Buckeye 411

• Is The Right Time- The ABC/ESPN/Disney schedule for college football came out on Monday, the the Buckeyes will get to show their stuff in prime time on at least three occasions this upcoming season: Against Wisconsin, at Northwestern, and again when Penn State comes to town. Some interesting history with those teams- Obviously, the Badgers and Buckeyes have loads of fun under the lights, and I think Jim Tressel is still trying to run up the score for the last night game in Evanston. The Lions were gracious hosts last year for a late game, certainly a payback for the darkness in the ‘Shoe back in 2008. While
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Buckeye 411

Gonna’ be honest- not much in the way of news in Columbus these days, Thank Woody. Here’s some tidbits, though:

• Hockey Bucks- Whispers on Tuesday were that Ohio State will make current interim coach Steve Rholik the permanent leader for the upcoming season.  Not a “slam dunk”, but certainly a solid hire nonetheless.
• Getting Drafty- The NFL Draft starts on Thursday, and there’s a good possibility that the entire B1G will be shut out of the first round for the first time in forever.  For OSU Draft prospectus, be sure to check out the earlier take from our NFL Expert.
• iTBDBITL- Interesting article in The Lantern today regarding the OSU Marching Band’s efforts to
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Buckeye 411

• Buck And Cover- That thing over there is this week’s Sports Illustrated cover, well everywhere but the southeast. I think that the expectations and so forth for this team are pretty high…
• In Case You Were Wondering- Here’s the other cover… which may explain why Braxton looks so terrified on his “Breakout” photo.
• Healing Nicely- At the Combine last week, we learned that John Simon was recovering from shoulder surgery. It sounds as if it was pretty routine, if you call “requiring diamond tipped instruments to cut through his muscle tissue” routine.
• Nice Gig- Brandon Castel has a great article from the Buckeye Cruise for Cancer (unfortunately named, but it sounds like there are plans to change it). Who do I
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Lack Of Institutional Control

For those of you waiting for the other shoe to drop in the Hurricane Situation, you can breathe a bit now.  Kinda.

On Tuesday, the NCAA finally sent their Notice of Allegations to the Hurricanes, after a week  that saw the folks from Indianapolis as the well focused center of national ridicule. We’d be wondering what was taking so long in this process, given that the NCAA had been “involved” in the investigation for over two years- turns out that the time in question had been spent violating the NCAA’s own principals and going against the advice of their legal … [Read More]

The biggest, and by far the most controversial, proposed rule change concerns the rule about targeting of a player above the shoulders.  The current rule states that it is a foul when a player target’s and initiates contact to the head or neck of a defenseless opponent with his own helmet, forearm, elbow, or shoulder; the rule also states that if there is doubt in the … [Read More]

That being said… how hard is it to follow a list? And what part of “bullets” looks like “marbles”… grumble grumble grumble.  Given what’s in the theaters beginning yesterday, you’ve got two choices for today’s soundtrack.

Buckeye 411

• Perfect Ten- Well, not perfect, but the Buckeyes find themselves at the ten spot in the AP poll following losses to Duke and Kansas. Indiana and Michigan both hold their spots above the Buckeyes, who find themselves the highest rated two loss team in the country.
• Great Dane? News Monday was that the Bears had dropped former Buckeye Dane Sanzenbacher, who only amassed 2 catches this season
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Buckeye 411

• Think Pink- Well, I guess this is a thing now, as this week’s game against Purdue is a “Pink Out” for breast cancer awareness.  Personally, I’d rather try to approximate the color by doing alternating shades of red and white, but no one ever asks me.  More on this event later in the program…
• Getting Defensive, Part One-  Our friends over at Men of the Scarlet and Gray have taken to defending the Buckeye defense, first in looking at the state of affairs at this point in the season, and second highlighting the real culprit for the scoreboard woes- Special Teams Play.
• Meyer’s
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The story of the day yesterday was the first episode of All Access, a behind the scenes look at the Buckeye program under the new regime.

The problem? It was on one of the ESPN channels… and you know how we feel about those fine individuals.

But… in a moment of weakness, I DVR’d it And watched it.

And loved ever second.

How can you hate quotes like “Abso-smurfly”, “Bozo the freakin’ clown”, “I’m glad you’re a Buckeye, bro…”, “I like coaching you…” and other admonitions to play “hungry” and “angry”.

And the precision of the offensive staff’s work, the pride that Coach Mariotti puts into his time with the team, and the focus and plan that Coach Meyer is instilling into the team… it’s a really good piece. If you missed it and don’t mind the spoilers, the gang at LGHL have a … [Read More]