Skull Session: Gavin Cupp Puts on for His Division, Nate Ebner's Olympic Chances, and More Ezekiel Elliott Love

By D.J. Byrnes on July 12, 2016 at 4:59 am
Demario McCall is reading the July 12th Skull Session while away on business.
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ICYMI:

  • Five-star safety Jeffrey Okudah, 2017's consensus No. 1 safety, trimmed his list to six last night. Ohio State obviously made the cut, but unless something changes between now and February (Okudah hasn't played recruiting games thus far) he will be leaving the Lone Star State.

 STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM. Kids don't come out of Ohio's smallest football division every year.

Gavin Cupp is one such player. He worked to earn his offer, because at that level there is always concern about the competition. 

He committed to Michigan State originally, before Mark Dantonio pulled his offer, in his words, because Cupp didn't effectively communicate he would be attending Ohio State's Friday Night Lights.

Whatever. Cupp ended up in Columbus, and he's a great interview. 

From theozone.net:

"I’ve never noticed any buzz because I don’t think any coaches ever came, but I know other schools and coaches would use it for motivation for their players," Cupp told The-Ozone recently.

"I forget what game it was, but one of the opposing coaches told his team that Wisconsin was coming. Unless they actually were there and they just didn’t tell me. Wisconsin hadn’t even contacted me before, so that was kind of funny. Then one of their players came up to me and said, 'Great game. So where’s the guy from Wisconsin?’ And I was like, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ I think it was just more motivation for their own players."

[...]

"Yeah, that was it right there," he said. "I didn’t hear the joke, but somebody told me that I wasn’t good enough to get an Ohio State offer so I committed to Michigan State. I know it was probably a joke, but at the same time that really just motivated me even more. To me, that was what really motivated me. I didn’t know if people were actually thinking that, but if they were I just wanted to prove them wrong."

That is relatable content to me. My eighth grade year, the only year I ever played organized football, my pitiful Baker Bulldogs came up against "Marion" Pleasant, a team and institution I will detest until I die.

Anyway, before the game our bad coach storms into our locker room with three good players, and he's carrying a box. "Boys!" he screams. "You're not going to believe what's in this box."

There was like one registered sex-haver among us (it's fall 1999, a much simpler and less bacchanalian era) so none of us were thinking things like "our wife's head."

According to coach, a Pleasant assistant coach dropped a box off for us before the game. Inside were a bunch of thongs, each addressed to everyone on the team. He pulled a couple, and I only remember the first. No. 64, a pudgy and laterally slow offensive lineman who now runs marathons. And I'll never forget how pissed off he got before he parted us and ripped that thong out of a grown man's hand.

We were all pissed. Hell, 17 years later I'm pissed even though I realized it was a puerile motivational tactic from a bad coach to motivate a bad team.

I don't remember the score. Pleasant hit us in the face with a bag of hot nickels. They had a core that played together for years and knew how to execute.

Middle school rivalries carried by a dude who will turn 30 in December aside, it warms my heart to see lying to your football team as a motivational tactic is a tradition of bad coaches throughout Ohio. 

As for Cupp not knowing what people thought, it's proven by the coach's antics. If he really wanted to fire his team up, he would've said Ohio State was there. He decided Ohio State looking at a D-7 kid would break the immersion of his pregame sermon.

 EBNER STILL HUNTING OLYMPIC GLORY. Nate Ebner is a veteran NFL player, but rugby requires a different kind of athleticism.

Though Ebner was a decorated rugby player before walking on to Ohio State's team, he was no clear shot to walk on to the Olympic roster. In typical Ebner fashion, however, his body of work is moving the odds in his favor.

From latimes.com:

“The feeling of fatigue you get from this game is unbelievable,” he said. “You work yourself to exhaustion and think, man, it’s never going to get any easier.”

[...]

Later, Ebner played in a Paris tournament but was not on the roster in London. Coach Mike Friday has remained cautious, initially suggesting Ebner’s chances were slim but later revising the odds to 50-50.

“Nate has made a reasonable transformation,” Friday said. “He has integrated well and is re-familiarizing himself with the game.”

I saw rugby played live once by club collegiate teams, and I'm out of breath just thinking about it.

And this is actually a win-win for him. If he makes the team, great, he gets a free ride to the Olympics. If not, he kept his body in pristine condition and doesn't deal with the hassle and stress of playing in Rio.

 MORE ZEKE LOVE. The latest Cowboy organizational love from Ezekiel Elliott comes from its safety, Barry Church, who played at Toledo.

From profootballtalk.com:

“Oh, super excited,” Church said [on Sirius XM Radio]. “He’s one of those punishing backs. He’s a three-down back. He can do it all: Catch it out of the backfield, he can run between the tackles. He has enough speed to break the long ones. He’s definitely a three-tool player that can just play on every single down. And it helps out the defense a lot. It takes up our play downs by a lot. That also happened in 2014 when we had DeMarco Murray. He was punishing defenses and we were three-and-out here, three-and-out there and we were fresh in the fourth quarter. That’s how we won all of our games, by getting takeaways in the fourth quarter, but that was because we were fresh.

“Hopefully, we can get back to that same formula, where we’re just grounding and pounding people and then we’re just coming in there and cleaning things up. So we’ll see what happens, but he has all the talent in the world.”

Those words don't shock Ohio State fans. Yet it speaks to Zeke's talent that he's already got veteran safeties talking like they're Ohio State fans that watched him the last three years.

No. 1 fantasy pick. 

 PLEASE JAIL THESE #TEENS. My girlfriend and I enjoy long walks on Columbus' east side. So I downloaded Pokémon Go, a game based on walking, because I stay up on #teen trends and because I think about my enemies more than my friends.

I plan on dominating these #teens and their sorry-ass Pokémon, so nothing would please me more than the competition jailed because they refuse to act right on police property.

I hope that deputy didn't let his german shepherd off the leash. Pikachu doesn't look like much until 50,000 volts of electricity are pulsing through your veins.

 THOSE WMDs. Russia's new spies blow cover with counter-intelligent internet photos... Some foods many think are healthy aren't... The deadly world of prisoner transport... The strange story of a banker murdered in Puerto Rico... The blood of the impure... Bon voyage, Tim Duncan.

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