Valentine's Day Skull Session: Ohio State No. 1 in Preseason FPI, Greg Studrawa's To-Do List, and More Rookie Dominance

By D.J. Byrnes on February 14, 2017 at 4:59 am
Greg Studrawa looking like a boss for the February 14th 2017 Skull Session.
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Word of the day: Weltanschauung.

It's Valentine's Day, folks, which is one of the most huckster holidays ever invented. Lucky for me, I'm a passionate individual who lives every day like it's Valentine's Day. If your significant other expects something fancy, you're hustling all wrong.

 GO TO HELL, ESPN. I'm not one of these Ohio State fans who thinks ESPN is out to screw the Buckeyes. Like a lot of conglomerations, there are employees with souls and those without.

However, I will never allow a Fortune 500 company to burden the local team with expectations in 2017. Clemson blanked my team 31-0! My team lost its best offensive and defensive players!

My team shouldn't even be ranked right now.

And yet...

From espn.com:

Preseason FPI is designed to take the guesswork out of preseason ratings. It is an automated ranking intended to measure team strength going forward. It is not a ranking of who will have the highest win total (which is dependent on schedule) or who is most likely to make the College Football Playoff.

The model comprises four major components: the last four seasons of performance on offense, defense and special teams, with the most recent season counting most; information on offensive and defensive returning starters, with special consideration given to a team returning its starting quarterback or gaining a transfer quarterback with experience; a four-year average recruiting ranking of four systems (ESPN, Scouts, Rivals and Phil Steele); and head coaching tenure. These four components interact and are assigned different weights depending on the team to produce preseason FPI.

RANK TEAM FPI PRED OFF RK PRED OFF PRED DEF RK PRED DEF
1 OHIO STATE 28.9 2 12.1 2 14.8
2 ALABAMA 25.9 9 8.3 1 15.7
3 OKLAHOMA 24.5 1 17.4 20 6.2
4 FLORIDA STATE 24.3 3 11.8 4 11.6
5 AUBURN 21.5 5 10.4 10 9.4
6 LSU 19.6 10 8 6 10.4
7 CLEMSON 19.6 16 7.0 3 11.9
8 PENN STATE 18.9 6 9.9 17 7.7
9 WASHINGTON 18.7 8 8.6 12 8.7
10 WISCONSIN 17.4 15 7.0 9 9.4

What an outrage. What a complete disgrace. Do you know how many titles Alabama has won? At least 35. 

And Oklahoma No. 3? That game in Norman was closer than a lot of people remember. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Sooners favored by 14 points when they come to Columbus in Week 2. 

Florida State? I will never respect Florida State.

Auburn and LSU? Sure. Both teams should be ranked ahead of the Buckeyes, who don't even play in the SEC.

Please do better, ESPN.

 STUD ON THE CLOCK. The honeymoon is over for Greg Studrawa. The offensive line, though not as bad as some made it out to be, did not play on the level expected of an "offensive-line driven program" last year. 

Ed Warinner left for Minneapolis, and Kevin Wilson will have his hands full orchestrating the offense. If the Buckeyes are to get back to the playoffs, they will need the offensive line to make a damn move.

Here is Stud's to-do list, from Tony Gerdeman of theozone.net:

  1. Get Billy Price all he needs
  2. Get Isaiah Prince righted
  3. Determine the legitimate right guard candidates
  4. Find a fourth tackle
  5. See what you've got in redshirt freshmen

I expect Billy Price to at least maintain Pat Elflein's standard next year, which is fine because Elflein was not the problem.

Stud's work will be fixing Prince or finding a replacement. Thankfully, this year's offensive line will be deeper.

If it looks the same, well, that will be an indictment on the coach.

 MORE ROOKIE DOMINANCE. Ezekiel Elliott, Joey Bosa and Michael Thomas no longer play in Columbus, but the trio still helps the Buckeyes recruit.

Their dominating rookie years are old-hat. However, their seasons were so dominant they made Pro Football Focus' list of the Top 101 players from this past season.

From pff.com:

RANK PLAYER KEY STAT
22 EZEKIEL ELLIOTT "Elliott came 68 yards shy of rushing for 1,000 yards after contact as a rookie."
32 JOEY BOSA "Bosa generated pressure once every 6.2 pass rushes, a rate higher than Denver’s Von Miller."
93 MICHAEL THOMAS "Thomas caught 92 of 119 targets (77.3 percent)."

The fact these men could've played for Ohio State last year will always be a mixture of hilarity and sadness for me. It also enrages me thinking about the 2015 loss to Michigan State and a backup quarterback.

 THROW IT TO THE 6'8" DUDE. Speaking of guys who could've played in Columbus, here's an article I enjoyed featuring high school quarterbacks that played with LeBron James, a former All-Ohio wide receiver.

From bleacherreport.com:

“Put him in! Put him in!” Wooley exclaimed as the coaches stared back at him with bewilderment. “I don’t care if he only knows one play or what the problem is that you won’t put him in the game. Put him in.”

So with one quarter left in perhaps the Fighting Irish’s final game of the season, LeBron James made his high school football debut. Meyer and Wooley kept the playbook simple, limiting the plays to fade routes and screens. Between snaps, James and Wooley would use hand signals to adjust routes as the Fighting Irish offense audibled to get the current Cleveland Cavalier the ball.

[...]

“If I got it within a 10- to 15-yard radius, he was catching the ball,” Wooley said. In his first-ever varsity football game, in just one quarter, James scored two touchdowns and accumulated more than 100 receiving yards. The Fighting Irish lost the game, 15-14, but James had given them a shot at victory—something that seemed so distant not long before.

Here's something crazy: LeBron replaced Maverick Carter, the team's No. 1 receiver, who is now his business manager.

I assume Irish coach Jim Meyer will take the regret of not playing James earlier to his grave. Sometimes, you just have to put your warhorses in play.

 IS THIS 1895? We have a strict "No politics" rule at Eleven Warriors.

Unfortunately, I cannot sit in silence when it comes to a potential atrocity committed against Ohio youth.

From Tom Knox of bizjournals.com:

Two Ohio lawmakers are joining the cursive crusade, introducing a bill on Monday to mandate handwriting instruction from kindergarten through fifth grade “to ensure that students develop the ability to print letters and words legibly by third grade and to create readable documents using legible cursive handwriting by the end of fifth grade.”

The National Association of State Boards of Education supports handwriting, especially cursive, and says young students used to get up to 45 minutes of handwriting instruction a day.

I will fight every member of the National Association of State Boards of Education outside of any Waffle House of their choosing. That's an offer that will stand until I'm 55 or no longer interested in settling disputes the old country way, whichever comes first.

This ain't 1895. Nobody writes letters anymore. And they sure as hell don't do it in cursive.

I'm 30 and can work myself into a frothy rage about the time spent learning cursive Zs.

Put $1,000,000 on the table and ask me to write a cursive Z. I can't do it. Is the cursive Z on a standardized test? Does the cursive Z help you pass a background check for top-secret security clearance or program a computer? Hell no.

You might as well teach these kids Morse Code.

 THOSE WMDs. Song crafted in the deepest pits of Hell wins big at the Grammys... The rise and fall of a K-Street renegade... How the Flash Crash Trader's $50 million fortune vanished... Revenge of the lunch lady... Science casted a doubt on a sculpture attributed to Gustav Klutsis.

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