We’ll start today’s Skull Session with another baseball analogy.
While Garrick compared himself to Brent Rooker yesterday, he was really the setup man who came in to give us a couple of innings after a quality start by Andy (even if he was a little late coming out of the dugout for the middle innings). Now, I’m coming out of the bullpen like Mariano Rivera ready to close out the week before Chase returns to the mound on Monday.
With Big Ten Media Days starting Tuesday and preseason camp starting July 31, we’ve reached the end of our final week of the summer without any Ohio State football events on the calendar (though you should stay tuned for player interviews from the Special Skills Football Invitational this afternoon). In the meantime, we’ll start the end of this week off right with a peek inside last week’s 12th Warrior Happy Hour with J.K. Dobbins, the latest comments from Ryan Day, and more.
Have a great Friday.
J.K. MAKES HIS CASE. Last week, we asked Eleven Warriors readers if J.K. Dobbins belonged on Ohio State’s Mount Rushmore of running backs. 59% of you said yes.
We asked Dobbins the same question during his appearance on our 12th Warrior Happy Hour, and the legendary Buckeye ballcarrier agreed.
“There's only one running back in The Ohio State University history to run for 2,000 yards in a season ... There's literally only one in the whole history of the school,” Dobbins said. “It's me, so that's all I have to say for that. That's literally all I have to say for that. There's only one in the whole history of the school. Archie Griffin won two Heismans. Eddie George won a Heisman. Zeke got the national championship ring. But if we're talking truly running backs individually, there's only one to run for 2,000 in a single season in the whole history of the school, and it's me. So that's all I'll say to that. That should be an automatic yes.
“And then not only that, but I have the freshman rushing record. I think I'm the only one to run for 1,000 yards back-to-back-to-back years. ... I got a tree, I was All-American. But I'll stick by this: I'm the only one to run for 2,000 yards in a season in the history of the school. Nobody else has 2,000 yards next to their name. So I think that's a hard yes, I should be on there. And if we were talking about this statistically, if I come back my last year – I left in three years – if I come back, I think I'd take the number one spot for all-time rushing in the school history as well.
“So if the No. 2 rusher in Ohio State history and the only 2,000-yard rusher isn't supposed to be on Mount Rushmore, I don't know who is supposed to be on there.”
It’s hard to argue with that logic. Dobbins’ 2,003 rushing yards in 2019 are the most an Ohio State player has ever had in a single season. He’s actually the second Buckeye to rush for 1,000 yards in three straight seasons – Archie Griffin also did that from 1973-75 – but he’s correct that he would have had a good shot at breaking OSU’s career rushing records if he played a fourth year at Ohio State, given that he needed only 1,131 yards to surpass Griffin’s career numbers.
Yet it’s still debatable whether he ranks among Ohio State’s top four running backs of all time, if only because of how many legends the Buckeyes have at the position.
When we did our version of Ohio State’s Mount Rushmore at every position with our Four Kings series back in 2023, Dobbins actually finished seventh in the voting among running backs behind Griffin, Eddie George, Ezekiel Elliott, Hopalong Cassady, Chic Harley and Keith Byars. That top seven doesn’t even include two other Ohio State running backs who won Heisman Trophies, Les Horvath and Vic Janowicz.
Dobbins put Griffin, George and Elliott on the Mount Rushmore alongside him, and it would be hard to deny any of them a spot among Ohio State’s four greatest running backs given Griffin’s unmatched two Heismans, George’s superstardom and Elliott’s epic run to a national title. Personally, I feel Cassady must also have a spot on the Mount Rushmore, considering he won the 1955 Heisman by the largest margin in the award’s history at the time and was a two-time unanimous All-American.
That leaves Dobbins just off of Ohio State’s Mount Rushmore of running backs for me, even though I believe his Ohio State career deserves more recognition among all-time Buckeye greats than it’s gotten so far.
If you’d like to watch our full conversation with J.K. Dobbins and participate in the next 12W Happy Hour, sign up to become a 12th Warrior today.
“EVERY DECISION THEY MAKE MATTERS.” Summer break is almost over for Ohio State football.
In just 13 days, the Buckeyes will be back on the field for their first practice of preseason camp. Just four days from today, Ryan Day will be in Las Vegas with Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, safety Caleb Downs and linebacker Sonny Styles for Big Ten Media Days.
Before he meets the media at large on Tuesday, Day made an appearance on The Bobby Carpenter Show to discuss how the Buckeyes’ summer workouts have gone, his approach to the season and his anticipation for the season opener against Texas, among other topics.
Day is pleased by what he’s seen from the Buckeyes so far this offseason, but knows they still have a lot of work to do over the next six weeks to prepare for their highly anticipated first game against the Longhorns.
“It's been going good. The guys have been working really hard this summer,” Day said. “And I think that the biggest challenge has been the leadership and, you know, figuring out who are the guys that are gonna step up. And when you look at last year's team, you know, there's guys who are returning like Caleb Downs and Sonny Styles, guys who have been in some leadership roles in the past, but a lot of guys who now have to step into more prominent roles in terms of leadership. And so that's been important.
“I feel like, you know, it's been a good couple months leading up to it. As you know, when (director of sports performance Mickey Marotti) gets to work with these guys, that's really where the team is bonded and forged together. So we know that August is going to be a huge month and it's right around the corner.”
Day knows the Buckeyes are going to get “instant feedback” on where they are as a team when they play Texas on Aug. 30, but he also knows the Buckeyes can’t place all their preseason focus on one game. While Ohio State certainly wants to start its season with a win at Ohio Stadium, last season’s national championship run showed that what matters most is that the Buckeyes play their best football at the end of the season.
“I'm really looking forward to playing in this first game. But I also am excited about the journey that we're going to go on, because if you get hot and you start to figure some things out as the season goes on, you get into the playoffs as you guys saw, like you can be dangerous,” Day said. “And so we have to take that approach that every game is very, very important, and compartmentalize the fact that, ’OK, this game is a one-game season,’ but also taking a step back and recognizing that like, we've got to build as the season goes on.”
With that in mind, Day is emphasizing the importance of being detail-oriented with his players this summer, aware that they’ll only win another national championship if they put in the same kind of work last year’s team did. To that end, Day asked his players to read the book “Chop Wood Carry Water: How to Fall in Love with the Process of Becoming Great.”
“Everybody focuses on that final result and what it looked like and all those things. We needed to get back to the beginning of the process and focusing on the process and not necessarily focusing on the result,” Day said. “And I think last year, we did a good job of that, because we came up short in two games. We knew our process was right, we just had to tweak some things along the way.
“Every single chapter in that book has a great message about focusing on what really does matter. And in today's society, it isn't always easy to do that because of all the different distractions. I would say my favorite chapter, though, is ’Every Inch Matters,’ because I believe that in all my heart. Every decision that we make on a day-to-day basis matters. They say like, if you eat McDonald's today, is it really gonna make a difference and you're gonna die tomorrow? No. But if you eat it every day for the next 10 years, yeah, you're gonna get sick and get overweight and probably be in poor health.
“Every decision that we make, who we hang with, what we listen to, the decisions we make on what we put in our body, what time we go to bed at night, all of these things add up over time. And I think for our guys, it's important for them to understand that every decision they make matters.”
Speaking of McDonalds...
McBUCKEYES. Five Ohio State players are partnering with Ronald McDonald House Charities to encourage McDonald’s customers across the Buckeye State to support the nonprofit.
Smith, quarterback Julian Sayin and defensive linemen Beau Atkinson, Will Smith Jr. and the aptly named Kayden McDonald participated in a commercial shoot at a local McDonald’s on Tuesday. The ad will encourage McDonald’s customers to “Round Up for RMHC,” the fast-food franchise’s initiative that asks customers to round up their payments to the nearest dollar for charity. All round-up proceeds go directly to local RMHC programs like the Columbus Ronald McDonald House – the world’s largest Ronald McDonald House – which offers free lodging, daily meals, laundry services and a supportive community for families with seriously ill or injured children.
Stay tuned #RoundUpForRMHC #CbusRMHC @McDonalds @RMHCofCentralOH @RMHC @nbc4i pic.twitter.com/ZNMwWXQQ76
— Kayden McDonald (@KMac_DT) July 15, 2025
“I want to give back to the kids,” McDonald said in a news release. “I was once a young kid. Me being at the House and being with the kids ... I just want to make their day. Being an Ohio State football player, you have the platform to give back and that’s my goal.”
Dee Anders, the CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Ohio, said the players’ “participation in this campaign will help raise awareness and bring smiles to the faces of families going through some of their most difficult moments. It means the world to us.”
K3LS3Y MITCH3LL. While she isn’t the Indiana Fever sharpshooter getting most of the headlines these days, former Ohio State guard Kelsey Mitchell remains one of the WNBA’s best shooters, ranking fifth in the league this season with 19.1 points per game.
Mitchell, who ended her Ohio State career as the NCAA‘s all-time leader in 3-pointers (a record now held by her Fever teammate Caitlin Clark), set another record Wednesday night when she surpassed Tamika Catchings to become the Fever’s all-time leader in made threes.
Mitchell set the record with her 607th career three, one of five made threes for the former Buckeye in the Fever’s Wednesday night loss to the New York Liberty.
HERstory for Kelz
— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) July 17, 2025
last night, Kelsey Mitchell passed Tamika Catchings for the most three-pointers made in FRANCHISE history with 607 threes and counting. pic.twitter.com/7fZ5cGKMWD
Mitchell is now set to play in her third straight WNBA All-Star Game on Saturday in Indianapolis (8:30 p.m., ABC).
SONG OF THE DAY. In honor of the final installment of Ohio State’s Top 25 Games of the Quarter-Century, which will go live on site at 8:35 a.m. this morning...
“The Final Countdown” – Europe
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