Thursday Skull Session

By D.J. Byrnes on September 10, 2015 at 4:59 am
Cardale Jones and J.T. Barrett
164 Comments

Pro tip: Head to the front page for videos and commentary from last night's media availability. 

OHIO STATE, THE LOVABLE JUGGERNAUT. Sure, I may be a professional Ohio State fan, but I can call it like I see it: Ohio State is the most lovable juggernaut this sport has ever seen. You know it, I know it, and the people of this great country are starting to know it too.

From WashingtonPost.com:

BLACKSBURG, Va. — Here’s a front-runner that ought to charm a country — except, of course, for large chunks of Michigan. To an interloper, these Ohio State Buckeyes circa 2015 are a revelation. When you visit them downstairs in stadiums, they’re conversational, listenable, engaging, effusive, contagious and even witty.

To objective American hearts, Ohio State, like many football kingdoms through time, might have seemed cold, impersonal, opaque. Woody Hayes’s frequent gracelessness might have overshadowed his admirable curiosity, his intellect and his fondness for academia. Jim Tressel’s Buckeyes of the early 2000s might have felt clenched and nongregarious. Maybe it’s hard, anyway, to embrace unanimous No. 1 teams and other mastodons.

[...]

The Buckeyes seem rich in sage players who seem beyond their years describing their collective story — defensive tackle Michael Bennett and receiver Evan Spencer were two from last season — so in the hallway beneath Lane Stadium, senior linebacker Joshua Perry offered his seasoned view. He began: “I think that everybody genuinely likes being around each other. There’s not, like, anybody on the team that you could really pick out that would say, ‘I don’t like being around this guy,’ or, ‘I’m not really friends with this guy,’ and I think that is so huge translating onto the field, because when you have your locker room taken care of and guys that care about each other, it makes it easier on the field.

Here's the cumulative list of people who can hate Ohio State:

  • Michigan fans.
  • Fans of Big Ten programs which have lived under the heel of Ohio State basically since Woody Hayes was poached from Miami.
  • Bitter SEC coaches/fans.

Outside of that garbage dump, how can you not like Ohio State? They play entertaining football, they're gregarious, and they're not out getting arrested for troglodyte crimes like punching women.

—What's that about the attention-crazed Buckeye "superfan" who brought a doll of himself to a football game?

Hopefully that will be illegal soon.

HAKA EN ROUTE. I was unaware Hawai'i rolled with a haka dance, and now my excitement level for this game just went up tenfold. 

For the uninitiated, from Wikipedia:

The haka (plural is the same as singular: haka) is a traditional ancestral war cry, dance, or challenge from the Māori people of New Zealand. It is a posture dance performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet with rhythmically shouted accompaniment.

War haka were originally performed by warriors before a battle, proclaiming their strength and prowess in order to intimidate the opposition, but haka are also performed for various reasons: for welcoming distinguished guests, or to acknowledge great achievements, occasions or funerals, and kapa haka performance groups are very common in schools.

The New Zealand All-Blacks, a rugby team, have a world-renowned haka dance, but it looks like Hawai'i can bring the thunder as well:

 

Will be fun to watch for sure, but the Rainbow Warriors may need all the power the haka dance can summon: 

BOSA EN ROUTE. It's "Joey Bosa OR Sam Hubbard" on the official depth chart, and honestly, I could see Urban Meyer symbolically starting Hubbard as a final spur of motivation for Bosa.

When Bosa is let off his leash, however, there could be some blood on the field... and it won't be his.

From ESPN.com:

Bosa marched through the Woody Hayes Athletic Center dripping with sweat after one of the final practices before the Buckeyes left him behind. He had stayed a full 30 minutes for individual work after the rest of the roster had hit the showers, and there was no mistaking the intensity on Bosa's face. He desperately seemed to be looking for a chance to make up for the offseason mistake that forced him to miss the opener while serving a one-game suspension.

[...]

"It's been a little bit humbling [for him], and you can see it," defensive coordinator Luke Fickell said. "Again, whether it's what has happened or another year of maturity, I can seriously sit here and tell you that Joey Bosa is a different kid, a different player than he was last year. It's the ways you see him on the field, the way he goes about practice, the way he went about camp. He has definitely matured.

"His play speaks for itself. Obviously, he's in an accelerated program for one of those guys that has the levels and the ability and who knows how many years they're here. You have to accelerate their process, and it's really, I can tell you that he's definitely a different practice player than he was a year ago."

E+R=O. There are two ways one can go when faced with adversity, and it looks like Bosa chose the right path.

Perhaps the suspension was the kick in the ass he needed to unlock that final level in his play... which would terrify me if the Big Bear didn't belong to my favorite team.

HERE'S SOMETHING YOU DON'T READ EVERY DAY. Sometimes I read things online, and I'm like, "Don't people know they can just chill, eat chips and buffalo dip, and watch college football? Because that's totally an option." 

From BusinessInsider.com:

A world-renowned Ohio State University (OSU) professor who had access to restricted defense information as part of his work with NASA is under investigation by the FBI for failing to disclose his ongoing connections to Chinese scientists, The Columbus Dispatch has reported.

Professor Rongxing Li, 56, unexpectedly resigned from his position in the OSU Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering in February 2014.

Li told OSU that he was going back to China to take care of his sick mother, and no one has heard from him since.

Note: If I ever take a sabbatical to take care of my sick mother, just know I'm already in a non-extradition country and living under an alias. 

TRESSEL AND CLARETT UNITE FOR HUMANITY. According to The Columbus Dispatch, an Ohioan takes their life every six hours on average. 

On Wednesday, Maurice Clarett and Jim Tressel joined higher education officials during a press conference in Columbus about Ohio's suicide prevention programs. 

Maurice Clarett, a freshman star on Ohio State’s 2002 national championship team, said he considered taking his life at least two different ways: by getting in a deadly shootout with police, or by walking into traffic in I-71. 

“By the grace of God,” Clarett said today, he didn’t follow through on his suicidal thoughts. 

Clarett was kind enough to speak to Eleven Warriors about the event and what it meant to him:

"It was real to me. I thought about taking my life on a few occasions when I became depressed and detached from everything I knew and loved. I also understand how depression caused personal stress and how that lead to alcohol and drug abuse and the physiological effects that had on me.

"I see it in these kids and the amounts of stress they have. They don't understand how to deal, manage, or figure life out. That leads to their own journeys of drug and alcohol abuse. I just want to advocate for more resources and spaces for these kids to express themselves. Society doesn't have a lot of personal and sensitive spaces where kids can exist. My mission was just to support those other people's efforts."

As someone whose mental health can't be labeled pristine, this message hit a chord with me.

Two links Clarett passed on for those looking to help in this fight: SuicidePreventionLifeline.org and AFSP.org. You never know who you may help.

THOSE WMDs. The bear who fought for the Allies in WW2... 1.5 years of trust went into this photo... My life as a robot... If you don't click on this story, I don't get paid... On kindness.

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