Skull Session: Anthony Gonzalez Talks Congress' Response to the NCAA Rules Change, Ohio State Immediately Uses New NCAA Rules in Recruiting, and Long Snapper Liam McCullough Blocked Chase Young for NFL Prep

By Kevin Harrish on April 30, 2020 at 4:59 am
Demario is ready to be unleashed in today's skull session.
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There are few better ways to start the day than watching Michigan's wonderboy look straight into the camera and give a triumphant "Go Bucks!"

I'd say Tampa Bay needs to hire Jim Harbaugh immediately so we get more of this deliciousness, but I'd actually like him to stay in Ann Arbor for the rest of his life.

Song of the Day: "The Stable Song" by Gregory Alan Isakov.

Word of the Day: Impecunious.

 GONZO'S GOTTA GET IT DONE. If the NCAA's new rule change is going to work, it's going to need some help from congress. Thankfully, we've got Gonzo on the case.

NCAA president Mark Emmert said the association will also be turning to Congress for help in making the proposed changes possible. The working group's report says the NCAA should ask the federal government to help provide "guardrails" that would create one law that applies to all schools and also to "[e]stablish an antitrust exemption for the Association" that would provide cover from future lawsuits challenging potential caps the NCAA would place on the type of endorsements athletes could make and the value of those endorsements.

"It's clear we need Congress's help in all of this," Emmert said.

Federal legislators have shown interest in creating laws about how college athletes are paid in the past year, but the coronavirus pandemic and an upcoming presidential election present obstacles to quickly passing any legislation. Emmert said the NCAA could vote to approve these proposals even if Congress does not provide all the help that is being requested. He added that he thought passing a law in the coming year was "certainly within the realm of doable."

...

(Anthony) Gonzalez, a former wide receiver at Ohio State and in the NFL, said there are still important details for politicians and college sports stakeholders to figure out. He suggested that the government might create some type of clearinghouse to help the NCAA regulate its new NIL market. He said he is confident that answers will emerge in the coming months for one simple reason.

"We have no other choice," Gonzalez told ESPN. "... Whether we like it or not, those questions have to be answered. Do we get it perfect? Probably not, I don't know. But it's certainly something that needs to be done."

A lot of changes are coming and I have no idea how all of this is going to play out, but I do know that is it's a remarkably convenient time to have a former All-Big Ten football player in Congress.

 ALWAYS. BE. 'KROOTIN. If you wondered exactly how well-oiled Ohio State's recruiting machine really is, it took the staff all of two hours to mobilize Wednesday morning's news into a full-fledged recruiting pitch.

Good-at-football teens, behold:

In the past, Gene Smith and Mark Pantoni have both expressed disdain for this inevitable "here are all the opportunities to make money at my school" recruiting pitch, but just because you hate the game doesn't mean you don't play it.

And they ain't wrong. There are opportunities all of the place at Ohio State. Just imagine how much money Braxton Miller would have banked during his time in Columbus in a free market. What if Cardale Jones could have profited from these shirts? Shit, even Joey Lane could have made some nice coin by monetizing "Towel Gang."

This sure ain't going to hurt Ohio State recruiting, that's for sure.

 LONG SNAPPER VS. PREDATOR. Ohio State lives the "Iron Sharpens Iron" mantra of future NFL players going against future NFL players every day in practice. It's undeniably true, but I can't say I envisioned it applying to a long snapper taking one-on-ones against the future No. 2 overall pick.

It ain't easy being a professional long snappy, trying to make it in an industry that offers only 32 jobs available in the entire country, almost all of which are already filled. But "I have blocked arguably the best collegiate pass-rusher of all time" is certainly a differentiator!

 THAD'S (PROBABLY) NOT BACK. It looks like Wake Forest is the latest victim of Thad Matta's "reasonable and diligent efforts to obtain a comparable employment position."

Thad Matta bullshitting his way through interviews just to keep getting paid by the school that fired will always be funny to me, but it's especially hilarious that every year, at least one of these schools genuinely believes they have a chance to land him.

HOWEVER, his contract does expire at the end of June, so there's at least a slight chance he was legitimately considering the job. Regardless, very soon, we're going to have to start taking these interviews a bit more seriously. Or, more realistically, they'll probably just stop happening.

 LIVING THE DREAM. Ohio State wrestler Zach Steiner always knew he'd be a Buckeye, but it seems his plans to be a two-sport star hit a snag somewhere along the way.

To be fair, I have no doubts at all that he would have been a "freight train middle linebacker," and Ross Homan is an extremely on-brand hero. My heroes were always Mike Nugent and Andy Groom, because my self-awareness was highly developed at age eight.

 NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. A man is tattooing himself every day he's in quarantine, and he's running out of space... The treasury department is devising a plan to retrieve stimulus payments back from dead people... Despite what Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said, a man named Tupac Shakur is real and actually need unemployment benefits... A shapeshifting fungus lives in the dust and it’s infecting across the American West... The man who runs 365 marathons a year... 

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Arizona Cardinals Draft Marvin Harrison Jr. with No. 4 Overall Pick, Making Him Ohio State’s Highest-Drafted Wide Receiver Ever

Marvin Harrison Jr.

Former Ohio State Center Felix Okpara Commits to Tennessee

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