In Case You Missed It

Olympic Spirit

Things are about to get crazy here in Buckeye Land. Fall camp opens tomorrow and the (un)official start to the Urban Meyer Era begins. I say (un)official because he has been granted what I will call the Bill O’brien exemption. He has a year where literally nothing “counts”. Don’t tell that to John Simon and his fellow seniors, but Urban has the unusual and enviable position of having a year to work out kinks before things like conference championships and BCS bowls come into play.

And speaking of Coach, I could sit and read Urban Meyer’s quotes all day. But we don’t have time for all of them, so here are a few gems (we are not responsible for whatever arousal you may feel after reading these):

“Don’t ask me about the enthusiasm next Friday [when practice starts],” Meyer said. “There are 125 teams in the country, and I guarantee you, 125 of them will be enthusiastic the first and second day of practice. Ask me the 10th or 11th day. The 10th day is the second or third two-a-day. They’re tired, sore and maybe their girlfriend told them to go pound salt. I want to see who likes football then. Because nobody likes two-a-days, except maybe John Simon.”

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer. No love for Division 1-AA, coach?

“Braxton has to pass the ball for us to have a chance for success. We had a non-functional passing offense last year. We had one game [Illinois] when we completed one pass, and won the game,” “I’ll see when we start practice if Braxton Miller is a leader, if he has brought the receivers together,” Meyer said.

Also from the Plain Dealer. Can I also just say how much I LOVE that Meyer is taking ownership of this team’s “shortcomings” from last year? It’s like he knew what was in his future.

“That was an angry team,” said Meyer, who won the first of his two national crowns that night. “Every coach’s dream is to coach an angry team. You can stoke that. I’m hoping [this is] a very angry team.”

From the Dayton Daily News

“Braxton Miller has a lot of skill set that Tim (Tebow, the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner) didn’t have,” Meyer said. “Braxton Miller is dynamic. He’s the most dynamic athlete I’ve ever coached. “What I just said, people should go ‘woo!’ And really, he is — and by far.”

“If you have to say what our offense does, it’s we’re trying to (put stress on) the defensive ends. We want to take their best player, which is usually the defensive end, and we want him to have to put both feet in the ground and go like this (look side to side wondering where the play is headed). And when we’ve got extremely fast people and extremely strong people doing that …”

Be still, my beating heart. (via the Dispatch)

So you already know that the Bri’onte Dunn “thing” went down this weekend. Because we’re not in the blogging game to be the first (most of the time!) we decided to hold off on any posting until the story came out. And we’re glad we did because jumping to conclusions was happening quite a bit over the weekend and most were woefully off the mark. From “The Sky is Falling” to “Meyer has lost control” to “ESPN hates us” (okay that one didn’t happen). We know this music. Here, more or less is how things went down: “Ohio State Buckeyes’ running back Bri’onte Dunn charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia”. Later: “Online reports elsewhere Sunday incorrectly said Dunn was arrested.” (See where this is going?) “Despite the circumstances that led to the traffic stop, the police report does not indicate that police gave Dunn a sobriety check, nor that they took blood samples. Both are indications that Dunn did not appear to be under the influence and there was no probable cause for such checks.” and finally:

“After a complete review of police reports, supplemental narratives from officers, witness statements and an approximately 30-minute police cruiser video, Alliance City Law Director Andrew Zumbar has authorized the filing of disorderly conduct and seat belt violation charges against Ohio State freshman running back Bri’onte Dunn and his passenger. He will not face drug charges.”

– From Todd Porter at the Canton Repository

Todd Porter did strong work covering this story, but I’m not sure we can forgive him for this: “It is the biggest tackle Dunn has broken in his young Ohio State career.” /groan

And in the end, “Ohio State freshman running back Bri’onte Dunn reportedly passed a team-mandated drug test Tuesday — a day after the five-star prospect from Canton GlenOak learned he will not face drug charges related to his weekend traffic stop in Alliance.”

The END. (Hopefully)

I do want to mention something, though, about this situation. I heard this on Twitter, on the local sports talk radio, and even people whose opinion I actually value: this nonsense about hoping someone else would take the blame. Whether it was his friend (who was a girl) in the car with him, or his mother (which she actually did) or whatever, I don’t feel that’s right. You do the crime, son, you do the time. Am I alone thinking this?

Finally, in non-Buckeye News, there were reports yesterday that five men roughed up star Wisconsin running back Montee Ball near campus early yesterday, inflicting head injuries serious enough to send him to the hospital.

All I can picture is Mama Boucher asking if they “ever found the gorilla that done punched you in the eye.”

The search continues, mama.

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