Happy Thursday, if you're still into knowing the day of the week. We're almost to the weekend, which is now the same as the other days.
Song of the Day: "Come on Eileen" by Dexys Midnight Runners.
Word of the Day: Appurtenance.
NO CLASS, NO FOOTBALL. College athletic directors are pretty much in full agreement about how extremely screwed most athletic programs across the country would be if there is no football played this year.
They're also in pretty much full agreement in something that is almost totally out of their control: college football will only be played if campuses across the country are generally filled with students.
But for those looking for hints of hope for college football’s return, they should start with the clearance for students to return to campus. Yahoo Sports reached out to a dozen athletic directors and administrators on Wednesday about the potential return of football this fall. Most pointed to the return of students to campus as a key harbinger.
“With school not in session, I don’t believe it is practical or proper to have intercollegiate athletics,” Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich said. “Much like we are experiencing on campus right now.”
...
And Swarbrick points out the mixed messages of telling students to stay home and athletes to come to campus if the conditions don’t abate.
“It’d be very hard to do,” Swarbrick said. “There’s a liability. Some of the dynamics of the game being what they are. The nature of it is such that there’s significant risks.”
...
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby delivered a clear answer when asked if games could be played in the fall without students on campus. “No,” he said. “The participants are students.”
With schools (Ohio State) already moving summer courses online, we admittedly ain't looking too hot on that front right now.
However, we are still five months away, and science continues to work together collectively in a way I'm not sure we've ever seen in human history, so I still have a vague hope that we're going to just figure it out.
Go science. Beat COVID-19.
GETTING AN EARLY JUMP. A side effect of this national quarantine is that all incoming freshmen are now pretty much in the same boat.
That's kinda bullshit for Ohio State's 14 early enrollees who graduated high school early and who would now be getting valuable practice reps as a reward, but it actually helps guys like Cameron Martinez, who are technically still in high school but now pretty much just get to be a part of the team like everyone else.
Martinez said he maintains daily communication with Ohio State coaches. He receives workout plans from the strength and conditioning coach and does Zoom video conferencing with the defensive backs group to keep up on things.
He said he’s settled into an at-home routine during this shelter-in-place shutdown: Wake up, start his meetings with the OSU crew, work out.
“It’s weird because, at the end of the day, it actually makes the time fly by that much faster. I’m in a routine, so nothing really changes,” he said.
It's fantastic that he's able to in at least some way take advantage of an all-around shitty situation for everybody. Now we just pray fall camp exists in four months!
THROWBACK ODEN. We're living in a world with no new basketball, so old basketball is going to have to fill that void the best it can.
Thankfully, the Internet has come through and provided us a throwback video of Greg Oden violently dunking on hapless high school kids over and over and over and over and over and over while he gives a very polite and soft-spoken interview.
This is not the content I thought I needed, but it turns out I did.
With basketball coming to a stop I figured I'd start posting some cool clips from my video vault that not many people have ever seen.
— Neil Johnson (@neilmjohnson) April 1, 2020
First one is a profile of Greg Oden in high school at Lawrenceville North from the summer of 2005. Lots of dunks and even a little smack talk. pic.twitter.com/MDaRHcUcO1
"I get the ball from the point guard, and I dunk it." - Greg Oden, on basketball.
Sports used to be so damn simple.
Also, I've yet to see any evidence that Oden has ever physically aged, and this video sure ain't helping. Are we sure he didn't just always look like this since the beginning of his existence? Have we seen childhood pictures and just not realized it because he looked the same?
RUNNING IT BACK. Some good news to come out of this whole crisis: the LAX Bucks are about to absolutely stacked next season, because with the NCAA granting spring athletes an extra season of eligibility, Ohio State's two top players have decided to run it back.
The news came the same day Ryan Terefenko was named a first-team All-American, meaning he's got an unprecedented chance to become a five-time All-American next season after honorable mention honors in 2017, third team accolades in 2018 and second team honors in 2019.
The Big Ten is in trouble.
HUSTLE & HIT. We've been talking up the Buckeyes as DBU for the past few years (and for damn good reason, I might add), but I think we've forgotten that Ohio State's been LBU.
Here's a bone-crunching reminder:
If you didn't know, now you do.
— Al Washington (@CoachWash56) April 1, 2020
Welcome to Hustle & Hit, brought to you by #LBU.#H2 #Fight #GoBucks pic.twitter.com/SjgvhE9dYH
It's been a bit since Ohio State's had a first-team All-American linebacker – Ryan Shazier in 2013. We're gonna need to change that.
NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. A Van Gogh painting is stolen from Dutch museum closed due to the coronavirus... Nine days detained by North Korea's secret police... How Covid-19 has changed the way the world does science, together... Mike Tyson shares a story about the time one of his tigers attacked a trespasser... A couple drove 5,000 kilometers to Yukon to escape the coronavirus and the locals were furious... Some nuclear submarine crews may not even know about the pandemic...
