Welcome to the Skull Session.
Bruce Thornton with 27 points, nine rebounds and eight assists in Ohio State's 17-point ranked win.
HOW ABOUT A RANKED Whttps://t.co/uSiNnlPtHY pic.twitter.com/m5Rm89rnBv
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) February 18, 2026
This man needs to see the NCAA Tournament!
Have a good Wednesday.
THE NAME’S SMITH, JAMES SMITH. This week, ESPN’s Max Olson named the best transfer additions for each of the Worldwide Leader’s preseason top 25 teams. For Ohio State — ranked sixth behind Indiana, Texas, Notre Dame, Georgia and Oregon — that addition is former Alabama defensive tackle James Smith.
Smith, the No. 3 defensive tackle in ESPN's transfer rankings, joined the Crimson Tide as a top-25 recruit and moved into a starting role in 2025. The 6-3, 297-pound junior put together a good year with 28 tackles, 6.5 TFLs and 2.5 sacks on 398 snaps. Now he's taking over for Kayden McDonald, the Big Ten's Defensive Lineman of the Year, in a Buckeyes defense that has recruited four top-100 transfers in ESPN's rankings with the duo of Smith and Alabama edge Qua Russaw plus safeties Earl Little Jr. (Florida State) and Terry Moore (Duke).
Smith, Russaw, Little and Moore are objectively at the top of the list. But subjectively, I think Ohio State’s best addition was Baylor kicker Connor Hawkins.
I reserve the right to change this pick when he inevitably misses a kick next fall — please, please, please don’t let it be in a high-leverage moment — but for now, Hawkins’ potential intrigues me.
The Buckeyes needed a kicker.
Hawkins, who went 18 of 22 on field goals with a long of 54 last season, wanted to be that kicker.
I think he has what it takes!
A FATHER’S LOVE. The Columbus Dispatch’s Rob Oller wrote a powerful piece last week about the work Ben Christman’s father has done since his son’s unexpected death on Feb. 11, 2025.
The coroner’s office listed both cardiac arrhythmia (an irregular heartbeat) and cardiomyopathy (a heart muscle disease) as the causes for Ben Chistman’s death. Brian Christman told Oller that “sudden cardiac arrest” is the No. 1 cause of death in student-athletes — but doctors don’t screen for it during routine checkups. That needs to change, Christman said. He’ll make it his life’s work to see it happen.
Wanting more than an updated law that amounts to “checking boxes,” as he put it, Christman “injected myself” into the proceedings. He reached out to Bill Roemer, his local representative in the Ohio House, telling him, “You have to get me in front of these people.”
Roemer, a family friend, threw his support behind the bill.
“As someone who watched Ben play both basketball and football and taught him in upper-level math, I know how important cardiac screening for our athletes is," Roemer said. "Anything we are able to do to enhance cardiac screening will save lives in Ohio.”
Wheels began turning. Christman was invited to provide an in-person testimonial during a House hearing committee, where he laid out the need for each Ohio high school to provide cardiac ultrasound testing for every high school athlete.
In his testimony, Christman expressed the immense grief he has felt after losing his child. The committee heard his plea — the anger, the sorrow, the regret — and will consider it while examining House Bill 437. The bill will require “increased education for coaches, checking family health history and mandating that medical personnel pay closer attention to signs of cardiac abnormalities,” Oller wrote.
But Christman wants to see more included in the bill.
One thing in particular: mandatory cardiac ultrasounds to capture images of the heart during annual physicals.
“We need better screening at the point of the physical,” he said, reminding that Ben’s heart condition went undetected through the usual method of reviewing family history and filling out medical questionnaires.
“If you look at the heart, 90% of the time you can see the defect,” Christman said, repeating what he said doctors told him.
Christman’s concern is that politicians, school officials and the public in general will strike down as cost-prohibitive any solution that requires all high school athletes to undergo echocardiography testing. With nearly 300,000 Ohio high school students participating in sports, the estimated cost of funding such a plan would be about $30 million, though that number could be offset by corporate donations.
Christman acknowledged that any progress in athlete safety is better than none, and he stressed that the politicians involved with HB 437 “have all been respectful and professional.”
“It’s refreshing to see politicians, both Democrat and Republican, working together on something like this,” he said.
But that work cannot end in a watered-down bill, he said.
“These screenings will inevitably detect issues in student athletes,” he said. “It may be significant enough to sideline them from the sport they love and played their whole life. It will be a difficult call, but not nearly as difficult as the call I received. I want to help make sure no parent has to receive that call. I’d rather see a student-athlete walk away and live a great life than have the joy of victories and cheers turn into the tributes and tears of family and friends.”
At its core, this is a father’s love — stubborn, relentless and unwilling to accept that nothing can be done. And if that love helps save even one life, then Ben’s legacy will be written not only in memories, but in the hearts that keep beating because his dad chose to fight.
Cheers to Brian for fighting a good one.
THE REMATCH? ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported last week that the Big Ten is circulating an internal document outlining what a 24-team College Football Playoff would have looked like in 2025.
NEW: An internal Big Ten document explores a 24-team College Football Playoff. It offers a peek at what that model could look like, as another off-season of CFP discussion is set to unfold. Details here: https://t.co/on2sqej1H8 pic.twitter.com/j6twmdqyFp
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) February 13, 2026
The proposed format eliminated conference championship games and automatic bids (except for one guaranteed berth for a non–Power 5 team) and placed the first two rounds on college campuses.
In that model, Ohio State could have hosted Michigan in Columbus in the second round, provided That Team Up North defeated Kyle Whittingham, now its head coach, in his final season leading the Utah Utes.
The Buckeyes would have beaten the Wolverines again — I have no doubt about that — and advanced to face either Texas A&M, Miami or Iowa in the quarterfinals. Considering Ohio State lost to Miami in the Cotton Bowl, I wouldn’t be overly confident picking the Buckeyes in that alternate reality. That said, Caden Curry and Caleb Downs were confident Ohio State would beat the Hurricanes nine times out of 10, so that’s something to consider!
If Ohio State had advanced to the semifinals, it would have faced one of six teams: Georgia, Ole Miss, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Virginia or Georgia Tech.
Its potential championship opponent would have been one of 12 teams: Indiana, Texas Tech, Oregon, Oklahoma, Alabama, BYU, Texas, USC, Arizona, Tulane, Houston or James Madison.
I’d probably pick the Hoosiers to emerge from that group, knowing that Curt Cignetti and Fernando Mendoza led them to a 16-0 national championship in real life. Again, I’d have a hard time picking Ohio State in that matchup — but Downs and Carnell Tate were confident the Buckeyes would win a rematch, so that’s at least something to consider!!
TBDBIT… WORLD! In less than a month, The Best Damn Band in the Land will take its talents across the Atlantic.
Over eight days and seven nights, The Ohio State University Marching Band will perform three times in Ireland: a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin, another parade in Celbridge and a concert at Kilkenny Castle.
Back in December, The Ohio State Alumni Magazine’s Chris DeVille detailed the “true logistical feat” of transporting TBDBITL overseas. Moving 248 students, 15 to 20 staff members — and all of their equipment — is no small task.
This will be TBDBITL’s second trip abroad, following a 2015 appearance at an NFL game at Wembley Stadium outside London. But it’s the first coordinated by business operations manager Mary Machuga, who came on board in 2017.
Machuga says the band hired Prime Tours, which has coordinated similar tours for other marching bands, to guide TBDBITL through Ireland. They’ll charter a flight to avoid the chaos of splitting 248 students plus 15-20 staff members across a range of commercial flights. “We don’t have to worry about people making flights,” she says, “and it looks like we’ll be able to take all our equipment with us on the plane, so we won’t have to ship anything.”
That’s a relief, since the band lost a bass drum when shipping equipment separately for an event in New York in 2017, but it does require some extra work on Machuga’s part. She has to report the weights and measurements of all the equipment to the charter operator. When the band travels with the football team—say, to the Rose Bowl in California—the equipment is transported separately by truck, and the athletics department handles the logistics.
The return to international travel may present a few more hoops to jump through, but for Hoch, it’s long overdue. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” he says.
I agree.
It’s time to remind the world why we call them The World Famous Ohio State Buckeyes.
SONG OF THE DAY. "Everybody Loves Somebody" - Dean Martin.
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