So here we are, one day away from UFM's first spring game at Ohio State.
The weather, despite a small chance of rain, appears to be cooperating and with nearly 60,000 tickets sold already, there's an outside shot the fans will welcome the new coach with a national spring game record crowd.
The gates will open at 10am ahead of the men's lacrosse team squaring off against Air Force at 11:30am. If you plan on arriving late, kickoff is set for approximately 1:30pm.
In honor of the the city of Columbus' bicentennial, players will rock a COLUMBUS200 logo on their jerseys.
| Team Scarlet | Team Gray | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Head Coach | Tom Herman | Head Coach | Luke Fickell |
| Assistant Coaches | Everett Withers, Mike Vrabel, Tim Hinton | Assistant Coaches | Kerry Coombs, Ed Warinner, Stan Drayton, Zach Smith |
| Captains | Zach Boren and Jack Mewhort | Captains | Etienne Sabino and John Simon |
| POS | NAME | POS | NAME |
| QB | Braxton Miller | QB | Kenny Guiton |
| QB | Justin Siems | QB | Cardale Jones |
| OL | Darryl Baldwin | OL | Ivan Blackman |
| OL | Reid Fragel | OL | Brian Bobek |
| OL | Marcus Hall | OL | Jacoby Boren |
| OL | Eric Kramer | OL | Tommy Brown |
| OL | Corey Linsley | OL | Taylor Decker |
| OL | Jack Mewhort | OL | Andrew Norwell |
| OL | Tim Trummer | OL | Ben St. John |
| RB | Carlos Hyde | OL | Antonio Underwood |
| RB | Rod Smith | RB | Br'onte Dunn |
| FB | Zach Boren | RB | Jordan Hall |
| TE | Jeff Heuerman | FB | Adam Homan |
| TE | Derek Burkholder | TE | Kyle Schuck |
| TE | Nick Vannett | TE | Jake Stoneburner |
| WR | Chris Fields | WR | Corey Brown |
| WR | Frank Kangah | WR | Peter Gwilym |
| WR | Ryan Ross | WR | Verlon Reed |
| WR | Evan Spencer | WR | Taylor Rice |
| WR | Michael Thomas | WR | Devin Smith |
| WR | Tyrone Williams | DL | Adam Bellamy |
| DL | Michael Bennett | DL | Dalton Britt |
| DL | Logan Beougher | DL | Chris Carter |
| DL | Chase Farris | DL | Garrett Goebel |
| DL | Joel Hale | DL | Steve Miller |
| DL | Johnathan Hankins | DL | John Simon |
| DL | William McCary | DL | Nathan Williams |
| DL | J.T. Moore | LB | Curtis Grant |
| DL | Se'Von Pittman | LB | Ross Oltorik |
| DL | Kharim Stephens | LB | Joshua Perry |
| LB | Connor Crowell | LB | Andy Reed |
| LB | Storm Klein | LB | Luke Roberts |
| LB | Ryan Shazier | LB | Etienne Sabino |
| LB | Stewart Smith | DB | Corey Brown |
| DB | C.J. Barnett | DB | Adam Griffin |
| DB | Christian Bryant | DB | Orhian Johnson |
| DB | Doran Grant | DB | Tyvis Powell |
| DB | Zach Domicone | DB | Bradley Robey |
| DB | Travis Howard | DB | Nick Sarac |
| DB | Vincent Petrella | K/P | Ben Buchanan |
| DB | Ron Tanner | K/P | Kyle Clinton |
| DB | Julian Vann | K/P | Russell Doup |
| DB | Jamie Wood | LS | George Makridis |
| K/P | Drew Basil | ||
| K/P | Kyle Clinton | ||
| K/P | Kevin Niehoff | ||
| LS | Bryce Haynes | ||
That's about as even as it will get. While Team Gray has Jake Stoneburner and Johnny Simon, Team Scarlet will trot out Braxton Miller and Ryan Shazier. Still, the early line is Team Gray -2.
While it's easy to get excited for the first spring game of the Meyer era, you won't want to get too excited. After all, this is the event that elevated Bam Childress and later Taurian Washington to All-American status only to see a season in which neither sniffed the field.
After the game, be sure to join us for the first annual 11W Spring Banger at Bernard's Tavern in the Short North. Don't forget to bring a canned food for Operation Feed. Let's party for OH-IO. Let's party for helping to feed the hungry. But most of all, let's party because this is the first Bauserbro-less spring game since 1975.
OH, MIKE ADAMS... So, this will surprise exactly none of you, but evidently Mike Adams failed his NFL Combine drug test. While NFL draft analyst Mike Mayock said most teams don’t consider marijuana use "as big a deal as it was 10 years ago," it's still frustrating if you're a fan of Mike Adams, which I definitely am.
It's 4/20 after all, so I suppose this news was ripe to drop (along with the epidemic at Oregon), but ultimately, Mayock is right. You have NFL GMs that attended Woodstock and grew up as boomers -- the first generation to regard marijuana as the harmless drug that it is. Still, Adams knew this test was coming and if it costs him a round in the draft, this will go down as the world's most expensive weed.
MOAR LENS FLARE, PLZ. Hats off to the graphics team within the football program for turning boring recruiting letters into the attention-grabbing promotional documents that they are meant to be.
ONE BAD DUDELast week, we featured the Heisman letter sent to Eli Woodard and the Vrabel-themed mailer to your left is another great example of this team turning the mundane into eye-catching. Which, you know, should be the goal when trying to sell the university to the nation's finest prep athletes.
BO RYAN BLINKS. After Twitter rose up to denounce Bo Ryan's hard stance on Jarrod Uthoff, the Dentyne-chomping grouch took to Mike and Mike for a little damage control.
Given this is the guy that responded to Jared Sullinger getting spat on by saying "Deal with it," you can imagine how the interview played out.
Not long after the interview, Ryan and Wisconsin released Uthoff from his shackles and he's now allowed to go to anywhere he wants, so long as it's not a Big Ten school.
THERE BE META CONTENT HERE. A couple of quick 11W notes: Today is the last day to apply for our beat writer position. We will be conducting interviews over the course of the next three weeks and then will be in a position to pull the trigger on a hire before the end of May. Thank you all once again for donating to our fundraiser.
Speaking of the fundraiser, I sent emails to every donor at the $100 and up level, seeking t-shirt size and shipping address info, but there are still about 10 of you that have yet to respond. If you're reading this and haven't sent me your size/address, please do so now at jason@elevenwarriors.com. We're going to put the bulk order in sometime before next Wednesday and we'd love to hook you up with a one-of-a-kind Respect the Basement t-shirt.
ETC: Steve Spurrier dropping logic... Sean Payton to Arkansas for a year? Alabama visits the White House (but not you, Duron)... Michigan AD Dave Brandon is catching heat for saying the Michigan Marching Band won't travel to the opener against Alabama... Josh Pastner blames wife for NCAA violation... Tennessee lost a legend.
