Welcome to the Skull Session.
Jeremiah Smith has aura.
1st Ohio State
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) May 27, 2025
@EASPORTSCollege x @Jermiah_Smith1 pic.twitter.com/IpvXyDEz6q
Have a good Wednesday.
CRIMSON TIDES OF TEARS. Ever since Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina missed the College Football Playoff last season, the SEC has cried, cried and cried some more.
That continued this week, when Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer made this comment to The Action Network’s Brent McMurphy (I know, I know, he’s persona non grata, but it’s who DeBoer interviewed with!): “You wonder what would have happened if other people would have played our schedule.”
Other people → Boise State, Indiana and SMU, the teams that received the No. 3, No. 10 and No. 11 seeds in the 2024 CFP.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart chimed in, too. He told McMurphy he believes the Crimson Tide, Rebels and Gamecocks were three of the best teams in college football last fall.
“There’s no outcry saying it’s unfair when the SEC gets 13 of 16 teams in the basketball tournament using RPI (rating percentage index),” Smart said. “I have a hard time thinking Ole Miss, South Carolina and Alabama were not part of the best teams in the country.”
I mean, come on, coaches.
Take some more copium.
Rather than hold himself accountable for Alabama’s losses to… **check notes**… 7-6 Vanderbilt, 6-7 Oklahoma and Tennessee (the team Ohio State demolished 42-17!), DeBoer took shots at Boise State, Indiana and SMU.
Rather than acknowledge that Ole Miss lost to 4-8 Kentucky, 9-4 LSU and 8-5 Florida, that South Carolina lost to LSU, Ole Miss and Alabama (OK, Smart has a point about the Gamecocks… those are some good losses, if such a thing exists) or that Alabama lost to Vanderbilt, Oklahoma and Tennessee, Smart puts forward RPI as evidence those three teams belonged in the CFP.
The bottom line: Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina didn’t win when it mattered. They had more than one shot, more than one opportunity, and they blew it, boy! You can cry me a river, but I don’t care!
SHOW ME THE TV TIMES. This week, The Athletic’s Scott Dochterman predicted the first three weeks of the 2025 college football television schedule. He called the exercise “an annual, if semi-futile, exercise” to project what time and on which network those games will appear, and he acknowledged that, “like an NFL mock draft, if we pick one incorrect time or network, it implodes much of the entire lineup.”
Nevertheless, Dochterman’s predictions included two of Ohio State’s three kickoff times to start the season: Texas and Ohio. The Grambling State game, which looks destined for the Big Ten Network, did not appear in Dochterman’s article, as his predictions spanned ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, FOX, FS1, CBS, NBC, TNT and the CW.
Here are Dochterman’s predictions for Ohio State vs. Texas and Ohio State vs. Ohio:
Week 1
Texas at Ohio State: Noon on FOX
Oof.
Week 3
Ohio at Ohio State: 3:30 p.m. on NBC
We’ve known that Ohio State vs. Texas at noon is all but guaranteed, but it still disappoints me. As for Ohio State vs. Grambling, please, please, please, Ohio State, do not let it be a consolation night game because the previous week's game kicked off at noon. Get Grambling in at noon, get Grambling out at 3:30 p.m. following a 50-point win. And for Ohio State vs. Ohio, sure, whatever. Kick off that game whenever. Noon? Sure! 3:30 p.m.? Sure! 4 p.m.? Sure! Same scenario. Get Ohio in, get Ohio out with a 50-point win to close out the nonconference schedule.
BEST 5-STAR QUARTERBACKS. This week, The Athletic’s Antonio Morales added to the outlet’s Best of the 2000s series with the Best Five-Star Quarterbacks in the Modern Era. Three Buckeyes appeared in the top 20: Justin Fields, Terrelle Pryor and Braxton Miller.
9. Justin Fields, Georgia (2018)
The pandemic-shortened 2020 season limited how much we saw of Fields at his peak. Over 22 starts at Ohio State, he threw for 5,373 yards and 63 touchdowns with just nine interceptions, rushed for 867 yards and 15 scores and finished in the top seven of Heisman voting both seasons. The Buckeyes reached the College Football Playoff in both 2019 and 2020 and appeared in the national title game in 2020.
Fields is the lone quarterback in the top 10 without a national championship or a Heisman Trophy, but he won (20-2 record at Ohio State) and produced at an elite level.
14. Terrelle Pryor, Ohio State (2008)
Pryor played for Jim Tressel, so he rarely got the opportunity to display his full skill set like he would have if he played under the more offensive-minded Urban Meyer. But in three seasons, he won two Big Ten titles, went 31-4 as a starter and amassed 74 total touchdowns, 6,177 passing yards and 2,164 rushing yards.
16. Braxton Miller, Ohio State (2011)
Miller was Meyer’s first quarterback at Ohio State, and his dual-threat ability (2,039 passing yards, 1,271 rushing yards) spearheaded the Buckeyes’ 12-0 season in 2012 (when they served a postseason ban). It was more of the same in 2013 when Miller led Ohio State to a 12-2 record, a Big Ten title game appearance and a trip to the Orange Bowl. Miller finished in the top 10 of Heisman Trophy voting in both seasons before shoulder injuries forced him to move to receiver.
All three quarterbacks were absolutely electric at Ohio State. I mean, does anyone have a better highlight package than Braxton Miller?! Besides the GOAT Tavon Austin, that is.
OLYMPIC VILLAGE. Former Ohio State men’s tennis standouts JJ Tracy and Robert Cash have earned a spot in the French Open. The 2024 NCAA doubles champions will face India’s Rohan Bopanna and Chechnya’s Adam Pavlasek on Wednesday.
Currently, Tracy is the youngest ranked doubles player in the top 75, appearing at a career-high No. 67. Cash has also ascended into a career-high ranking, checking in at No. 72. Their rise coincides with titles in April at the ATP Challengers in Florida and France, where Tracy and Cash defeated No. 58 Theo Arribage and No. 33 Hugo Nys in the final. They also reached the semifinals twice last month and most recently advanced to the Sweet 16 of the ENP Paribas Primrose in France on May 14.
In addition to Tracy and Cash’s Ohio State ties, they are also Central Ohio natives, Tracy from Powell and Cash from New Albany.
Best of luck to them in the French Open. They are Buckeyes through and through!
SONG OF THE DAY. “Hang On Sloopy” by The McCoys, in honor of Rick Derringer, who died Tuesday at 77 years old.
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