Welcome to the Skull Session.
The Big Ten Tournament starts on Wednesday. Fourteen years and one day ago, this happened:
OTD 14 years ago... pic.twitter.com/aLkGezlnk5
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) March 12, 2024
Have a good Wednesday.
BACK ON TOP. Before every college football season, Adam Rittenberg of ESPN releases “Future Power Rankings” for several positions in the sport. Rittenberg’s rankings start with the quarterbacks. Between 2018 and 2022, Ohio State held the No. 1 spot each offseason as the torch passed from Dwayne Haskins to Justin Fields and, later, from Fields to C.J. Stroud.
Then, in 2023, Ohio State fell to No. 2 behind USC. The Trojans had Caleb Williams and Miller Moss on the roster, with Malachi Nelson (2024) committed. Meanwhile, the Buckeyes had Kyle McCord, Devin Brown and Lincoln Kienholz, with Air Noland committed (2024).
Knowing how Ohio State’s quarterbacks performed this past season, No. 2 was… um… too high. Williams, Jayden Daniels (LSU), Michael Penix Jr. (Washington) and Bo Nix (Oregon) were much better than McCord. Each school also had promising replacements with Moss, Garrett Nussmeir, Austin Mack (now at Alabama with Kalen DeBoer) and Austin Novosad.
But that’s the past!
Time moves forward.
The future is promising!
This week, Rittenberg released his 2024 version of his “Future Power Rankings” for college football quarterbacks. Ohio State returned to the No. 1 spot on the list.
2023 ranking: 2
Returning starter: None
On the roster (as of March 12): Will Howard, senior (Kansas State transfer); Devin Brown, junior; Lincoln Kienholz, sophomore; Air Noland, freshman; Julian Sayin, freshman (Alabama transfer); Mason Maggs, junior; Chad Ray, senior
Ohio State's rise to the top spot after a season when its quarterback play dropped off a bit -- at least by the standard of Day's previous signal-callers -- underscores the power of the quarterback portal. The Buckeyes went to the portal and addressed an immediate need by adding Howard, who helped Kansas State to a Big 12 championship in 2022. He had his best statistical season last fall (2,643 pass yards, 24 passing touchdowns, nine rushing touchdowns). Howard gives Day and new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly an experienced option who can reach another level as a passer while providing a solid run threat. Brown pushed back against suggestions he will transfer and could push Howard or provide a very solid No. 2 option for the high-stakes 2024 season.
Day and Kelly also have options for the future in Sayin and Noland, ESPN's Nos. 2 and 5 quarterback prospects in the 2023 class. Sayin signed with Alabama in December but transferred to Ohio State following the coaching change in Tuscaloosa. He should compete with Noland, who committed to the Buckeyes in April, as early as the 2025 offseason. Although Ohio State might not be able to realistically keep both young quarterbacks, the team has options through 2026 that most teams would crave.
With Howard, Brown or Kienholz as Ohio State’s starter this season and both Noland and Sayin ready to compete for the title of QB1 next spring, I would agree that the Buckeyes have the most promising future at quarterback. And that’s without mention of Tavien St. Clair, an Ohio State commit in the 2025 class who recently received his fifth star for 247Sports.
Hopefully, each of those players will excel at the position, and we see last season’s performance(s) as more of an outlier than a sign of what’s to come in the post-Haskins, post-Fields and post-Stroud era.
WHO IS TREVEYON HENDERSON? After Ohio State’s offense was one of America’s best in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, the Buckeyes took a step backward on that side of the ball in 2023 — a surprising development for a Ryan Day-coached team.
Still, there is optimism Ohio State can rebound this fall due to TreVeyon Henderson, Emeka Egbuka and Donovan Jackson choosing to to return for another season and the program adding Quinshon Judkins, Will Kacmarek and Seth McLaughlin from the transfer portal.
This week, Henderson, Judkins, Egbuka and Jackson appeared in separate articles from Max Chadwick of Pro Football Focus, in which Chadwick ranked the top 10 returning players at every offensive position in college football.
Here is where each of those Buckeyes appeared in their respective top 10s:
Running Back
No. 1 - Ollie Gordon II, Oklahoma State
No. 2 - Quinshon Judkins, Ohio State
Judkins is the only running back on this list who’ll be playing for a new school in 2024, transferring to Ohio State from Ole Miss in January. He's been the most productive back over the last couple of seasons. Since 2022, Judkins has led all Power Five running backs in rushing yards (2,726), yards after contact (1,800) and forced missed tackles (154). Those also happened to be his first two years of college football. Judkins will likely be relied on heavily as a junior to carry Ohio State back to prominence, along with his teammate further down this list.
No. 3 - Omarion Hampton, North Carolina
No. 4 - Jadyn Ott, California
No. 5 - Tahj Brooks, Texas Tech
No. 6 - TreVeyon Henderson, Ohio State
Between Judkins and Henderson, Ohio State has far and away the best backfield in college football next season. After an injury-plagued sophomore season, Henderson began to look more like himself as a junior. His 90.0 PFF grade in 2023 was seventh among Power Five running backs. Henderson’s 5.9 yards per attempt were second among Big Ten running backs in 2023. He still missed three games due to injury as a junior, so the addition of Judkins should hopefully keep Henderson fresh in his senior year as the Buckeyes use more of a committee backfield.
Wide Receiver
No. 1 - Luther Burden III, Missouri
No. 2 - Tetairoa McMillen, Arizona
No. 3 - Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State
Egbuka entered 2023 as my No. 2 wide receiver in college football, trailing only his teammate in Marvin Harrison Jr. While Harrison continued to shine and is now off to the NFL, Egbuka is returning for his senior season after missing three games due to an ankle injury as a junior. The year before, he finished as the second-most-valuable receiver in the Power Five according to PFF’s wins above-average metric, trailing only Harrison. He was fifth in that same group in receiving yards (1,151) and tied for seventh in receiving touchdowns (10) in 2022.
Egbuka is a smooth route-runner who routinely finds the soft spots in zone coverage. His 86.1% open-target rate puts him in the 96th percentile of wide receivers over the last couple seasons while the junior’s 97.7 PFF receiving grade since 2022 against zone/underneath/top coverage places him in the 90th percentile. Egbuka will be the veteran leader in Ohio State’s receiving room this year, bringing along the next generation of Buckeye greats at the position.
Interior Offensive Line
No. 1 - Parker Brailsford, Alabama
No. 2 - Tate Ratledge, Georgia
No. 3 - Tyler Booker, Alabama
No. 4 Donovan Jackson, Ohio State
Jackson entered Columbus with a ton of hype as a top-15 recruit in the 2021 class. He impressed on limited snaps during his true freshman season, not allowing any pressure on his 36 pass-blocking snaps. Jackson became Ohio State’s starting left guard as a sophomore and was dominant in the ground game, earning an 80.1 run-blocking grade in 2022, which placed him eighth among Power Five guards. He took a slight step back as a junior, earning just a 69.9 grade in 2023. Even after a down season, Jackson is still the third-most valuable returning Power Five interior offensive lineman since 2022, according to PFF’s wins above average metric.
I don’t have a problem with Judkins as the second-ranked running back, Egbuka as the third-ranked wide receiver or Jackson as the fourth-ranked interior offensive lineman in college football. However, I do have a problem with Henderson as the sixth-ranked running back in the sport.
Gordon is a stud and deserves the top spot. The 6-foot-1, 211-pound athlete had a breakout season in 2023, running for 1,732 yards and 21 touchdowns. He also caught 39 passes for 330 yards and one score. That production led to him receiving the Doak Walker Award and becoming a unanimous first-team All-American for the Cowboys.
Judkins is also a stud and deserves the spot behind Gordon (though I think he and Henderson are interchangeable as the second- and third-best running backs). Judkins arrives at Ohio State in 2024 after back-to-back years as the best ballcarrier in the SEC. This past season, he ran for 1,158 yards and 15 touchdowns. He also added 149 yards and two scores as a pass-catcher.
But then Chadwick puts Hampton, Ott and Brooks ahead of Henderson?
No disrespect to those three, for all of them are tremendous running backs, but I cannot believe that Henderson – when healthy – is a less talented ballcarrier.
Henderson has it all. He is a home-run hitter with breakaway speed. He has acceleration through the hole. He makes defenders miss. He picks up the blitz and blocks cornerbacks, linebackers and safeties well. He catches passes out of the backfield. He is a complete back. All of that, to me, makes Henderson one of the two- or three-best running backs in college football.
But oh well.
Henderson will prove all of what I mentioned and more this fall.
“THEY'VE ALWAYS BEEN IN THE HUNT.” How does the saying go? “They hate us 'cause they ain’t us”? Or, as comedian Seth Rogan said in “The Interview” — his 2014 film with James Franco and Randall Park — “They hate us ‘cause we is us”?
No matter how it goes, the saying tells us that a person hates someone or something for having someone or something they desire but cannot obtain. In other words, they are jealous and transform that emotion into hatred for another. That’s how the rest of the college football world feels about Alabama, Miami, Michigan, Notre Dame, USC and, perhaps most of all, Ohio State.
Josh Pate explained more on his latest episode of The Late Kick:
“Who do you think the most hated teams in this sport are? I don’t care what your metrics are. I don’t care what your criteria is. Who are the most hated teams in this sport?
“Ohio State is on this list. … I had someone tell me earlier today, ‘Ohio State has to be one of the most hated teams in college football.’ I went back and forth with him, and I said, ‘Why? Out of curiosity, why?’ He said, ‘Well, they’re the most overrated team in America.’ I said, ‘How’s that?’ He said, ‘They’ve only won two national titles this millennium.’ But that’s not the (criticism he) thinks it is. If you’re winning, on average, one national championship about every 12 years, historically, you are on the top of the sport.
“This is where Nick Saban and Alabama kind of ruined things because it threw out of wack what proper college football is. Ohio State has two titles this millennium. That’s actually a positive, not a negative. And they’ve played for more than that. They’ve won two titles, and they’ve also been in the hunt almost every year. There have only been a couple of years where they weren’t in the hunt. They’ve been in the hunt not because the media fantasized about it but because they recruited, developed and had rock-solid culture and stability. There were some hiccups along the way, but it never derailed them. It was just a brief, brief volume down and back up the next year.
“They’ve always been in the hunt. If you’re always there and you afford yourself the ability to take a swing in November every year, you’ll land some, and you’ll miss more than you land because it’s hard to win at the highest levels. But, man, if you hate them because they’re Ohio State, OK. If you think Ryan Day got handed the job… OK. If you’re a Michigan fan and hate them because you were born, OK. But the whole overrated thing… I disagree with that, especially when you’re in the hunt every year.”
They hate us ‘cause they ain’t us.
OLYMPIC VILLAGE. Before the Big Ten Wrestling Championships this past weekend, the Big Ten Network released a video feature about Ohio State wrestler Sammy Sasso, a two-time conference champion who suffered a gunshot wound last August and missed the 2023-24 season.
I don’t have much commentary to add here — just that you should watch.
Sammy Sasso's first stop after 41 days in the hospital was the @wrestlingbucks facility to see his coaches and teammates.
— Big Ten Wrestling (@B1GWrestling) March 10, 2024
Throughout the long recovery process, Sammy's toughness, perseverance and determination to wrestle is an inspiration to many.
pic.twitter.com/y9eDl9Pwjs
On Sunday, Sasso shared how much he appreciates the feature.
Very nicely done. Thank you BigTen for doing such a great job creating this. Very thankful to have so many good people in my corner. Cant thank my family, my lady, teammates & coaches for helping me through all of it. Live to see another day, God bless. https://t.co/aWjjZ55Iqf
— sasso chamberlain (@sammysasso) March 10, 2024
The 2024 NCAA Championships will be held between March 21 and 23 at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri.
The Buckeyes have seven automatic qualifiers, including Big Ten champion Jesse Mendez (141 pounds), Dylan D’Emilio (149), Isaac Wilcox (157), Rocco Welsh (174), Ryder Rogotzke (184), Luke Geog (197) and Nick Feldman (HWT). Brendan McCrone (125) and Nic Bouzakis (133) also received at-large bids on Tuesday.
NCAA brackets at all 10 weight classes will be announced at 8 p.m. on Wednesday on NCAA.com.
SONG OF THE DAY. “All We Got” - Chance The Rapper.
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