Monday Skull Session

By D.J. Byrnes on April 28, 2014 at 6:00 am
The 1899 Ohio State Football Buckeyes
The 1899 Ohio State Football Buckeyes, via Ohio State's Library
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It's Monday, again, because as a wise man once told me: Time is a flat a circle.

NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL PAPER. Jim Delany once famously walked out of contract talks with ESPN and forged the Big Ten's own network. That fateful call looks like it is about to be a windfall for the conference (even more than it already is).

From The Lafayette Journal-Courier

Negotiations for the next Big Ten television contract haven't started, but that hasn't stopped the league from projecting revenue for the 2017-18 academic year — the first year of the new deal.

In a document obtained by the Journal & Courier through an open records request from Purdue University, 12 of the 14 schools are projected to receive $44.5 million each through the league's distribution plan. That's the first year Nebraska becomes fully financially integrated into the conference, according to Big Ten deputy commissioner and treasurer Brad Traviolia.

Maryland and Rutgers officially join the Big Ten on July 1, but neither will receive full shares immediately. Traviolia said the two schools have a six-year financial integration plan — the same as Nebraska — and start receiving full revenue shares beginning in the 2020-21 school year.

Forty. Four. Million. Dollars. Per. School. That's a staggering number.

Do you think Jim Delany would let a brother hold a few stacks?

COLUMBUS KIDS CAN'T PLAY? Offensive lineman Brady Taylor, who (figuratively) grew up in the shadow of Ohio Stadium, didn't receive a scholarship offer until a month before February's National Signing Day. OSU's lethargy ultimately didn't matter to him, however, as he quickly flipped from Virginia Tech.

Taylor delivered a key-block on the game-winning touchdown of this weekend's North-South Classic, and had some interesting words after the game.

From Ari Wasserman of Cleveland.com:

"I love having goals in front of me that everyone tells me I can't reach," Taylor said. "It is one of those things that drives you, and if you don't have something that driving you, you'll never be successful.

"I don't know if I am overlooked, but being a Columbus kid and Coach Meyer and his national recruiting, they usually think he just gets the national guys and they think the Columbus kids can't play. I definitely think I am ready to go in and compete."

Motivational tool or a statement somewhat based in truth? YOU DECIDE.

#RELEGATEPURDUE. I know the words "soccer" and "the rest of the world" infuriate some people, but one of the sweetest things (for fans of non-awful teams, anyway) is the concept of relegation. Basically, if a team is trash they get kicked to a smaller league and have to earn their way back.

It's an effective way of punishing terrible, money-leeching teams. It's also a way of making end-of-season games between scrubs wildly, wildly entertaining with literally millions of dollars on the line.

The idea of bringing relegation to college football has been kicked around before, but Bill Connelly of SB Nation has worked out how this would play out on a national stage.

I live for the day I watch Purdue get banished to the MAC. Even better, could you imagine Michigan taking the drop? I think I just felt a stirring in my knickers.

SAMMY SILVERMAN IS A BLESSING, CHAPTER 36. Here's another reminder Ohio State has Sammy Silverman, the best graphics designer in the country, and other idiot schools do not:


THOSE WMDs. Fireball Whisky: Selling a Brand, Shot by Shot... Reclusive hacker goes to war against payday loan scammers... Futuristic photos from the 1964 World's Fair... The Origins of Amateurism, or Why College Sports Are So F'd Up... That time Cleveland released 1.5 million helium-filled balloons... Horrifying: The first and last presidential portraits of Abraham Lincoln... China becomes playground for foreign hackers... 85,000 historical videos now on YouTube... 

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