Welcome to the Skull Session.
How about another hoop mixtape for Brandon Inniss?
11 is next up https://t.co/bk9xmi2SNS
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) February 26, 2025
Have a good Wednesday.
"IT'S A LITTLE BIT OF THE SAME." He’s the (five-time) national champion head coach, he’s the Senator, he’s the lieutenant governor – he’s Jim Tressel!
Last week, Tressel discussed Ohio State’s coaching staff changes, the Buckeyes’ run for a national championship (and more) on The Tim May Show. To begin the Skull Session, I wanted to pass along his comments on both topics:
On Ohio State’s coaching staff promotions and hires this offseason
“You always have to think about, ‘How can we do things better?’ You’re always losing coaches, you’re losing players and people know more about how you (coach), so they’re gonna defend you better or attack you better. To me, that’s part of the fun, and Ryan and his staff – and I think there’s some healthy part of staff changes. Everyone is saying, ‘Oh, my gosh, we lost a couple of coaches.’ I was telling Ryan a few weeks back, a couple of weeks back, shortly after the game that I remember in 1990, we were 11-1 and starting to really climb at Youngstown State. We had a heck of a team coming back, we thought.
“But then we lost Mark Dantonio, we lost Jim Bollman and we lost Don Treadwell, all who became very successful coaches. And we only had six coaches. We didn’t have 26; we had six. And the newspapers all said, ‘Oh, my gosh, the bottom’s falling out. Their progress will be stunted for a minute.’ But the next year, we win the national championship with three new coaches out of six. … I think change can be good, it can keep it fresh, especially as hard and long as Ryan and his group targeted this and worked on it. Every new beginning is healthy.”
On Ohio State’s national championship in 2024
“I think about our ‘02 team. We had old guys that hadn’t had the success they were hoping for at Ohio State, that was a group. We had some young guys in the middle who were sophomores who were really going to be good: (Mike) Nugent, Chris Gamble, Simon Frazier, Dustin Fox, guys like that. And then we had this 25-person recruiting class, which may have been one of the best recruiting classes we had in our time there, that ended up with a handful of first-round picks and dozens of NFL picks. You had that confluence of competitive young guys – some first-round draft choices redshirted – and then that middle group that were our guys, and then the old guys who we had now gotten to know being with them for a year, and they were hungry.
“When you think about our ‘24-’25 team, it’s a little bit of the same. There were some old guys who hadn’t accomplished what they wanted yet. There were freshmen who wanted to be part of the great Ohio State tradition. Then, there were those portal guys who had been somewhere else and, for whatever reason, whether it’s Will Howard or (Quinshon) Judkins or Caleb (Downs) or (Seth) McLaughlin who had been a part of good things but wanted to be a part of something that was even better and brought that maturity.
“To me, that’s the difference in college football now. For the Ohio States, the Texases and the Alabamas of the world, there isn’t a redeveloping time because you’re never gonna have a young team at those great places. If we’re a little shy on something at Ohio State, we can go get a junior whose already good at it and hungry to be at a better place. I think this team this year was that coming together – now, it’s up to the staff and especially the older guys to make sure everyone meshes together and isn’t coming from all different angles with an agenda of their own. I thought Ryan and his staff did a great job of embracing where everyone was coming from.”
Hm.
That final line reminded me of Day’s appearance on Tressel’s podcast last summer.
I’ll discuss it in the next section.
“LOOKING ON THE HORIZON.” How did Day and his staff embrace where everyone was coming from and guide Ohio State to a national championship? Because Day, who handed off playcalling duties to Chip Kelly and became the program’s CEO in 2024, was able to look “on the horizon to figure out what’s coming next.”
“I think the thing I realized is, as the head coach, you have to be looking on the horizon to figure out what’s coming next,” Day told Tressel. “I think that’s more of a military approach. You know, the soldiers and the captains, they’re in the trenches, they’re working. You have to sometimes get into the trenches with them – that’s important – but it’s our job as the general to be looking on the horizon to figure out what’s coming next and make sure that they all have the vision to recognize where we’re all going.”
Trestle affirmed him.
“I just finished an article by a guy named Robert Greenleaf,” he said. “One of the things he was talking about was that a real good servant leader, who is serving the team and the best interest of the (team), has to be a historian. What was the design that got Ohio State to where it is today, the good and the bad? The game, the evolution of offense and defense, training, recovery, diet. You have to be a good historian. Then he said you have to be a good contemporary analyst… about what’s going on now in the game, in the business, in the society.
“And then the third thing he said about what a great servant leader needs to be is a prophet. He’s the one who has to keep in consideration what we’ve learned about history and what we’ve learned about contemporary analytics, but how is its effect going to be in the future? … That’s a daunting responsibility for a leader to try and predict the future, but as you’re trying to build a team, isn’t that what we owe to all those guys? So it’s pretty cool that you bring up that your scope is much wider when you’re the head coach.”
I think Tressel’s relationship with Day and his presence around the program this season made a difference.
Would you agree?
"MATT PATRICIA IS AN EXTREMELY SMART GUY." You all know how much I love Lathan Ransom.
He’s like Darren Sharper, one of the most hardest-hitting safeties in the league.
What's not to love about him?
This week, Ransom and 14 of his Ohio State teammates will participate in the NFL Scouting Combine. Before the veteran defensive back traveled to Indianapolis, he appeared on The Bobby Carpenter Show to discuss several topics with former Buckeye linebackers Bobby Carpenter and Anthony Schlegel.
On Ohio State’s coaching staff promotions and hires this offseason
“I really like what Coach Day did, man. All the guys I was rooting for to get promotions and get what they deserve, they got it. I think that’s amazing. The Ohio State dudes, they rewarded the guys who are loyal, working extremely hard behind the scenes, grinding. They rewarded them. I think that’s awesome to watch those guys be successful. Talking to Coach G the other day, I heard Matt Patricia is an extremely smart guy who’s gonna come in and do some creative things on the defensive side. I’m excited to see what he does while also not changing our defense and being too different from it last year. I’m excited to see the spin he has on it. I’m excited to watch these guys play in new positions.”
On becoming “sharper” at the next level
“I think Coach Mick (Marotti) did such a good job instilling in us through the offseasons and practices that you got to do anything you can to win whether it’s claw, scrape – any chance you can give yourself a competitive edge to win. I’m gonna continue to do that wherever I end up. Keep that mentality. Never change that mentality. Coach Mick has drilled that in my head. I feel like I’m someone, man, that when I got to this facility here, I tried to find the best players and compete with them in all the drills and everything we do. And then find the guys who like to get extra work. At the next level, I feel like there’s always gonna be a couple of dudes who want to get extra work in, whether it’s the film room or getting extra work in with drills. I’ll gravitate toward them, and if there aren’t guys like that, I’ll be the one to do that. Eventually, they’re gonna get tired of the rookie in there always trying to get extra work and extra drills, but I want to be known as that guy.”
On Ohio State’s goal-line stands in 2024
“We talked about Coach Mick and us competing before the season and how everything was a competition. That is the embodiment of all the work we had put in prior to that season. Coach Mick needs to put that on a whiteboard or a poster or something because, man, when we got to the goal line – it got to a point where we got to the goal line, we almost gained more confidence when the offense would get down there because we knew how great our defense was in the red zone. … But I think we had the best goal-line defense ever. To be a part of that is so special. I was talking with a guy the other day about our whole run. To look back at it and think about it, it’s still crazy to think about all the stories and everything we went through. It’s still crazy. I’m just blessed to have been a part of it.”
The best goal-line defense ever?
Countless stops and Jack Sawyer's scoop-and-score in the Cotton Bowl?
Name a defense that had it better!
I'll wait!
ARE YOU READY?! This weekend, Ohio Stadium will host an NHL Stadium Series matchup between the Columbus Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings.
Curious what the Shoe will look like for that matchup?
The NHL has you covered.
On Tuesday, the NHL released renderings for its field design and information about the gameday experience, including an F-16 flyover, cannon blasts, Ohio State’s athletic band, a Twenty One Pilots concert and fireworks and a celebration of the Buckeyes’ national championship teams. The NHL will also hold a memorial for the late Blue Jackets star Johnny Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew, who died in August 2023.
That’s a lot of stuff.
Allow me to break it down.
F-16 flyover
Before puck drop, Ohio State’s ROTC program will raise the American flag and present the nation’s colors. During the presentation, two F-16s from the 180th Fighter Wing in Toledo and one KC-135 from the 121st Air Refueling Wing in Columbus will fly over Ohio Stadium.
The Cannon
Just like Blue Jackets games inside Nationwide Arena, the team’s cannon will fire when Columbus scores a goal. There will also be stickers of the cannon, a Buckeye Leaf and the NHL logo in Ohio Stadium’s south end zone.
Ohio State’s athletic band and Twenty One Pilots
The Ohio State athletic band will perform a collegiate soundtrack between stoppages. Twenty One Pilots will also perform on a stage in the south end zone during an extended first intermission in which fireworks will also appear.
Championship celebrations
During the second intermission, the NHL will honor Ohio State’s national championship football team and cheer team from this past season, as well as the Buckeyes’ national championship women’s hockey team from last year.
But wait!
There’s more!
In addition to the NHL’s stadium-exclusive plans, the league has also planned a Stadium Series Fan Fest and Stadium Series Pep Rally that will mirror an Ohio State tailgate and Skull Session. The pep rally will start at 2:30 p.m. and will feature a free concert from O.A.R. The Ohio State athletic band will also perform at the pep rally, which the Blue Jackets will attend before walking across Woody Hayes Drive and into the Shoe.
SONG OF THE DAY. "Chlorine" - Twenty One Pilots.
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