights me.

Talent canyon aside, the same principle applies to Ohio State. They don't need beer or light speed public internet (or free deals on Coca-Cola) to sellout because the football team is winning. As long as the football team wins, Ohio Stadium will sellout until the Armageddon.

And honestly, I'd give OSU's football team great End of Time odds, so I can't rule out a post-fallout sellout either.

YES. When Urban Meyer retires in 90 years, I vote we replace him with this cat:

THOSE WMDs. The earthquake that will rock Seattle... Stowaways and crimes aboard a scofflaw ship... A FTFY for Warcraft the movie's poster... The streets eating up NASA's #content... Wut?

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