Good morning, Eleven Warriors readers.
This Skull Session comes to you while I’m on vacation. While I poured my heart and soul into these words, my heart and soul will not be here on Monday or Tuesday to respond to comments I’m sure will be full of praise for my spectacular work.
I’ll miss you all today and tomorrow.
See you Wednesday.
Until then, have a good week!
HEARTBREAKING: The worst people you know just did something really smart.
I hate giving Michigan credit. It physically pains me. But the Wolverines made an incredible investment in OpenAI, putting $20 million into one of the AI lab’s earliest fundraising rounds, according to exhibits from the Elon Musk–Sam Altman litigation.
That investment could end up making Michigan an absurd amount of money.
The documents don’t fully explain the terms of the stake, but Michigan reportedly set a “target redemption amount” of $2 billion. It’s also unclear how the school would use that kind of windfall, but if Dusty May and Kyle Whittingham ever get access to some of that cash, Ross Bjork better start investing in whatever comes after AI.
THINK BIGGER, WORLDWIDE LEADER. ESPN’s Jake Trotter named Jeremiah Smith as Ohio State’s top awards candidate for 2026, selecting the star wide receiver as his frontrunner for the Biletnikoff Award.
Despite being arguably the best wide receiver in college football the past two years, Smith has yet to win the Biletnikoff, given to the nation's most outstanding player at the position. In 2024, he shattered school freshman receiving records, then hauled in a memorable game-clinching catch late in the national championship victory over Notre Dame. Last year, Smith caught 87 passes for 1,243 yards and 12 touchdowns despite battling a lower-body injury late in the regular season that forced him to miss a game and a half. As long as he can stay healthy, Smith will be the favorite to finish his illustrious Ohio State career with the Biletnikoff before heading to the NFL.
This was a slam-dunk selection — and I don’t blame Trotter for making it — but I almost wish he’d gone bolder. Smith should be one of the favorites not only for the Biletnikoff, but for the Heisman Trophy, too. The Heisman is supposed to honor the best player in college football, not simply the best quarterback. Smith is the face of the sport right now, and if any non-quarterback is going to hoist the stiff-arm trophy in 2026, it’ll be him.
HE'S A HERO. AND HIS NAME IS JEFF. As part of its "Being Brutus" series, the Columbus Dispatch profiled Jeff Moody, the Ohio State senior from Fredericktown who added his own page to the greatest rivalry in sport when he X'd out one of the Ms in Michigan Stadium's end zones last November.
It's an incredibly fun read; be sure to check it out.
WHAT MAKES THEM GREAT. Jim Lachey may be the only former Ohio State football player to have a relationship with the late Woody Hayes, the late Earl Bruce, John Cooper, Jim Tressel, Urban Meyer and Ryan Day. So during the latest 12th Warrior Happy Hour, I asked him what made — or makes — each of those coaches special.
Lachey didn’t say much about Hayes. He didn’t need to. We all know how great he was.
“Well, certainly, Woody was a great recruiter and a great motivator. There’s no one like him,” Lachey said.
He had more to offer when discussing his head coach Bruce, whom Lachey called “a great playcaller” who put his players in a position to “dominate” their opponents.
“I think when I look at Earl Bruce, Earl was a great playcaller,” Lachey said. “He really had the ability to find the matchups and work them in your favor. He was always asking, ‘Do you got this guy? Do you got this guy?’ Whether it was a wide receiver, the tight end, the center, the left guard, the tackle, he wanted to know where the matchups were. If we could win those matchups, he would come up with a play that we could go out and dominate.”
Lachey became Ohio State football’s radio color commentator in 1997, which allowed him to develop a relationship with Cooper. That relationship has grown substantially nearly three decades later, as Cooper has frequently joined Lachey on 97.1 The Fan’s Buckeye Roundtable on Mondays during the fall.
“I think Coach Cooper was obviously a great recruiter — probably a little bit more of a CEO-type coach,” he said. “But talking defense with Coach Cooper, he understands that side of the ball very, very well, and if you understand defense, you understand what the offense is trying to do to you. He was a great recruiter and, I think, had a pretty good outlook on attracting guys to come here to Ohio State.”
Lachey was very complimentary of Tressel, calling him “the whole package” as a coach who cared about developing his players on and off the field.
“Coach Tress, he had the whole package. Just a student of the game and (was able) to understand maybe the politics outside of the room, too, a little bit. He could make sure that he was getting the best out of each and every guy. He was almost like a professor-type coach, where he wanted you to be a great player but he also wanted you to be a great person. Some coaches are just worried about you as a football player, but I think he was worried about that whole package with his players. He certainly was able to prove that here at Ohio State.”
Lachey had nothing but great things to say about Meyer. Well, other than his decision to give the ball to Braxton Miller, not Carlos Hyde, at the end of the 2013 Big Ten Championship Game.
“Urban, what can you say about him? Great motivator. He had everybody in that building working 24/7 towards a common goal. He was able to bring out the best in each and every guy all the time. You could just see it being around him, how they respected him and how they sometimes just wanted to stay out of his way because he could be a guy that you didn’t want to PO and you wanted to keep him on your side. To see his Secret Sauce was pretty cool here at Ohio State. He was big in big games. The only thing I can say bad about Urban was that Big Ten Championship Game against Michigan State, and we had Carlos Hyde, but we ended up running Braxton on an option. We probably should have ran behind our left side of the offensive line there, Jack Mewhort, and pick up a first down. I think that was 23-24 straight wins, and then we ended up losing that first game with him. He was incredible.”
Lachey sees Day as a blend of Tressel and Meyer, calling Day “a great human being” who cares about the whole player while having the program compete for national championships every year.
“And then seeing Ryan underneath on (Meyer’s) staff, being a first-year head coach and what he’s been able to accomplish,” Lachey said. “He’s had our team in it almost every year, so he’s been incredible. To see the type of person he is, just a great human being, to see him grow from an assistant coach to now head coach, and the respect he has across the country has been fabulous.”
Buckeye Nation has been blessed with some great head coaches. I’d love to have Day in Columbus for as long as he wants, but if he ever decides to leave — for whatever reason — I’m confident his replacement would be one of the nation’s best.
SONG OF THE DAY. "Carry On Wayward Son" - Kansas.
RIP TO MIKE GURR. Gurr, 48, passed Thursday in Hamilton, Ohio. The four-year Ohio State letter winner arrived in Columbus as a tight end, but found his way to offensive guard, earning starts and becoming a key component of the late 1990s Buckeye offensive lines.
CUT TO THE CHASE. Nick Saban wants to see a universal college football salary cap… It was a gorgeous day for Commencement in Columbus – Carnell Tate, Will Kacmarek, and Luke Montgomery all walked… A belated happy 100th birthday to Sir David Attenborough… Speaking of, here are the three largest rat gangs in Columbus… Humans will literally compete at anything.
