Welcome to the family

Ohio State will open the 2014 B1G season by traveling to College Park on October 4th for the n00bs first home conference game. Ohio State will then host Rutgers two weeks later as a part of the Conference Welcome Wagon.

Rutgers seems to have gotten the “Nebraska” treatment; wherein a new conference team has a bloodbath of a schedule. The Knights will play Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State (all East Division foes) as well as Wisconsin and Nebraska.

Maryland swaps one set of “Children of the Corn” for another, and will see Wisconsin and Iowa as a part of their cross-divisional experience.

The B1G 9 game schedule isn’t set to start until 2015, so OSU will still have four non-conference games this season. The full schedule is as follows.

• August 30: Navy (in Baltimore)
• OPEN WEEK
• September 13: Kent
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Buckeye 411

• Brick Wall Not Included- which is too bad, because you’re going to want to run through one once you’ve checked out the latest hype video from the Ohio State staff.  We’ll embed it once that option is available, but for now, take two minutes away from the TPS reports and watch it at the official site.
• And The Good News? Coach Meyer is planning on being here for quite some time.
• Still Making A Difference- Great article in Inside Higher Education about Jim Tressel’s new career, including something that this higher education professional can certainly relate to,

The beauty of it is, kids are

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Buckeye 411

• We Talkin’ About Practice? Tuesday was a return to the WHAC for the Buckeyes after Spring Break, and it sounds as if it was a bit of a “rusty day” for the Scarlet and Gray. No need to panic, though- this is typical for teams the first time they put the pads on in the spring or in the fall.
• Injury Update- Barrett, Shazier, Wood, and Bogard were in “orange” jerseys today, although JT was taking mental reps behind Braxton as the practice went along. Jordan Hall had
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Buckeye 411

• Urban Legend- The world was a twitter yesterday with news that Urban Meyer had revealed that Woody Hayes once let a turtle bite him… well… you know. While I agree with Vico that it should have been immediately evident that the story was a playful fabrication, as it wasn’t weird enough, it should also be noted that Coach Meyer told the same story last year with Earle Bruce as the protagonist. Never the less, the Ohio State PR department decided that it would be wise to clarify that the story was merely a tall tale, lest the area’s extensive Testudines Advocacy Group (TAG) call down the thunder on the University.
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2013 started almost the same way that every other year has started since I can remember… with a slate of B1G Ten games, highlighting how many people who live in the midwest want to flee to warmer climes for some semblance of a vacation.  I still haven’t figured out how the scheduling geniuses who have an entire slate of games and “bowl week” to work with decide to run four of them at semi-simultaneous time times, though.

You’ll note that I said “almost”… one of the major differences this year was the lack of Buckeye football; in case you hadn’t heard, they had a one year vacation from the post-season. What’s intriguing about that fact is that we seemingly had it shoved down our throats throughout the … [Read More]

Braxton and the Heisman

I was absolutely shocked when the Heisman trophy finalists were announced on Monday evening and Braxton Miller wasn’t amongst them. I realize he had “average” games against Wisconsin and Michigan to close the season, but his team did finish 12-0 and he put up some pretty gaudy numbers in leading them to that mark. I didn’t in any way expect him to … [Read More]

Buckeye 411

• Time For Trophies- Now that the season is over, it’s time to start handing out gold stars and stickers for the best of the best, and Monday/Tuesday were B1G All Conference Awards, or as we like to call them- the “Ohio State was expected to be great, so here’s something for everyone else”.  As you may have read across the interwebs, the best team in the conference only had three players on the first team, while Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Penn State had five each. Most egregious was Ryan Shazier- the conference’s best linebacker, in terms of statistics, being bumped to the second team and overlooked for B1G Linebacker of the Year.
• Along Those Lines- Also “outstanding”? No Ohio State offensive linemen on the first or second teams, in spite of leading the conference
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The Buckeyes defeated the Badgers 21-14 in overtime to move to 11-0 on the season, and have officially won the Leaders Division outright. Ohio State is ineligible to play in the B1G Championship Game, however, so Wisconsin will be representing the Legends side by default.

Let’s take a look at how the rest of the conference fared in the second-to-final weekend of the season.

Northwestern finally held onto a lead. The Wildcats have lost three games this season by a combined 19 points, all of which were blown fourth quarter leagues. It seemed like they were headed for another fourth quarter disaster last Saturday against Michigan State, but Northwestern hung on for a 23-20 victory.

Penn State earned … [Read More]