Skull Session: Hoosiers' Chances to Beat Bucks, an A.J. Hawk Surprise Party, and Mike Doss Tackles Corporate America

By D.J. Byrnes on July 11, 2017 at 4:59a

I will serve the Skull Session as soon as I finish this sandbag levee to protect Apollo's from flash floods that struck High Street on Monday.

ICYMI:

Word of the Day: Schlepper.

 CHANCES INDIANA WINS. Like every other Ohio State fan, I expect the local team to roll into its western annex on Aug. 31 and put the Hoosier menace to the sword.

As of now, I expect a drilling to the tune of 52-0. It will probably be 82-0 by the time I finish off the pregame Loko on that fateful Thursday night.

But Indiana has more than a 0% chance of winning the game because the Hoosiers, like the Nittany Lions, invoke voodoo whenever the Buckeyes roll into town.

From cleveland.com:

So the last two OSU trips to Bloomington, in 2015 and 2012, led to 7-point and 3-point wins. Wilson, who can coach, was a big reason for that.

But [Indiana coach Tom] Allen has drawn praise, too. And the Hoosiers do have some players and some matchups that could cause some angst for the Buckeyes with that veteran secondary and a quarterback who can sling it and some receivers who can go get it.

Again, it's gonna be weird. And you should expect that it very well might be close. Indiana still hasn't beaten the Buckeyes since 1988. But there are enough odd parts to this one to give the Buckeyes some pause - maybe 5 percent isn't giving the Hoosiers enough of a shot.

Allen improved the Indiana defense he inherited, though a municipal eyesore would be improved with a simple run of the lawnmower.

Still, I'll keep Allen in my prayers. He may be a talented coach, but it doesn't get worse for a first game than Urban Meyer coming off the wrong end of a 31-0 ass-kicking and an offensive coordinator your employer fired.

At least for Allen, Hoosier fans travel well when their team plays an away game at Memorial Stadium.

 A SURPRISE FOR HAWK. Ohio State football legend A.J. Hawk retired from the NFL earlier this year. He plans to join the crime family only known to law enforcement as "the media."

Between then, coaches and players from throughout his professional career threw him a surprise party... in Ohio Stadium.

From theplayerstribune.com:

A few months ago, I was walking through the halls of Ohio Stadium with Laura. The lights were dimmed and it was quiet — weirdly quiet. We were supposed to meet Laura’s brother for dinner later that night, but she told me that first we had to stop at a fundraiser for the James Cancer Hospital. We do a lot of work with them, so it didn’t seem strange to me. She said the event was being held in the recruit room at the stadium, which is where they have a lot of banquets and events. But it felt weird because the parking lot was pretty empty when we pulled up, and like I said, everything was … quiet.

So we opened the door to the recruiting room, and there were about 100 people huddled in the back. In the crowd, a few faces stood out immediately. Aaron Rodgers. Jordy Nelson. Clay Matthews. Andy Dalton. A bunch of guys I had played with in my career were there. I even spotted some of my old Ohio State teammates. My family was there, too. And was that Jim Tressel over there with Urban Meyer? What’s Mike McCarthy doing here? What’s going on?

That was about all my brain could process before the whole room erupted.

“SURPRISE!”

I love how that list is Packers greats... and then Andy Dalton. It's a surprise Hawk didn't note his face first because it's, uh, distinct.

Also, props to Tressel's sicarios for smuggling him into the Horseshoe without the FBI finding out. It's security like that that keeps Tressel out of a jail cell.

 DOSS GETS A JOB. I once watched Tim Hinton and the Marion Harding Presidents hold Canton McKinley running back Mike Doss to 75 yards during a regional final at Arlin Field in Mansfield. (Harding cooked 'em with a hook and lateral and should've won the game.) Doss promptly ran for roughly 500 yards against Ignatius in the title game.

Fast forward nearly 20 years later, I'm blogging about Doss adjusting to corporate America.

From cantonrep.com:

“It definitely opens the door for the conversation for sure,” said Doss, the former McKinley legend who now works for Zimmer Biomet. “There’s that aspect of, ‘Hey, I recognize the name’ that gets your foot in the door. But you can’t fool physicians and doctors and CEOs and CFOs. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, they’ll run you out of there really quick.”

Does he like the job?

“I like it; I don’t necessarily love it,” he said. “I love the opportunity it affords me to take care of my family. It’s different than being a pro athlete, but you have the same mental motivation of ‘Hey, it’s time to go. You’ve got to get up and roll.’

"I like it; I don't necessarily love it" is the nicest thing I've ever heard said about a job in corporate America. Still, kids and mortgages don't pay for themselves.

 BEEERTT. I like writing because I like words. Also, it allows me to collect my thoughts, as opposed to public speaking which would just be mumbling and repeating Marionaire verbal tics like "'Bout right" and "Zackly."

It'd also result in improper usage of fancy words like "a la carte."

The big news here is Bert had sex. Perhaps that release of decades of sexual tension is just what the Razorbacks need to get out of the basement of the SEC West. A sex-having Bert dumping Nick Saban into retirement is an ending the Tide deserve.

 ALL TURF BABY. Meyer prefers turf because players play faster. Good news, Urbz:

Looks like the Buckeyes will finish 12-0 this regular season. Might as well just fast forward to the playoffs to avoid injury.

 THOSE WMDs. Beg the question: It's not begging at all... The manhunt for Christopher Dorner... Prozac Nation is now the United States of Xanax... My dentist's murder trial... A mother's death, a botched inquiry, and a sheriff at war... Looking for right and wrong in the Philippines.

Join the Conversation