In honor of Scoonie Penn returning to Ohio State, we'll start our day with Penn and Michael Redd tag-teaming Metta World Peace and St. John's to advance to the 1999 Final Four:
Oh, and you're damn right that's Jerome Baker and Lil Wayne in the header photo. Might as well mail the Butkus award to Baker.
Programming Note: If your life is devoid of meaning, the ESPYs start at 8 p.m. on, you guessed it, ESPN.
Kyle Snyder, Noah Brown's touchdown hug against Oklahoma, and Tate Martell are all up for ESPYs.
ICYMI:
- Ohio State named campus-area barbershop proprietor Scoonie Penn as Director of Player Personnel.
- Troy Smith looking to open a Cleveland medical marijuana dispensary with Ted Ginn Sr. and Eric Metcalf.
- The impact of 2018 four-star guard Torrence Watson committing to Ohio State.
- A look at how other elite programs are recruiting their backyards.
- Our best guess at Ohio State 2017 ratings, if NCAA Football were still a thing.
- Help put a life-size statue of Woody Hayes in his hometown of Newcomerstown, Ohio.
Word of the Day: Expurgate.
ARBITRARY OFFSEASON RANKINGS, AHOY! One perk of the offseason is vehement debate about unprovable opinions. (Alabama thinks they're in it to win it? LOL. Y'all wish.)
As such, I only read posts that confirm my previously held opinion, which in this case is the local team is the team to beat in 2017 Big Ten play.
According to an expert, the Big Ten is a three-horse race this year: Local team, Penn State, and a small liberal arts college nestled against the coarse hair of Satan's armpit.
From Bill Connelly of sbnation.com:
Penn State won the conference last year and returns ~92% of its team, yet somehow isn't the favorite to repeat. It's time like these I understand why people hate Ohio State even if I don't understand why they don't cheer for the Buckeyes in the first place.
I would also like to propose an anti-Big Ten championship where we make the two bottom teams slug it out as an undercard of the title fight in Indianapolis. Judging from that graph, Rutgers and Purdue would be a banger.
THIS GUY GETS IT. Urban Meyer is one of the best college football coaches in America. I know it; you know it.
But a big part of what makes him special is his ability to adapt. Does Meyer log into social media every day? Hell no. But he understands its importance of relating to talented #teens.
From dispatch.com (via 11W members Hetuck and VintonCountyBuck):
“Ohio State is on top of everything,” recruiting analyst Bill Kurelic said. “When a third party comes out with a story like that, the (coaches) want to promote it. You have to give a lot of credit to (director of player personnel) Mark Pantoni, too. He always pushes the right buttons.”
Meyer and Pantoni know that tweeting positive news is like dropping a boulder in a pond; the splash and resulting ripples spread rapidly as recruits and fans retweet the information.
And wow was this particular information positively juicy. College Factual evaluated 125 schools by such weighted criteria as win/loss percentage for the most recently completed season, academic progress rate, athletic aid per student, revenues and expenses per team and something called “Overall College Quality,” which considers the quality of a school as a whole, including educational resources, degree completion metrics and post-graduation earnings.
I can only speculate Meyer has read my columns and thus understands the power of using subjective lists to pound your previously-held opinion. I'll look for my check from Ohio State's recruiting department in the mail.
TALENTED #TEEN MAKES DEMAND. 2018 four-star guard and forward Musa Jallow committed to Ohio State on Friday. Back in my day, we called a "guard and forward" a small forward or swingman.
But Jallow wants to make it clear: Though he has the physical attributes to play forward, he will play guard at Ohio State.
From dispatch.com:
“Coach Holtmann saw what most people didn’t see in me,” Jallow said. “He saw that I have great guard skills and I have great court vision and a feel for the game, high IQ. Most people saw me as a big guy because I would be bigger than everybody I played against in high school. It was good to talk with a coach who really understood what I’m going for, one that can put me in that position right away.”
[...]
247Sports ranks him as the No. 8 prospect from Indiana in his class, the No. 120 overall player and the nation’s No. 31 small forward. But he considers himself a guard.
“Last year I was at point guard and (shooting) guard,” Jallow said. “I don’t know why anybody has me put as a small forward. Maybe because I’m 6-5 and I’m bigger than everybody and I can post people up, so people just automatically assume I’m a small forward, but I’ve been a guard my whole life.”
Hard to argue with that opinion, especially considering the lack of guard depth in Columbus probably played a role in his decision to reclassify to 2017.
REMEMBER THE WHITE REGGIE BUSH? There are two highlight tapes I remember watching in high school: Brandon Saine ("Ah hell! Tressel done recruited SEC speed!") and Sam McGuffie ("Ah hell! This guy from Texas might help Michigan back to the promised land.")
It obviously didn't work out for McGuffie and Rich Rodriguez. These days, McGuffie is focused on making the Olympic team in.... bobsledding.
From detroitnews.com:
“It was one injury after another. It'd either be my shoulder or be this, it was just nonstop,” McGuffie said. “I'd try to get one thing healthy and I'd have to play and I'd go in there and hurt something else. It was just never ending.
“I was just a kid. I was 18 years old, I was 180-something pounds. In hindsight I wish I would've just waited a little bit and kind of just let my body mature, but I had to play that year so I was just kind of thrown into the fire basically."
[...]
As challenging as that task might seem, McGuffie will have to do so while overcoming the loss of his driver and pilot Steve Holcomb, a three-time Olympic medalist who died in May at age 37 and “took a chance” on McGuffie when he was a rookie.
Yet if McGuffie lands on one of the top sleds, having the opportunity to put on the USA uniform and represent the country on the grand stage will rank among his personal highlights, right up there with Patriots quarterback Tom Brady headbutting him on first day of practice, Patriots coach Bill Belichick helping him put on his practice jersey and his first game at Michigan Stadium.
I will not cheer for McGuffie if he makes the United States bobsledding team. People who commit to Michigan football are dead to me on arrival. We used to call people like McGuffie traitors in this country.
PRICE ON A BRICK GOING UP. Bad news for incoming and returning Ohio State students and/or the parents that pay their bills: Y'all need more money than originally projected.
From Owen Daugherty of The Lantern:
The Ohio State Board of Trustees unanimously approved the Tuition Guarantee Program and locked in an increased cost of attendance for all incoming Ohio State students for the next four years. Incoming students aren’t the only ones who can expect more costs, as housing and dining plans for returning students will also rise, a new addition to the Friday proposal.
The tuition and fee structure now in place will raise the cost of tuition for all new students by varying rates, breaking the five-year tuition freeze Ohio State previously had.
In addition to the tuition hike, the Board voted to approve that housing fees increase 6 percent for all students — both incoming and returning — as opposed to the 3 percent increase that would have only impacted new students laid out in the plan initially presented to The Lantern.
Ah, the old classic ruse of slipping a revised plan past the public after broadcasting a more favorable plan. A hustle as old as America.
THOSE WMDs. Paying professors: Inside Google's academic influence campaign... Yuri Drozdov, Soviet superspy who planted "illegals" in other countries, dies at 91... Siblings quietly relieved oldest brother setting the bar so low... What's it like to live in a Lake Erie lighthouse?
