One more sleep till another Big Ten championship...
Word of the Day: Nonpariel.
STARS MATTER. I'm not sure how anyone could possibly still need to be told this, but in case you're a rare lingering recruiting rankings doubter, I have something to tell you.
Stars matter.
Otherwise, it would be an absolutely wild coincidence that the same teams atop the recruiting rankings every year are the same teams competing for national titles every year.
There are only 6 programs that have won a game in the College Football Playoff:
— Matt Schick (@ESPN_Schick) December 17, 2020
Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, LSU, Clemson, Oregon.
Updated 2021 recruiting class rankings:
1) Alabama
2) Ohio State
3) Georgia
4) LSU
5) Clemson
6) Oregon
If you want to know what the College Football Playoff field is going to look like in three years, that'll give you a pretty good idea.
Though if we still don't have an 8-team playoff by then, will probably be boycotting the sport.
FUN FACTS! I usually don't share our own stuff in the Skull Session because y'all know where to find it if you want to read it.
But on occasion, something one of my beloved colleagues puts together is just way too fun, cool, good or unique not to address, and Colin's 23 tidbits on Ohio State's 2021 class absolutely fits the bill this time.
It's basically just a list of more than 20 unique ways your team is better than everyone else. And some of the facts are absolutely WILD.
- This is the third time in the modern recruiting era and second time in a row that Ohio State has landed two top-10 overall prospects in a class, with Jack Sawyer and Emeka Egbuka following in the footsteps of Chase Young and Jeff Okudah in 2017 and Julian Fleming and Paris Johnson in 2020.
- With Emeka Egbuka following Julian Fleming and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Ohio State has now landed three five-star wide receivers in the last two classes combined. No college football program had signed three five-star wideouts across back-to-back classes since USC in 2004 (Fred Davis, Dwayne Jarrett) and 2005 (Patrick Turner).
But not all of them are necessarily good. One, in particular, was rather... ominous.
- With TreVeyon Henderson and Evan Pryor, this is the third time in the modern recruiting era that Ohio State has signed two top-100 running backs out of high school in a single class, following 2001 (Lydell Ross, Maurice Hall) and 2018 (Jaelen Gill, Brian Snead).
And it very nearly happened again in 2016 with Demario McCall and Kareem Walker. So basically, in a wild turn of events, the most successful running back out of that entire group is Lydell Ross.
Maybe signing two top-100 running backs in one class is a bad idea, actually?
LIKE CAPTAIN, LIKE CAPTAIN. Ohio State captain Wyatt Davis has some captain's blood in his veins as his grandfather Willie Davis was a defensive captain on the legendary Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers team.
Willie was a huge influence on Wyatt's life, and part of why Wyatt is team a captain himself these days.
“As far as being aggressive, that’s just something I’ve always been, even at a young age,” Davis said. “My grandpa would play very physical. I would look at the old videos of him playing and he was a very physical player. He was playing the game the way it should be played now, physically tough and hitting hard. I just try to emulate that.”
Willie Davis, who passed away eight months ago, played a key role in his grandson’s life and his football game.
“He was a huge influence,” Wyatt said. “He was always around, especially when I was younger, with both me and my brother. He was like a second dad. He really drove us. He gave us the fighting spirit to attack everything at full velocity. He used to tell us that if we were going to do something, we should do it 100%. I feel like that attitude had a lot to do with why he was so successful. I really enjoyed spending time with my grandpa.”
With Willie playing for Lombardi, that also means winning championship runs in the family, as well. So I'd say Wyatt is going to make him proud this weekend.
WORLD'S BIGGEST SNOW ANGEL. I bet y'all didn't even know you needed to see a 6-foot-8, 360-pound human doing a snow angel, did you?
Imagine just stumbling across that snow angel in the wild. It would be some of the strongest evidence of Sasquatch's existence yet.
SONG OF THE DAY. "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" by Pentatonix.
NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. A son wins a lawsuit after his mom throws away his best porno magazines... The rise and fall of a celebrity police dog... Feds bust a drug ring they say used fraternities to supply students at UNC and Duke... Drug cartels are all over Instagram, Facebook and TikTok... A man jailed for nearly four decades is exonerated after a witness admits to lying...
