Skull Session: Ohio State's Fabulous Freshmen Generating Buzz and Stats, Joey Bosa Hits Milestone, and Matt Nagy is Bad at His Job

By Jason Priestas on October 5, 2021 at 5:00 am
C.J. Stroud
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Good morning! Facebook is back online and the world is worse for it.

Here's a recap of the “Pummeling in Piscataway” to get your day off to the right start:

 FIVE WEEKS. FIVE WINNERS. C.J. Stroud was named Big Ten Freshman of the Week yesterday for his 330-yard, five-touchdown performance at Rutgers.  

That's the third time Stroud has won the award this season (he's pretty good), but maybe more impressively, the fifth time in five weeks that a Buckeye has won the award. Running back TreVeyon Henderson won it after ripping off 270 rushing yards against Tulsa and quarterback Kyle McCord won it just last week when he started for the injured Stroud and lit Akron up.

The kids are alright.

 MORE NUMBERS TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD. Our own Griffin Strom dug deep into national and Big Ten rankings so you wouldn't have to, and there's a lot to like in there for Ohio State five games into the season.

The common thread: youth. Ohio State is going to be a team that gets better and better every week of this season. That's great news because the Buckeyes' league slate is backloaded.

 VEGAS LIKES. Ohio State's 52-13 bludgeoning of Rutgers did wonders for the angst levels of fans in Columbus. It also seemed to do the same for the folks who put out betting lines as the Buckeyes are back to having the third-best odds to win the College Football Playoff this season.

Here's a look at those odds, courtesy of betonline.ag, and how they've improved or worsened for the top teams as the season has played out.

  SEP. 2 SEP. 7 SEP. 13 SEP. 20 SEP. 27 OCT. 4
ALABAMA 13/5 9/4 7/4 9/5 7/4 8/5
GEORGIA 13/2 4/1 4/1 5/2 7/4 8/5
OHIO STATE 7/1 11/2 10/1 10/1 14/1 12/1
OKLAHOMA 13/2 15/2 13/2 10/1 12/1 12/1
MICHIGAN 100/1 80/1 55/1 40/1 40/1 25/1
PENN STATE 80/1 50/1 40/1 22/1 25/1 25/1
CINCINNATI 80/1 66/1 66/1 50/1 50/1 33/1
IOWA 100/1 75/1 55/1 50/1 40/1 40/1

Do you like Ohio State at 12/1 odds right now? Maybe. Does Michigan Man like his Wolverines at 25/1 odds right now? Absolutely, because this is as real as they've looked in years, and he's high on hopium.

 JOEY BOSA, STILL VERY GOOD AT FOOTBALL. Shrugger in Chief, Joey Bosa, got his 50th career sack last night in the Chargers' 28-14 win over the Raiders, and boy was it a beaut:

With seven quarterback hurries last night, Bosa now has 22 on the season, the second-most in the NFL.

Damon Arnette, meanwhile, had a rough go last night:

Arnette would leave the game with a groin injury not long after.

 IS MATT NAGY THE DUMBEST COACH IN THE NFL?

Yes. The answer is yes.

 SPOILER: PRODUCTION CUTS TO KEEP COSTS DOWN. Why are we now moving on to something about how modern toasters have become the kitchen equivalent of printers? Because Wirecutter, my go-to for product reviews, teamed with students from Ohio State's Department of Materials Science and Engineering to tell us why:

The OSU students found that the heating elements in the Cuisinart and Breville toasters did not contain nickel, which means they were not made of Nichrome. Instead, the elements were made from an iron, chromium, and aluminum alloy (FeCrAl). Nickel is an expensive raw material, so to cut manufacturing costs, companies use aluminum instead and increase the amount of iron in the alloy. But this also makes the heating elements more brittle and less ductile than those in their vintage counterparts, so they’re more delicate and prone to failure.

Invest folks. The vintage toaster market is going to be hot soon.

 TODAY'S JAM. St. Panther's “Highway” because it's fun as hell and because more videos should feature Matchbox cars:

 ETC. Rutgers is mad at Mel Tucker… Nowhere else will you find as much love for the ampersand as in this piece on broadcast NFL graphic packages… Maryland is spending its B1G money on videoboards… There's drone beef in China… I want a solar he-shed… Seriously, Facebook is bad.

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