Skull Session: Urban Meyer Talks to a Freshman, B1G Schools We Wouldn't Miss, and That Time Jim Harbaugh Got Whooped in a Bennigan's

By D.J. Byrnes on May 25, 2017 at 4:59 am
Cardale Jones goes undefeated for the May 25th 2017 Skull Session
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Cardale Jones' face in the photo above is akin to mine when I found out I would write about Jim Harbaugh getting dumped in a Bennigan's. Some days the #content talks to ya.

ICYMI:

Word of the Day: Inure.

 HERE WE GO AGAIN. Once upon a time, Urban Meyer and Tom Herman offered an Ohio State scholarship to Massillon Washington freshman quarterback Danny Clark, which he promptly accepted.

Four years later, Akron Hoban three-star quarterback Danny Clark signed with Kentucky.

So a lot can change in four years. Meyer and Ryan Day may not even be here in 2020, but that didn't stop them from offering Arizona freshman pro-style quarterback Jack Miller a scholarship.

From cleveland.com:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ryan Day went to Arizona to watch freshman quarterback Jack Miller of Scottsdale (Ariz.) Chaparral throw earlier this month. A week later, Miller had an Ohio State scholarship offer. 

Day called Miller to inform him of the good news before Urban Meyer took the phone to do a little recruiting. 

"Coach Meyer said, 'I've never talked to a kid this young before, why the hell am I talking to you?' " Miller said. "I said, 'I don't know, I guess Coach Day saw something?'"

Clark, back in December 2013, weeps at Meyer's "never talked to a kid this young" before comment.

But such is the never-ending hunt for the next great quarterback. Sometimes you have to get your offer in the door before talented #teens take a lack of one as a sign of disrepekt.

 LATER, KNIGHTS AND NERDS. Another round of conference expansion will happen, the only question is when. Thanks to Jim Delany's vision in creating BTN, the Big Ten is on as solid financial footing as any conference in the country, which ensures it will be a predator in the next cycle.

But what if it were the opposite? What if the Big Ten needed to contract? Well, there's an obvious and not-so-obvious candidate for expulsion.

From landgrantholyland.com:

You don’t need me to rehash the argument against Rutgers, which could easily go 1,000 words, but let’s just be brief: Outside of lacrosse, wrestling and women’s soccer, Rutgers is bad at most sports, and because of the school’s financial situation and historical lack of investment, they’re likely to be bad at most sports for at least a while longer. They may be a decade plus away from beating Ohio State in football. They don’t have the benefit of decades and decades of historical affiliation with Ohio State. They’re not in the Midwest.

[...]

Maybe you feel differently. Maybe you’d be fine with Ohio State ditching Purdue, or Indiana, or Illinois. Maybe you hate the idea of non-midwestern expansion and want Maryland to leave; as a PG County resident, they’ve grown on me, but I’m selfish. Maybe you treasure the history so much that anybody leaving would crush you. Maybe you hate somebody else, I don’t know.

It’s academic, because nobody is leaving, nor should they. But if you’re going to tell me you’re personally hyped up for the next time Ohio State plays Northwestern, I think you’d be the first.

We can all agree Rutgers can go, fancy televisions sets in a valued East Coast market be damned.

Glad to see somebody advocate kicking Northwestern to the curb. It should've been expelled when its administration denied a student petition to call athletic teams "the Purple Haze." Plus it's in the least interesting and most boring part of Chicago.

"But its academics!" Some may cry.

We ain't watching biology tests on Saturdays, folks. Pat Fitzgerald can hobble his way to six wins a year and it is considered respectable? Not in America, and assuredly not in its best football conference.

 HARBAUGH! It's hard out here for horny American males, despite what the P.C. Police (which are definitely real and not a secret police of strawmen concocted by fear mongers) would tell you.

All day these randy fellas go around looking at images of buff and strong men doing heroic deeds, beautiful women throwing themselves at the feet of hunks, and more. 

All these men want to do is fight a stranger to prove their masculinity.

Most men learn to control the urge and resign themselves to beta roles in society. Others, like 39-year-old Jim Harbaugh, remain vigilant for an opportunity to fight strangers in direct violation of public decorum expected at hoity-toity establishments like Bennigan's. 

From yesterday's Pardon My Takevia detroitnews.com:

On Harbaugh saying he hasn’t been in a wrestling match since he was 39: “I don’t want to go into the details.” He was asked if he won. “I don’t know if I really won. It was a fist fight. A couple guys, it was like a Bennigan’s type of thing, somebody made a comment, I took exception. I took a couple shots. But there were two guys. I did not win. I cannot say I won, but I didn’t get crushed either. Got some blows in.”

Pro tip to aspiring alpha males: Unless you fight in a cage for a living wage, never take up combat against a bigger number. It only ends with you waking up wishing you hadn't.

Also, I will pay $1,000 for the Bennigan's security footage of Harbaugh decking some schmo before getting pummeled with a breakfast combo plate. At least he kept it real enough to say he didn't win the encounter.

In other news that should trouble Michigan fans, it appears two years of competing against Urban Meyer has literally humbled Harbaugh's dreams:

On if Jim Harbaugh has eligibility would he put himself on depth chart: “Yeah, yeah. I’ve been playing. I play in dreams. I don’t ever have any coaching dreams, but I have football dreams still and I play. I’ve noticed, they’re not so much NFL games anymore. Sometimes I’ll be D-I, but more and more for some reason I’m in the D-III now. I’ve got another year of eligibility and nobody would sign me, and I was able to get a (spot). It’s young me. I think I’m moving like young me, but I have an older-me face. Sometimes I’m right back in young me, too. It’s a dream, so you don’t have a whole lot of control over it, but I’m right in there playing, not coaching. I love those football dreams.”

In another shocking news, Pardon My Take mentioned its interview requests of Meyer and Greg Schiano were declined. That's a good thing, as it probably would've ended with Schiano strangling PFT Commenter for mocking football guy culture.

 WHEN WE RIDE ON A HIGH SCHOOL TEAM. Long Beach Poly beat Las Vegas Green Valley High, 16-10, on Sept. 6th, 1996. Afterward, Poly coach Jerry Lasso took his gang out to In-N-Out for some celebratory sandwiches of ground beef and cheese.

It ended with Tupac Shakur's entourage pulling glocks on some of his players in the parking lot.

From bleacherreport.com:

Outside, meanwhile, the remaining players split up. About half went to the nearby outlet shops. Hollie and Gary Barnes, a nose tackle, led a dozen or so teammates toward Tupac. According to multiple witnesses, the rapper had his back toward the players and was speaking loudly—and animatedly, with his hands—to the small number of Knight’s Mob Piru members beside him. They were leaning against the black SUVs. At one point, Tupac heard the approaching footsteps and spun. Meanwhile, two of his colleagues pulled out what looked to be Glocks. Hollie, Barnes and the others stopped in their tracks. “Bloods, you can’t be walking up on me like that!” Tupac yelled. “You don’t know me like that!”

“He was extremely paranoid,” Croom says. “He started cursing—he was irate. We were just kids, so it was definitely an overreaction.”

“He yelled, ‘Don’t run up on me!’” Lewis says. “The guys with him were big dudes. Really big.”

According to Rideaux, Tupac looked over the Long Beach Poly group, noted the collective youth and seemed to calm down. Around this point Knight had returned from inside the In-N-Out, and the players were equally shocked to be in his presence. “It was crazy,” Lewis says. “Not your ordinary rest stop break.” Tupac realized the teenage boys did not pose a threat.

Hard to believe a guy living with that kind of paranoia would be shot to death hours later, but that's exactly what happened to Shakur later that night after the Mike Tyson fight.

His public execution remains unsolved to this day.

 PANCAKES ON THE HOUSE. Speaking of public executions, I'll forever remain jealous of people who were old enough to appreciate Orlando Pace's powers when he played for the local team:

How old do you think Pace would have to be before we all agree he couldn't walk into a starting spot at Ohio State? I'm thinking at least 65.

 THOSE WMDS. To raise better kids, say no... Siren song of the mighty Towa Towa... We've been playing Uno all wrong... At 100 or so, she keeps a Philippine tattoo tradition alive... Tom and Julie explain couples therapy to silent guests... What was The Continent like in its heyday?

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