Saturday Skull Session: Keep Calm and Let Anarchy Reign

By D.J. Byrnes on December 5, 2015 at 4:59 am
Cardale Jones getting ready to dump Michigan.
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The whole week I ignored the fact Ohio State didn't play Saturday... and it just hit me like a sack of hot nickels to the jaw.

Still, I refuse to let it dampen my spirits on one of the last collegiate football Saturdays in 2015. Chaos is the name of the game, and I for one welcome our new overlord.

Who needs to lose today? The correct answer is "Everybody." All favorites must be cast into the fiery pits; let the playoff committee sort them out.

Tom Herman's Houston goes for an American title at noon, but the Hunger Games officially begin at 4:00 p.m.

TIME GAME FAVORITE TELEVISION
12:00 No. 22 TEMPLE at No. 19 HOUSTON UH (-6) ABC
4:00 No. 18 FLORIDA vs No. 2 ALABAMA BAMA (-18) CBS
7:45 No. 20 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA vs No. 7 STANFORD STAN (-4½) ESPN
8:00 No. 5 MICHIGAN STATE vs No. 4 UNDEFEATED IOWA MSU (-4) FOX
8:00 No. 10 NORTH CAROLINA vs No. 1 CLEMSON CLEM (-4½) ABC

Winners: Houston, Bama, USC, MSU, and North Carolina.

Official condolences to Undefeated Iowa, 2015's most entertaining meme. Unfortunately, Ohio State snorted the rest of the Big Ten's fairy tale dust. Yeah, I know—totally messed up, dude—but I didn't write these rules. Cardale Jones did.

 OSU: BET ON WHAT YOU KNOW. Ohio State is just like you: It thinks the local lads deserve a playoff bid, and it's turning up its hype machine in even the slightest of ways.

From bcsn.tv:

COLUMBUS — The Ohio State football playoff publicity machine is spinning into motion. 

A team spokesman emailed reporters to reframe the Buckeyes’ candidacy as a lifetime achievement award — they are not merely 1-1 against ranked teams this season, but 6-1 since last year — while campaign season is in full swing inside the Ohio State locker room. 

If Ohio State does make it, this becomes an advantageous bye week. Perhaps this was Urban Meyer's plan all along? You might not know he possesses a psychology degree from Cincinnati... so you can't rule out these kinds of Machiavellian machinations. 

But if Urban peered into the future, he's not tipped off the bedrock of his team.

“I’ll be watching the games, I’ll have my laptop, my cell phone, and my iPad going, I’ll have Twitter up, I’ll be checking Google alerts, Facebook, everything,” [Joshua Perry] said. “I like looking at the commentary, seeing what people have to say.”

It'd be tough for me to watch if I played. I'd just rather sleep 24 hours and wake up to a text message. Anything else seems like a daylong flesh and emotion barbecue. 

 ANALYSIS: EZEKIEL ELLIOTT TOUGH TO TACKLE. These are the kind of stats you want to see from an offensive line-driven program like Ohio State.

Via bleacherreport.com:

EZEKIEL ELLIOTT: ATTEMPTS RUSH YARDS AVERAGE TD
FIRST HALF 120 624 5.2 9
SECOND HALF 142 1048 7.4 10

Even more impressive when you consider his second half stats include the Michigan State game. (Sorry.)

 PRYOR LIKELY OUT SUNDAY. Sunday is a big day in Ohio professional sports. The Bengals and Browns play at 1 p.m., and the Columbus Crew host the Portland Timbers for the MLS Cup at 4 p.m.

As for the earlier game, it won't feature Terrelle Pryor, who spent time with both Ohio teams in 2015.

From espn.com:

As a red-zone receiver perhaps? The back on the jet sweep? Able to run some read-option to change the pace against the stout Bengals defense.

“Likely no,” coach Mike Pettine said.

It did not sound like pregame coaching hijinks, either.

“I can’t tell you he is going to go out there and play this week,” offensive coordinator John DeFilippo said. “But I do think at some point before the season is over we will probably see Terrelle Pryor on the field.”

Cleveland Browns football: Feel the excitement!!!!

If the Bengals lose they should be outlawed from the playoffs.

 BCS? MORE LIKE TRASH. Ohio State isn't in the driver's seat, but thankfully we exist in the playoff era. The Buckeyes would be dead in the Rose Bowl (or worse) if the BCS were still a thing.

#Shoutout to all the people who unironically believed playoffs would ruin the sport. Though nobody will claim them, those #takes were real.

 #PERTINENTHEISENBERG. Let's hope Ohio State crashes the playoff party like Gus Fring crashes a cartel soiree. 

 THOSE WMDs. Homeless and mentally ill, a former college lineman dies on the street... What life looks like inside North Korea... All this year's Cleveland Browns misery set to Adele's Hello... Kei Kamara talks going from civil war to top of the MLS... Tiger Woods: "I peaked at 11."

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