ICYMI:
- Coach's Show Recap.
- Film Study: Rutgers WR Leonte Carroo.
- Rutgers trailer.
- 11W Black Saturday Banger photos.
- 11W Gold Pants Social photos.
This week's NSFW ANTI-WORK #BANGERS are an annual repost, but that doesn't make them any less hysterical:
NUMBERS DON'T LIE (HERE, ANYWAY). Urban Meyer said on Thursday's call-in show the reasons he went to J.T. Barrett were Barrett's play on third down and in the red zone.
Well — and this might shock you — the numbers back up Meyer's decision.
From ESPN.com:
Barrett was remarkably efficient inside the 20-yard line during the last two weeks, leading Ohio State to points on all 11 attempts with touchdowns on 10 of them. The move almost instantly solved a problem that had been clearly bothering Meyer. During the first five games with Jones as the primary option, the Buckeyes were generating points, but they settled for field goals six times, missed one kick, twice had a half come to an end without getting points and Jones threw one interception.
They also had some issues getting the ball deep into enemy territory at times, issues that popped up during the last two weeks with Jones going a combined 3 for 13 on third-down conversions. Barrett’s sample size is smaller, but he was again more efficient by moving the chains five times in seven tries.
[...]
Jones has completed more than 62 percent of his throws, but his yards per attempt dropped a full yard down to 8.3 this season and he’s also thrown five interceptions. Barrett certainly doesn’t have the same type of arm strength as Jones, but as currently constructed, Ohio State’s roster might lend itself more to quick-hitting, accurate throws that would allow shifty, explosive athletes such as Braxton Miller and Jalin Marshall to rack up yards after the catch instead of primarily through the air.
Hard to argue with the stats.
But if the offense, for whatever reason, doesn't throw up a 50-spot... Ed Warinner and Tim Beck are up on the angry fans' scapegoat chopping block.
DANTE BOOKER: #AKRONSTRONG. Joshua Perry suffered an ankle sprain against Penn State. He's listed as probable for the Rutgers game. "Knowing" Perry, he'll play even though Ohio State doesn't need him to beat the Scarlet Knights.
If, for some reason, Perry can't/doesn't go, Dante Booker will be the next man up. Ohio State will be alright if that's the case.
From MyDaytonDailyNews.com's dive into Booker's relationship with his father, Dante Booker Senior:
After practice Wednesday evening, Dante Jr. stood outside the dressing room at the Woody Hayes indoor facility and talked about his father:
“He had a tough situation growing up with way he was raised and everything he didn’t have.”
Dante. Sr. expounded on that later, saying there were times they didn’t have heat or lights or much food to eat. If pressed, he will tell you how his mom was forced to turn the oven on to try to heat the house or how he snuck over to his neighbor’s house, got the garden hose and used it to fill their bathtub because they had been unable to pay their water bill.
“We didn’t have new clothes to wear to school so that you felt proud and after a while I had a real chip on my shoulder,” Dante Sr. said. “I felt people looked down on me because of the way I dressed.”
Dante Sr. rose from that to become a firefighter in Akron. He can't always watch his son's games — fires don't work like that — but he'll be in Piscataway to see his son catch some playing time.
Dante Jr. is glad his dad will be there, but he understands when duty calls:
“He’s out there saving lives. That’s way more important than what I’m doing — I’m proud of him.”
Just as Dante Sr. had long hoped, his boy was saying:
“That’s my dad.”
Good thing a firefighter will be on hand to put out the flames after the Bucks torch Rutgers' sorry-ass on Saturday night, amIrite?
THAT'S B1G, BABY. I've mocked non-Ohio State Big Ten football for as long as I've written on this site, but there's no more denying the Big Ten is on the ascension.
*in my Mr. T voice* America better get hip too! (Did Mr. T say that? I've never actually seen any of his work.)
From Grantland.com:
Is the Big Ten the most exciting conference in the country? Hell no. By any measure — except in the category of defending national champions — it is not. The Big Ten is the only major conference whose teams are not averaging 30 points per game this season; the highest-scoring team is an underachieving Ohio State squad, which is tied for 24th in the country with 37 points per game. (Only one team, Indiana, is in the top 20 in yards per play.) Yet despite all of that, it’s hard to remember the last time the Big Ten was in such a good position, because the conference is far more interesting from top to bottom than it’s been in a long time.
There’s the trending threesome of Ohio State, Michigan State, and Michigan, an intense rivalry cycle for which Jim Harbaugh has already become the catalyst we all thought he’d become (and which could get even messier). There’s also the fully collapsible Northwestern Wildcats, who beat Stanford in their season opener and appeared to be on their way to major-bowl consideration before losing two straight games by a combined score of 78-10; there’s Minnesota, which appeared to be on the upswing and is now beset by mediocrity and potential scandal; there are the open-ended scenarios at Illinois (which fired its coach for malfeasance one week before the season began) and Maryland (which fired its coach for incompetence after dragging the whole thing out over the course of a weekend); and there’s the ongoing crisis of mediocrity at the old-guard locales of Penn State and Nebraska.
Already this year, Ohio State, the best team in the conference (and, theoretically, the best team in the country), has nearly blown a game to a Mid-American Conference school at home; already this year, Big Ten teams have lost on Hail Marys and succumbed to massive comebacks. And somehow, through all this, an Iowa program that was left for dead around the time Kirk Ferentz finagled his way into a huge pay raise has managed to remain undefeated.
Iowa is undefeated, and this ends with Kirk Ferentz extorting another third of Iowa's GDP from a public university, doesn't it? The only question is if it happens before or after Iowa gets routed in Indianapolis.
Fun fact: Ohio State's next trip to Iowa happens on Nov. 4, 2017. I need to get to that game. Everybody says Iowa parties. But now that Vodka Samm went sober, I'm convinced it's just a bunch of bros standing around in a gas station parking lot playing cornhole while blacking out on grain alcohol.
Yet I remained enticed by the allure of grain alcohol and gas station parking lots Kinnick Stadium. That's B1G football in a nutshell, really.
OHIO STATE DOESN'T REBUILD. Some programs lose legends. Other programs replace legends.
Not to carbon date myself or anything, but I specifically remember when Carlos "El Guapo" Hyde's time expired at Ohio State. Who could replace the rolling ball of surprisingly-affordable, definitely-not-a-pyramid-scheme Cutco knives that we had all come to know and love?
All we knew about Ezekiel Elliott is he once came within a hair's breadth of a manslaughter charge in West Lafayette. (But then again, friends, haven't we all?)
Two years later, and, well....
Via @OSUCoachMeyer:
*In my call-in show caller voice* Hey coach! Have you, uh, ever, uh, given any thought to giving Ezekiel Elliott the ball on every single play? Love everything you've done. I'll hang up and listen. Love ya, brother!
LEARN ABOUT CARMEN OHIO IN THIRTY SECONDS. Did you hear the one about an OSU student writing Carmen Ohio while aboard a British prison ship during the War of 1812? Yeah, it appears we got told a tall tale:
Our History in 30 seconds this week: Carmen Ohio #GoBucks #CarmenOhio #ThrowbackOSU pic.twitter.com/Pj6l9lJiqN
— OSU Archives (@BuckeyeHistory) October 22, 2015
THOSE WMDs. How Johnnie Walker became India's favorite whisky... Jos. A Bank is ending its infamous "Buy 1, Get 3 Free" sales... Caught: Woman who left "the children look delicious" note... How an F student became one of America's top inventors... How to catch a match fixer.
