Sorry for the late skull session, I fell asleep on my couch while painting my house.
In other news…
My Reds beat the defending World Series champions yesterday, so I’m just going to pretend this works like pro wrestling and take the world title for Cincinnati.
Sometimes you just have to create your own rules.
Word of the day: Mangle.
LOCKED AND LOADED. At this point, it would be far more shocking to those in Buckeyeland if Ohio State *didn’t* have the best offense in the country for the foreseeable future.
It seems the rest of college football is getting close to that fact as well, as ESPN predicts that Ohio State will have the best offense in the nation over the course of the next three years.
Scouting the Buckeyes: The effect of several strong recruiting cycles under coach Ryan Day is evident in an Ohio State offense that was set to be loaded through the 2024 season. Quarterback CJ Stroud is entering what may be his final collegiate season as a top contender for the Heisman Trophy after rushing for 2,165 yards and 21 touchdowns in his last five games last season. Kyle McCord should be ready to step in for 2023 and possibly 2024 and QB recruitment remains strong. Ohio State could have the nation’s best triple threat in Stroud, wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba and running back TreVeyon Henderson, who will play at least two more seasons in Columbus after rushing for 1,248 yards and 15 touchdowns as a true freshman. Smith-Njigba (1,606 yards) will lead a wideout group that will rely more on Julian Fleming, Marvin Harrison Jr. and dynamic student Emeka Egbuka. Sophomore Miyan Williams, who averaged 7.2 yards per carry, will assist Henderson.
Ohio State hired Justin Frye to improve an offensive line that doesn’t lack talent but needs a boost after being overwhelmed by Michigan late last fall. Dawand Jones and Paris Johnson Jr. form one of the nation’s top tackle tandems, while center Luke Wypler and guard Matt Jones each received All-Big Ten honors in 2021. Josh Fryar, a rotation piece at the guard. The Buckeyes will miss Jeremy Ruckert in the close end and should look to veteran Mitch Rossi, junior Gee Scott Jr. and others.
Funny as it is, you could almost certainly make that projection to five years instead of three, even if you have no idea who will be on the list in *checks notes* in 2027.
I don’t need to know exactly who will throw, catch or run the ball in the future. All I know is that based on the way Ryan Day recruits and hoards his offense, Ryan Day is going to be damn good.
WHY TIGHT ENDS. Ohio State has arguably the most absurd stash of wide receiver talent in college football history. It’s probably no exaggeration to say that the Buckeyes have four or five players who would each be the top receivers in 95 percent of college football’s rosters — and that’s after two receivers just walked away to make first-round picks will.
And yet, for the past few weeks, we’ve been worrying about who’s going to play tight end.
In fact, if I were to perform this offense in a video game, I probably wouldn’t even mess with a tight ending. I would just roll the dice in any game with four or five wide receivers and slice the defense like a surgeon cutting a cookie pie.
But this is real life, not a video game. And as it turns out, there are very real and valid reasons why Ryan Day insists on playing a tight end or two in every game.
Ohio State has signed four of the top 11 receivers from 2019 through 2021 regardless of class, according to the 247Sports Composite. In those three years, he’s signed a total of nine top 100 receivers. Oh, and there was also Chris Olave, who topped his lower draft rank and played like one of the top receivers in the country during that span. And over the past three years, the offense has evolved to play with multiple tight ends more often.
…
Whether it’s 10 people (four receivers, one defender, no tight end) or 20 people (three receivers, two defenders, no tight end), teams have shown that it’s possible to run football without a tight end. But Ohio State hasn’t ventured much down that path under Day. The Buckeyes have played 2,557 official games with Day as their head coach (and de facto offensive coordinator), and just 62, or 2.4 percent, have come onto the field without a tight end, according to the PFF. That’s well below the FBS average of 14.6 percent. The Buckeyes have accumulated more receiver talent on this stretch than any other program and have never played a single five-receiver game on the field.
It seems strange living in a world where at any point you had Olave, Garrett Wilson, KJ Hill, Ben Victor, Austin Mack, Jameson Williams, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Julian Fleming, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka, and have done little to employ staffing groups attempting to get even four of those players on the field at a time.
It all comes down to how Ohio State wants to run the ball.
“It’s easier (when you have a tight end),” said offensive coordinator and tight ends coach Kevin Wilson. “I think if you don’t have a tight end that’s really good, you’re forced to quarterback to be part of the running game. If the tight end isn’t involved, you get into a lot of quarterback-heavy running play.
And the state of Ohio doesn’t want to live in this world.
That makes perfect sense at the same time, while I’m still pining for four or five recipients.
Could we find some kind of compromise? Please?
COMING FOR THE CUP. Ohio State never won the Director’s Cup (hell, last year Not Stanford won the Director’s Cup for the first time in my life), but after an absolutely absurd run through the winter, the Buckeyes are within striking distance.
A strong winter sports season has allowed the Ohio State Department of Athletics to outperform 35 schools and take third place in the LEARFIELD Directors’ Cup winter standings.
Leading the way that winter was the Ohio State women’s hockey team, which won the national championship, and three other teams with top-10 finishes in the NCAA: women’s swimming and diving, men’s swimming and diving, and fencing.
…
Ohio State has 701.50 points in the fall and winter sports season, trailing only Michigan (761) and Notre Dame (754). Stanford and Texas round out the top five with 690.50 and 679.50 points, respectively. Wisconsin, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Kentucky and Arkansas round out the top 10.
I don’t mean to be a downer, but I’m not sure Ohio State has enough wing power to make a push, but I’ve been known to be wrong before.
YOU JUST HATE TO SEE THIS! For those not particularly into collegiate hockey, the Wolverines had an incredibly and borderline unrealistically stacked roster.
Michigan’s college hockey roster includes 13 NHL draft picks, including an NCAA-record seven (!!!) first-round picks — including the top two picks overall and four of the top-5.
Needless to say, anything but a national title this season would have been a massive deficit.
Fountain…
The last few moments went a little like this…#MFrozenFour x @DU_Hockey pic.twitter.com/sdTVYRTyAv
— NCAA Ice Hockey (@NCAAIceHockey) April 8, 2022
Oops! Better luck next year I think!
SONG OF THE DAY. “Sabotage” by Beastie Boys.
DON’T STAY IN SPORT. My high school’s secret fantasy slut league… A man accidentally attaches his STD results to his “dream job” application… TikTok influencers are changing the way we think about life behind bars… It’s frighteningly easy to shop for some of the best in the world Protection of species on Facebook… My best friend has disappeared from my life without a trace…