Ohio State football gets ready to return in 2009, and The Coach chimes in with a few other choice comments and thoughts on the state of the football season to come.
IT"S BEEN A LONG TIME. Sometime at the end of March I wrote a newsletter and then went into a coma. I normally sleep until September but it's been so damn cold here in Ohio that I awoke thinking that it was football season. Little has happened in the last four months. As a matter of fact, if an alien landed on the planet and turned on the TV he would think the Supreme Commander of Earth, Michael Jackson, died. When my football brain goes to sleep things continue to happen around me but I just catch little blurbs of activity, fleeting moments of reality if you will. Here are some things that fluttered by:
SPRING FOOTBALL. Apparently we had a intra squad scrimmage in April and 95,722 people thought it important enough to pay $5 to attend. Are you kidding me? 95,000 people attended the Spring game? Never in the history of NCAA football have so many paid to see so little. Who cares what happened in the "controlled practice?" The fact that 95,000 people showed up tells you a lot about Ohio State football! The only question I had was whether Terrell Pryor was going to become a better passer during winter workouts. In a quarter and a half he was something like 13 of 19 passing for 191 yards and 2 touchdowns. Granted, he wasn't playing against USC's defensive backfield but he was improved enough that Tressel benched him for the forth quarter to keep him from getting injured. I guess if Tress saw enough than the rest of us saw enough too. Here's something interesting about Terrelle Pryor. He's 6-6 240, and he is the fastest guy on the team. Now maybe that doesn't say much for our wide receivers but I think it DOES say a lot about Pryor. You read a lot about 40 times, this kid ran a 4.28 and this kid ran a 4.30. Those times are usually from hand held stop watches and performed by coaches that want to see their kids do well and get into college. The fact is that at the last NFL combine there were only four players out of all of the tryouts that ran sub 4.4 times and they were all wide receivers. The NFL uses electronic timers and Ohio State bought and uses the same timers as the NFL. Terrelle Pryor was timed electronically at 4.33. He was just voted by the media as "The Big 10 Preseason Offensive Player of The Year." My guess is that vote was based on that 40 time as there are a lot of guys in the Big 10 with far more experience than Terrelle Pryor. He also carries over a 3.0 GPA. He said "If you are going to lead the team you need to lead it in the classroom as well." AND, to demonstrate his intelligence, he recently took up golf.
RECRUITING. During the last four months most of the web sites had nothing to discuss but recruiting and a lot of it went something like this: Titus Squarejaw, a 6-8 325 pound defensive lineman, has narrowed his choice of colleges down to ten and Ohio State might be one of them. When asked about this he said, "Well, I haven't really eliminated anyone but there are about ten schools that I am really looking at. I'm going to try to get up there for a game and I will definitely consider them for a visit. I'm in no hurry. I will take all of my visits and probably wait until signing day and announce my decision on ESPN." We actually have ten young men that have committed to play at Ohio State for the class of 2010 and here is my take on them: J T Moore, 6-3 225, LB. He was recruited as an outside linebacker/defensive end to rush the quarterback and drop back into coverage when necessary ala Bobby Carpenter. He was the first to commit and if Tressel offered him that early then that's all I need to know. Jamel Turner, 6-2 215, LB. One of the top three recruits in the state of Ohio. He is a pass rushing guided missile and is the same size as Thaddeus Gibson was when he arrived (now 6-2 240). Andrew Norwell, 6-6 275. One of the top offensive linemen in the Midwest. Turned down Stanford, Duke and $Notre Dame because he wanted to go to a school with good academics. David Durham, 6-3 225, LB. Another LB that will become a rush defensive end. Durham is out of Texas and was a bit of a "surprise" recruit. Not a surprise to Tressel and his coaches but a surprise to the web sites. That puts him right there with Michael Jenkins and James Laurinaitis who were surprises as well. Scott McVey, 6-1 215, LB. Scott played for St. Ignatius and passed on $Notre Dame and Boston College. That's all I need to know. He will actually become the nickel back in the five back set and an outside linebacker in run sets like Tyler Moeller and Jermale Hines currently. Taylor Graham, 6-4 210, QB. Originally Tressel told Nick Montana that he was the only QB that we were going to offer. Nick Montana is the son of Joe Montana and the brother of Nate Montana who is currently the forth string QB at $Notre Dame. I believe he also has a sister that is a part time rock star named Hannah. Anyway, it became clear that Nick was going to stay on the west coast so we offered a guy named Hendrix (not Jimmi) but we waited to long to go after him and he committed to $Notre Dame. Next came Graham out of Illinois who is the son of Kent Graham who played at Ohio State and went on to a long career in the NFL. Taylor missed half of his junior season due to injury so his stats weren't as good as the others but my guess is that by the end of his senior season he will be one of the top QB's in the country. Roderick Smith, 6-3 220, tailback. This is the only running back in the country that Tressel went after. He is out of Indiana and obviously couldn't play point guard so we are hoping he will be the next Eddie George. Drew Basil, 6-2 190. An extraordinary punter. And as you know, he has been put in charge of the most important play in football. Darryl Baldwin, 6-6 245, DE. A Baldwin that isn't a liberal pinko commie. The Buckeyes really, really wanted this guy. James Louis, 5-11 180, WR. Louis had 30 scholarship offers from every school in the SEC and ACC and elsewhere. He committed to Florida but they asked him to keep it quiet. They were apparently waiting for word from another WR and were stalling him so he decided to go to the other school he had been considering, OSU. He was the first receiver offered by Ohio State but I would guess the coaches saw it as a long shot. Thank you Urban, thank you very much. We should be able to take between 18 and 20 recruits this year so we are half way there.
"Apparently, Reggie Bush and OJ Mayo will be on Viagra before the NCAA gets around to actually doing something to USC."
NIS & NAT & NARYTANE. When I awoke from my four month slumber I expected the entire USC investigation to be completed and penalties handed out. You can only imagine my shock and surprise that not only wasn't that done but there were new allegations of USC using a "consultant" as a coach which is in clear violation of NCAA rules. Apparently, Reggie Bush and OJ Mayo will be on Viagra before the NCAA gets around to actually doing something to USC. Speaking of USC I think it is time to rid ourselves of the misconception that Ohio State can't hang with the big boys. I'm not making excuses but I believe that had Ted Ginn not been knocked out of the game on the opening kickoff return and had Beanie Wells not broken his foot before the USC game and had we not gotten called for five personal fouls (all drive enders) in LSU's back yard, those games would all have been a lot closer. No team in the country has more talent than USC. They just replace one five star kid with another five star kid and keep going. But this one is in the Horseshoe and many a great team has fallen in the Horseshoe. If our starters get through fall camp without injuries I think it will be very close but I think we will come out on top by about a 50 yard field goal by Aaron Pettrey. I really don't like opening with Navy. We will spend two weeks preparing for the wishbone that we should be spending preparing for USC. Navy's pretty good (8-5 last year) and this will be their game of the year. We will have a hard time keeping our guys from looking past them to week two. On the other hand, USC will see nothing of our defensive schemes. Then again, they will be able to test our corner backs for the first time. Then yet again, they open with San Jose State which will not challenge them at all. All and all, I'd rather open with a Big East team, you know you are going to win but you will be defending the run AND the pass.
$Notre Dame. I'll tell ya, those Domers are one loyal group. They still support Charlie Cheeseburger. He took them to the historical depths of $Notre Dame football but almost to a man they say he has the program headed in the right direction. I've always liked $Notre Dame for the simple reason that they never backed down from anybody. From about 1940 to 1990 there was fifty years of playing the toughest schedules in the country. They took on the best from every conference. The schedules began to slip about the time that Lou Holtz decided to take his lisp to the airways. But this year is extraordinary. The teams that $Notre Dame is playing this year won just 50% of their games last year. And of the 7 teams that won more than 50%, 6 of them will be playing on $Notre Dame's home field. The Weis Guy has put together several very good recruiting classes and has hired assistant coaches that have upgraded the program. I would have to conclude that if they don't go at least 9-3 and make a BCS bowl game that even the staunchest supporters will be calling for the big guy's head.
Speaking of schedules, one of the best in the SEC, LSU, put this group of non-conference gems together for 2009: Washington (0-12 last year), Louisiana-Monroe, Louisiana Tech, Louisiana Lafayette and Tulane. They are all home games and had a combined record of 20-40 last year. LSU was 5-0 and never had to leave the state the minute they signed the contracts.
"Jaamal Berry wins this year's "I want to be just as dumb as Maurice Clarret award.""
Jaamal Berry wins this year's "I want to be just as dumb as Maurice Clarret award." Berry was one of the top five high school running backs in the country last year and had offers from every major college. So with the world at his feet, he has on his possession 20 ounces of weed. Some dumb-ass judge in Florida reduced his charge from felony possession to a misdemeanor so he could go to college. If I were Coach Tressel I would make him room with Mike Adams, 6-8 320, and Michael Brewster, 6-5 300, and I would tell them that if he smokes dope it will directly effect their playing time. Problem solved.
meeeshitagin. Things are looking rather well for the Buckeyes in the greatest rivalry in college sports. We have laid five in a row on them and 7 out of 8. They will be improved (how can you not be after losing to Appalachian State and Toledo on your home field) this year but 6-6 is a stretch with the talent they have and a freshman quarterback. So even though they have us at their home in the big toilet bowl I don't see them beating us this year. Then in 2010 they have to come to Columbus and face Terrelle Pryor in his junior season so I figure we are good for at least two more wins which would put Tressel at 9-1 and that would pretty much erase the dark days of Cooper when we went 2-10-1 against them. It has been 2,080 days since meeeshitagin last beat Ohio State in football. I cannot wait to see what Lane Kiffin does this year at Tennessee. Nobody in the sordid history of the SEC has shot his mouth off more or pissed off more people than Lane Kiffin. He accused Florida of cheating while he was cheating a little himself, etc., etc. He pretty much bad mouthed every other school in the SEC and all of those coaches are drooling to get a shot at him. In week three he plays in The Swamp at Florida. It'll be like a rabbit escaping a fox by diving in a bear cave. Urban Meyer will score 50 points on teams he likes!
The Coach