Good morning, Buckeyes and welcome to the first Skull Session of Barack Obama's second term as President of the United States of America.
That's not to say some people didn't try to make Nick Saban president, of course.
If I had to promote a Buckeye duo for President and his right-hand man, I'd probably write in Kenny G (cool under pressure) and Roby (swagger).
Obama will preside over what will undoubtedly be the most remarkable four years in Ohio State sports history, starting with #OhioStateforthelastMNC2013 and #BraxtonforHeisman2013.
Actually, you have more voting left to do – cast your votes for Braxton today!
Heisman Pundit and the CBS Straw Poll have Braxton tied for fifth, and a bye week isn't going to help him get to New York this year (though just getting him there is huge for next year).
Also a friendly reminder: Everyone did a remarkable job of refraining from political talk yesterday. Nice work, but be wary of torrential downvoting/banhammering involved with further political talk. Woohoo!
CAN WISCONSIN "STAVE" OFF ANY MORE LOSSES? With freshman starter Joel Stave knocked out for the year due to a broken collarbone, the ever-secretive Bret Bielema believes he can gain a decided strategic advantage by not giving away who will be Stave's replacement.
The Big Ten Network's Tom Dienhart believes that this is the major thing to watch for with Wisconsin this week:
The Badger attack wasn’t thriving at the start of the season with Danny O’Brien at the controls. For the season, he has hit 60.5 percent of his passes for 523 yards with three touchdowns and looked shaky in the second half of a home overtime loss to Michigan State the last time out. The other option is Curt Philips, who didn’t play in 2010 and 2011 while dealing with knee issues and has played in just two games this season.
Ok, so Philips is more of a runner and O'Brien is...shaky, but will they actually play that differently? Unless Philips starts and comes out looking like Iowa's Vandenberg from the 2009 OSU game, then I agree with Kevin Wilson:
Wilson says Indiana preparing more for Wisconsin scheme than other QB. Barely any tape on Curt Phillips, more on Danny O'Brien.
— Rittenberg/Bennett (@ESPN_BigTen) November 6, 2012
Beat that offensive line and Ball and you should be set, no matter who is under center.
LOOKING AHEAD TO WISCO AND MICHIGAN. I'll be doing a more extensive preview in the next two weeks' Skull Sessions, but a couple of numbers stood out to me:
- Wisconsin's rushing average has actually dropped off a good bit from last year. Ball has been kind of off all year, as Wisconsin is currently ranked 45th in the country in rushing yards at 180 per game compared to 11th in the country and 236/game last year.
- However, their defense is surprisingly efficient and limits points per play a little better than Ohio State's defense according to S&P+. Wisconsin is ranked 23rd to Ohio State at 26.
- Michigan is unfortunately ranked ahead of Ohio State defensively as well, at 20th in the country. Paper tiger?
- Ohio State is ninth in the country in rushing yards per game, right there with the triple option teams and other usual suspects like Nevada and Oregon.
Cool bro Urbs don't care who Wiscy starts at QBBLIND TEST TIME. Congratulations, you are now the BCS – go ahead and pick the top two teams in the country. Oh, but do so while only looking at their statistics, ignoring the team names.
That's the scenario the Fornelli gives us in his latest article. Based upon the team's top 20 wins, top 40 wins, opponent winning percentage, average point differentials, and average Sagarin ranking, we're tasked at picking the top two teams in the country.
It's a close call, personally, but I ended up with Oregon and Kansas State duking it out in the championship – not exactly my expected nor preferred option. If anything, it shows the inherent flaws in any kind of polling system. But hey, a playoff is coming in like no time. Who'd you put in the championship?
LOTS OF MONEY, ANGRY PEOPLE. It's articles like this one by Dennis Dodd that remind us that there's a lot of money behind college football.
The conferences are currently working out bowl tie-ins and revenue distribution for major and non-major conferences in the playoff era, and the money problems are getting to be super divisive:
Playoff revenue distribution was supposed to be the hardest problem to solve in the new college football playoff landscape. It is getting to that point in the process now where the issue cannot be ignored.
Interesting for me was the apparent rift between Delany and Scott:
Multiple sources say Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott have opposite opinions on the subject, even though they are partners in the Rose Bowl. Neither returned requests for comment.
UNITED STATES OF LINKSY-A. Harrison Ford wouldn't mind returning as his second-best role ever, Han Solo... Oregon blog Addicted to Quack has some good analysis of the Oregon defense that gave up 51 points to USC. The Ducks are a much different team than your Buckeyes, but there are parallels in that both defenses were perceived as elite preseason, but gave up tons of points... Your weekly meltdown, LSU edition. The Miles gif is priceless... Seems like just yesterday that X&O Labs was doing studies of Florida's unbalanced, heavy offense... Mora gets in on the meltdown action... Which player would you take off any other team for Ohio State? r/cfb delivers a pretty good conversation. I'm with topher3003 and I'll say Jarvis.
