Archives for June 2012

Michael Hill becomes recruit no. 14

Well when it rains it pours around here for recruiting news. After a few months of no news we have our 3rd commit in the last week. This one is a highly sought after recruit that brings a lot to the table and comes from an area of the country we dont recruit a lot or very hard in the past. With Urban Meyer on staff and a philosophy to go anywhere and everywhere to get the guys who they want the most we will end up with a lot more guys like this one.

Michael Hill is a 6’3″ 315 lbs 4 star DT from Pendleton, South Carolina. He is a consensus 4 star and the no. 1 recruit in the state by most. Rivals has him listed as the 5th best DT and 89th overall best prospect in the country. ESPN has him as the 229th best player in the country. 247sports has him at 197. Scouts lists him as the 14th best DT. Michael Hill possess the kind of athleticism you dont normally see in a DT of his size. He is quick off the ball and has the motor to keep going and pursuing on every play. He needs to work on his strength and techniques but thats why you go to OSU to get better at both those things. You can see his highlight video below.

The Final Four of College Football

Dear BCS:

So long BCS...

Fans have been clamoring for it forever and today the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee approved of college footballs first playoff ever. This model was approved by the 11 conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s head honcho last week. It’s funny to listen to these empty money grubbing suits talk about how great this is for college football when in the recent past these same people were quoted for years as saying a playoff would ruin college football. But to their credit, they got the ball rolling.

When:

Not soon enough!

The new playoff format will start on December 31st of 2014. One game will be on the 31st(much to the chagrin of every party planning woman associated with any red-blooded American male in America) and another on the 1st of January. The title game will be played the following Monday night as long as it’s at least six days after January 1st. #2 will play #3 and #1 will play #4. The contract will be for 12 years. I guarantee the number of teams will increase from here. This is certainly not an end all be all situation.

Why not bump this up to 2013? Why wait 2 years? UGH!

Where:

The semi-final games will be rotated among 6 bowl games that already exist. Those bowl games have not been selected yet, however one can guess that they will be The Rose Bowl, The Sugar Bowl, The Orange Bowl, The Fiesta Bowl, The Cotton Bowl and perhaps the new bowl game that will be played by the SEC and Big 12 winners. The title game will be bid out to the highest bidder. I’m sure there will be no under the table deals going on for these rights…

Why:

Because the powers that be caved under massive pressure from college football fans nation wide. They finally listened! Actually a better way to put it would be that they finally figured out they could make a lot more money with a playoff. Everything from merchandising to local booms in the economy to TV rights. Speaking of TV rights, one of the reasons for the change had to be the plummeting TV ratings of the BCS bowl games as well as the rest of the bowl games. Fans were revolting…tuning out. Meanwhile the NFL has been busy basically printing money due to massive playoff TV ratings. It’s been estimated that TV rights alone could bring in 6 billion in revenue over the life of the new college football playoff contract. Pretty much the same players will be padding their pockets, but instead of a wad of twenties it will be a wad of hundreds.

How:

A selection committee will rank the teams, based on factors like strength of schedule, prettiest cheerleaders and best mascot. No details on how the committee will be selected. Perhaps a committee to select a committee will be needed. This too leaves a bit to be desired. The selection committee method works for college basketball but again who will be on the committee and what will all the factors be? Will they once and for all get rid of the fake computer rankings? This process needs to be transparent. This does not eliminate controversy as now instead of the #3 team getting left out the #5 team will be left out…but we will take it. We will take it like a detoxing hobo taking a vodka soaked Baconator…more please-(British accent). With all joking aside hat will the committee take into consideration? They will look at head to head match ups, win loss record, strength of schedule and conference champions. Last years Big Ten Championship game was relatively meaningless. It was one of the better games of the year if you watched it, but at the end of the day, it was totally meaningless. The winner got to go to the Rose Bowl and the loser didn’t even get to go to a BCS bowl game. With this playoff the winner could very well be in contention for a shot at a National Title. Gotta love it.

More details to come…it will be interesting to see how this effects the polls the bowls and the regular season.

I’ve been a fan of college football my whole life, but there was always something missing…a postseason that made sense. It started with the “nothing” approach with just simply ranked teams that rarely ever matched up #1 vs #2. Then came the BCS which was exciting at first but proved to be a major league head scratcher. For years the BCS was surrounded with controversy, capped off last year of course with LSU playing Alabama in the title game. Alabama didn’t even win their on division, let alone their own conference, yet there they were in the title game. Oh…and they won it too. It sort of took a wrecking ball to the idiotic notion that the BCS protected the sanctity of the regular season and guaranteed that every game counted. We all knew that was ridiculous.

So this is a great first step forward. What is missing? What could they do better with? Time will tell. I for one would love to see the semifinal rounds held at the home field of the higher seed. I’d hate for OSU to have the #1 seed and have to play #4 USC in The Rose Bowl. That wouldn’t make any sense at all. Hopefully the “committee” takes that into consideration.

Playoffs? Yeah…we are talking about playoffs!

Yes Jim, playoffs.

Local recruits dream comes true

I dont care who you are if you grew up in Central Ohio the last 10 years and you played football more times then not your dream was to play for Ohio St. The same is probably true about all of Ohio and the last 116 years as well. One local prospect had that dream come true today. When a little known sleeper of a recruit at least on the national recruiting world goes got the phone call today he was hoping for finally came. I am not even sure he waited for the whole sentence to be completed before he told the coach YES I would love to be a Buckeye. So here we have recruit no. 13 (again lol) for the 2013 OSU recruiting Class.

Darron Lee a 6’3″ 205 lbs Athlete from New Albany, Ohio projects to play either Safety or OLB at the next level is a pure athlete. Darron ran a 4.68 40 yard dash at the OSU camp and earned his offer by showing the coaches his strength and skills and football knowledge. He fits perfectly into the kind of player Coach Meyer wants a hybrid LB and safety type guy with great speed and instincts. This commit may be a surprise to some but with a few decommits at LB they had spots open up for guys who could prove their worth at camps. He is rated a 3 star by all 4 major recruiting services but as with all sleepers look for his stock to rise now he has committed and more scouts see his tape and see him live at camps. Below you can watch his highlight tape.

Buckeyes add a Punter

This will be the shortest recruiting update ever. It has been 2 months since we added anyone to the 2013 class and this new recruit is a Punter. Rivals and Scouts have nothing on him. 247sports and ESPN have pages on him but no real info. We know he is 6’2″ and 200 lbs and comes to OSU from Orlando, Florida. The good news is Ben Buchannon graduates this year and we need a punter. According to Chris Sailer at http://www.ChrisSailerKicking.com though he was the Top Punter at the Alabama Football Camp and has committed to the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Not Finishing How He Started

After ESPN’s now-infamous LeBron graphic hit the net, we started combing through our video archives and discovered this gem:

(Ed. note: Not really.)