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Buckeye Blogger Network
One thing is for sure when you take over as the head coach at THE Ohio State University, you better know what it means to be an Ohio person. A lot of people believe Coach John Cooper got the top post at Ohio State back in 1988 simply because he beat TTUN in the Rose Bowl the year before while at Arizona State. Truth is he really probably got the job because of his history as a head coach and as a person.
Coop. There he is.
John Cooper grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee in the 1940’s and 50’s. He went into the U.S. Army right out of high school for two years before playing college ball at Iowa State. People then knew he was going to have a special talent for coaching with his abilities on the field that eventually led to him being team MVP and captain his senior year. He stayed on as an assistant coach with the Cyclones before taking a similar position with Oregon State. He made stops at UCLA, Kansas, and Kentucky before landing his first head coaching position at Tulsa in 1977.
His first season with the Golden Hurricane was 3-8 but they became pretty good after that winning five straight Missouri Valley Conference titles. Tulsa was in and out of the MVC for a year and when they returned Coach Cooper had them loaded. He began to put together a system for how he would recruit players and used it to bolster his resume. In the Top 25 ranked season of 1982, Cooper and the Golden Hurricanes went 10-1 and their only loss on the season was to Arkansas. This same year that SMU had the Pony Express, Coach Cooper had himself two 1,000 rushers in Michael Gunter and Ken Lacy and was called the Palomino Express. Despite its ranking and great season Tulsa wasn’t invited to a bowl game. Coach Cooper had the makings of a top-notch coach and was hired to take over at Arizona State in 1985. Read More
May’s second midweek madness gets existential. The big story of the day was the “discussion” about the future of our favorite sport- more on that after the jump.
Well, shoot.
Buckeye 411
But one thing is for sure – Urban Meyer will bring hardware back to Columbus with him before all is said and done. Gold pants, B1G titles and crystal footballs. For everyone who has piled on over the last twelve months – from those in Ann Arbor, Madison, and SEC country to those posted up at the headquarters of ESPN, Sports Illustrated and The Sporting News – there’s simply no way around it. Urban Meyer wins, and he wins big.
The benefactor? THE Ohio State University.
South Carolina AD Eric Hyman may be winning the NCAA Violations sweepstakes.
It’s the sports dead season again and, as is rapidly becoming a tradition around these parts, we find ourselves updating the table of violations for a school on our Compare and Contrast board. This edition’s winners are the South Carolina Gamecocks and the rather surprising conclusion to a two year investigation into improper benefits for the football team.
On April 27th, the NCAA Committee on Infractions released the dreaded Public Infractions Report (PIR). As you may know from our previous work, the Public Infractions Report is the document outlining the final decisions of the Committee and the ultimate penalties resulting from their violations. The document is particularly helpful in giving a window into the inner workings of the investigation. Sometimes that can be more interesting even than the penalties leveled at the institution.
Obviously, we’re still waiting on several other NCAA documents. That wait could stretch on for as long as a couple years, particularly for Miami and Oregon. We’ll include those documents when we can.
Until then, you can find our previous update here. That includes the full information available on all of the other investigations.
“May you live in interesting times”- Ancient Curse
With news today that PA linebacker Alex Anzalone has both decommitted from Ohio State and is no longer considering the Buckeyes, it has certainly been an interesting week for Ohio State Football recruiting.
First, Lewis Neal acknowledged that his jumping on the Buckeye Bandwagon and that he needed to slow down and assess his future before making a solid commitment.
Anzalone’s change of heart was the second of the week, but could easily be seen as the third; since Buckeye “lock” Mike Heuerman decided instead to head to Notre Dame.
Interspersed in all of this was the story of Charles Waugh, a registered Kentucky sex offender who interacted with a number of Ohio State recruits on twitter and facebook; and even met up with several (Anzalone and Heuerman included) at the Spring Game. For the most in-depth coverage of this, please see the work that Luke Zimmerman did over at Land-Grant Holy Land.
So, here are some things that are currently rattling around the ol’ brainbucket here at Mali Manor:
To be clear- this isn’t a comment on other sites’ decisions; several of the BBN do great work connecting with young adults. Rather, it’s more commentary that we haven’t figured out how to have these types of conversations as carefully as we’d like to, in spite of numerous conversations with the Ohio State Athletic Department.
“Ask before you act” is a great motto to have in this matter, and we’d rather be behind the news than make a huge mistake.
Oh, and believe it or not… It’s a GREAT day to be a Buckeye.
Ah, the joys of a new server to bring you the midweek morass that is SBP. Thanks to everyone’s patience as we had a bit of a sabbatical earlier this week to upgrade the hamsters in the wheel.
Circle of Life
Buckeye 411
Before we get into the usual links and fun-making, I wanted to talk a bit about fan expectations.
Over the past few days, Buckeye Nation has seen both sides of the loyalty of young adults, and hopefully our amazingly rabid fan base can gain a bit of perspective.
First, we watched in shock as Ohio State Senior (and tBBC favorite) Michael Brewster went undrafted in the NFL selection process. Even more shocking was that several centers from inferior programs did not suffer the same fate- Western Oregon? Michigan? C’mon…
While there are surely lots of reasons that this happened, including, as our friend Jeremy Birmingham pointed out, really REALLY poor coaching during his college career, it’s difficult to pinpoint one specific instance that led to Michael falling from a first rounder as a junior to an afterthought as a senior. It could be some of the season’s struggles- Michigan State and Florida both indicated that they could get a jump on their rush due to his rhythm (Might also explain Shugarts’ issues); at times his shotgun was a bit off target as well. It could have also been the “post-season”; reports that he had some challenges at the senior events, rumors of a rift that led to a last minute change of agent. Or, like many members of last year’s team, perhaps all of the off field drama and change caught up with him all at once.
But for Buckeye fans, our feelings of empathy and sympathy for Mr. Brewster were also tempered with another realization- this happened, in part, because he is a Buckeye. No, I’m not insinuating that the NFL is intentionally snubbing Ohio State players- the data proves that to be less than accurate. Instead, I believe the Michael cost himself lots of money because his loyalty to the program and to the coaches wouldn’t let him cut and run in the middle of the chaos.
Granted, we don’t know what went on behind the scenes other than this- of the members of the “Block O/Brew Crew”, Michael was the highest profile recruit and player to not find himself in the papers on a regular basis for off field issues, particularly during the past 13 months. To the contrary, as his friends and teammates (some of whom he helped bring to Columbus) continued to make decisions that led to last season’s issues and were over and over again sanctioned in ways that hurt the team, Brew was the anchor that sought to keep things together. During a time when it would have been easy to jump to the next stage in his career- first round projections, programmatic instability, loss of friends and coaches, Michael chose to stay in the Scarlet and Gray.
And that decision, in part, cost him on draft day 2012.
Let me be clear- Michael Brewster doesn’t need me to be an apologist for him. He’s landed with his home-town team (although Kansas City would have been nice for family reasons), and is bringing the positive attitude and hard work mentality to his current situation in the same fashion that he showed in Columbus. Tuesday’s Dispatch has a great article on where he’s currently at, including this great quote-
Just more people that I get to prove wrong. I think it’s an exciting challenge.
But you’ve got to wonder- if you took off your Ohio State glasses for a minute, and imagined that he was your son or grandson or family friend; If you knew in January 2011 how the season would end up for the Buckeyes, what would you tell him to do? Would you ask him to be loyal to his alma mater, or pursue his dreams in “The League” even if that made Ohio State weaker in a key position?
You’d hopefully choose the career option in your advice- particularly if you had the wisdom of hindsight. And yet, as fans, we often want young adults to think not of their own needs and dreams, but to have the same needs and dreams that we do- to be enthralled with Carmen Ohio no matter the cost.
And that brings us to Lewis Neal. Read More
Time for another wander around the BBN for a look back at the week in Ohio State Sports. Oh, and be sure to check out one of the newest places for news from Buckeye Athletics, Unscripted Ohio, from our friends Chris and Jeremy and the Buckeye Sports Bulletin/Yahoo!/Rivals family. It’s a great resource… and we hope to add them as the seventh seal on the BBN in the near future.
We’ll toot tBBC’s horn first this week, if only to give best wishes to our own Jim, who ties the knot to his beautiful fiance today. Mazel Tov, guys… Enjoy your amazing day and your time together on the honeymoon. Oh, and remember: come August his heart belongs to Urban.
James led off our double look at recruiting this week, covering the post- spring game options for football’s class of 2013-
Most people are projecting 21 as the upper limit of scholarships in 2013, so with Heuerman on board (speculation as I write this- ed. He verballed to Notre Dame… what can you do?), that leaves approximately seven spots to fill.
On Friday, Joe talked hoops, given that there are still some options for the Buckeye 2012 class now that transfers and the NBA have increased Ohio State’s numbers-
Now that it seems that the rest of Ohio State’s open scholarships will be turned down for other programs across the country (Amile Jefferson, Anthony Bennett), Thad Matta and company will be looking at the best transfer options and gauging interest in the upcoming month.
Yet, there is still one more interesting option that has evolved from the class of 2012…
The team from the Buckeye Blog evaluated last Saturday’s Spring Game, first with a take on the “Hoot And Holler” drill that kicked off the game-
This is exactly what the 2012 Ohio State team will be playing for – pride and respect. There is no Rose Bowl or Big Ten Championship to play for this year, and some (including myself) have worried about where the motivation will come from for the players. Worry no more. This new coaching staff has instilled a competitive spirit amongst the Scarlet and Gray ranks that was palpable throughout the stadium during this drill.
The review continued by evaluating not only the quarterback performances, but the way that their new coach is grooming them to be the tip of the spear for the new Buckeye offensive philosophy-
Although I’m still a fan of Big 10 style threeyardsandacloudof football, at some point even a successful Jim Bollman offense gets frustrating (not to mention the emotions associated with an unsuccessful Bollman offense). Meyer has said that this is still Ohio State and that we can expect to see a solid running game come fall. Unlike 2011 however, not only will there be the threat of a passing game (which was non-existent at times last year), we should actually have a solid passing game in place.
While there were a number of great articles at TSB this week, the one that made national news was Michael’s interview with Kyle Dodson, which addressed the “Bret Bielema” allegations of a “bumping” recruiting violation- Read More
In this week’s edition of news and notes, we take a look at the ever swirling world of college “playoffs”; helping you get to the bottom of the matter. You can probably guess where this is headed…
Never forget
Buckeye 411
(Gee) knows more about bow ties than he does about journalism.
Probably true, but since Gordo is a fifteenth level bow-tie ninja, what does that say about your point?
OT J.B. Shugarts (seventh or free agent): Good size, but had false start and some foot problems with the Buckeyes.
| Here’s the update from the OSU Athletic Department-
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Big Ten Conference’s primetime football games selection process is complete and the Ohio State Buckeyes will appear on an evening telecast three times in 2012:
Television assignments for the first three weeks of the Big Ten season (September 1, September 8 and September 15) will be selected no later than July 1, but the conference office expects to have television information for these first three weekends’ games well before the July 1 deadline. Ohio State is 34-18 all-time in night games (those starting after 5 p.m. local time) with a 7-3 record in Ohio Stadium, an 18-8 mark on the road and a 9-7 record at neutral sites. |
