Welcome to the Skull Session.
Earl Little Jr. says the level of competition at Ohio State is different than it was at Alabama.
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) April 8, 2026
At Alabama, we didn't compete in the weight room how we do here. Literally with everything youre doing at Ohio State, youre gonna compete, and you have to be your best every pic.twitter.com/r35G79ujXV
That is all.
Have a good Thursday.
“THAT’S NOT HOW I OPERATE.” I love Jeremiah Smith.
In an interview with On3’s Chris Low this week, Smith said he could have made “over $10 million” had he entered the transfer portal this offseason.
“But that’s not how I operate,” he said.
How does Smith operate?
With character and integrity that has become all too rare.
“I came to Ohio State for a reason, to win championships, develop as a player and keep building on this legacy,” Smith told Low. “I might have grown up in South Florida, but I’m a Buckeye. That’s not changing. I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Inject this into my veins.
This, too:
“Jeremiah won the genetic lottery. There’s no question about that,” Day said of Smith’s work ethic. “But sometimes the more talented you are, the less disciplined or skilled you are. He has all three of those things, and that started with a mindset when he was young, growing up with his family and then the skills that he’s learned over time. One thing about him is he hates to lose, and I mean he hates to lose. And then two, he practices his tail off. I tell our younger players, ‘You want to know what being elite looks like? Look at Jeremiah. He’s the best player in the country. Look at how he practices every day. Look at his mindset. Look at his seriousness. Look at the decisions he makes off the field.’ … That’s the kind of culture we want.”
Oh, and this:
“That’s why you come to Ohio State,” Smith said of beating That Team Up North, winning a Big Ten championship and a national title. “It’s the best decision I’ve ever made, but there’s still some unfinished business.”
I love him!
I do!
“THAT THING WAS BAD.” You may have seen our article about Ryan Day’s alleged nipple rings (I’ll take sentences I never expected to write at Eleven Warriors for 500, Alex). Day shut down the rumor this week on Cam Heyward’s podcast. The former Ohio State defensive lineman brought it up after hearing about it from Will Howard and Jack Sawyer.
“I had to bring it up. That was one question. But I know one thing you did do — and we gave Will a lot of crap for it — you showed his commercial from Dr. Pepper in the team meeting. How did you get that all in order?”
“Man, that was bad,” Day said. “That thing was bad.”
The trio laughed so hard that their mics cut out.
Then Day got sentimental about his former quarterback.
“He’s a guy that has such a great sense of humor and he’s so secure in himself that he could do it. We gave him a hard time in the Cotton Bowl. It was 4th-and-3 and he runs (quarterback) power, and it’s wide open, but he literally just trips over the 20-yard line. In the flim room, we were like, ‘You got to watch out for the 20-yard line, man. He’s undefeated. He’s leading the league in tackles.’ Everybody gives him a hard time for those kinds of things.
“But he’s that kind of guy. He can laugh about himself. He’s pretty self-deprecating. We had to put that one up there because that was the most cringey commercial of all time.”
Speak for yourself, Coach.
I thought it was great.
No, wait.
That was worse than I remember.
How did they convince him to do that?!
Or, worse, was it his idea?!
SHOULDA, WOULDA, COULDA. There’s a lot more to break down from Day’s appearance on Heyward’s podcast, and I’ll probably have a couple more items to write about in the Friday Skull Session. For now, however, I’ll continue with this.
If Ryan Day could have one game back, which game would he choose?
“The ‘19 Clemson game,” Day said without hesitation. “That one and the (‘22) Peach Bowl.”
Heyward’s co-host, Hayden Walsh, asked if that was the game with “the questionable fumble call.” You could see the pain in the head coach’s eyes as he responded, “Yeah.”
Day continued, “That one and then obviously the Peach Bowl against Georgia. Those two games, to this day, haunt you. You remember the losses, you know what I mean? The wins kind of just come and go. They are relief. But those losses haunt you. Because I felt like both of those teams were good, and if we were able to move on to the next game, we would have been playing LSU and Joe Burrow, which would have been a monster game, which would have been great. And then the other year we would have played TCU.”
Day said those games are the reason he adopted the mantra of “Leave no doubt.”
“It can’t come down to one call. Either of those games, you think about the shot on Marvin (Harrison Jr.), which would have been a huge play that they didn’t pick up the flag on. If that was a personal foul, we score and go up two scores and that game is over. Or the multiple calls in the ’19 game. But, like, nobody cares. We can’t leave it up to one call. We have to leave no doubt.
“That was the whole philosophy behind that coming into the ’24 season. Don’t leave it to one call because if you leave it to one call, you deserve to lose. That was the whole idea of the national championship game on 3rd-and-11 of throwing it up to Jeremiah (Smith) and being aggressive late in the game.”
We all want 2019 Clemson and 2022 Georgia back. No question. But Day didn’t waste those losses. He learned from them. He grew from them. And eventually, he won because of them — a national champion head coach shaped by those moments.
That’s the thing about games like that.
They don’t just haunt you.
They make you.
THE BEAST 2026. Dane Brugler’s 2026 NFL Draft Guide: The Beast is appropriately named.
I mean, holy cow.
The Athletic’s draft class breakdown has 402 profiles, 2,700 rankings, 45,000 verified measurements and almost 300,000 words. While Brugler punched the keyboard, I must also credit Junghye Kin, Thomas Oide and Yuriko Schumacher for the design and Mojo Wang for the illustrations.
“There’s a lot new this year,” Brugler wrote. “You’ll find an explore page that lets you filter and sort more than 2,700 players in The Beast, by position, school, draft grade or NFL combine measurement. We have videos and film analysis for dozens of top prospects — a collaboration with my colleagues at “The Athletic Football Show.” We’ll also expand our overall rankings to include the Top 300 prospects ahead of the NFL Draft.”
There’s also the old reliable: The Beast in PDF form. It’s 400 pages!
Regardless of which version you prefer, here’s what Brugler had to share about the Buckeyes:
Top 100 Prospects
- No. 1: Edge Arvell Reese
- No. 4: Linebacker Sonny Styles
- No. 5: Safety Caleb Downs
- No. 10: Wide receiver Caleb Downs
- No. 32: Defensive tackle Kayden McDonald
- No. 66: Tight end Max Klare
- No. 68: Cornerback Davison Igbinosun
Position Rankings
- Running back No. 23: CJ Donaldson
- Wide receiver No. 1: Carnell Tate
- Tight end No. 3: Max Klare
- Tight end No. 7: Will Kacmarek
- Offensive guard No. 28: Ethan Onianwa
- Edge No. 1: Arvell Reese
- Edge No. 19: Caden Curry
- Defensive tackle No. 1: Kayden McDonald
- Defensive tackle No. 39: Tywone Malone
- Linebacker No. 1: Sonny Styles
- Linebacker No. 222: Joey Velazquez
- Cornerback No. 10: Davison Igbinosun
- Cornerback No. 30: Lorenzo Styles Jr.
- Safety No. 1: Caleb Downs
- Kicker No. 19: Jayden Fielding
- Long snapper No. 8: John Ferlmann
The Beast has much more to offer, but here’s the skinny (the Beast Jr.?).: Ohio State has some dudes in the 2026 draft class.
SONG OF THE DAY. "The Less I Know The Better" - Tame Impala.
CUT TO THE CHASE. Volunteers turn a fan’s recordings of 10,000 concerts into an online treasure trove... You aren’t the only one who just sits in the car before or after a long day... Rory McIlroy commissioned artist for drawing of iconic photo following The Masters win, the results are stunning... 8-year-old dances down hallway after beating cancer.
