Archives for April 2014

Are you going to the Spring game Saturday? Hope so I know I am. We will get to watch Ohio State honor be honoring their four most recent first team All Americans. Johnathan Hankins and Bradley Roby for their 2012 seasons and also Ryan Shazier and Jack Mewhort for the 2013 season. It’ll be great to be there and be a part of honoring them. Also the losing team from the Spring game will have to cleanup and landscape Buckeye Grove after which Hankins, Roby, Shazier and Mewhort will have trees planted in their honor.

Sad to see these guys leave but they have bright futures ahead of them in the NFL and hey maybe I’ll be fortunate enough to watch one play in the Dawg Pound. Don’t forget before the game there will be a mens lacrosse match pitting Ohio State against TTUN. Go Buckeyes and hope to see you there Saturday.

Before reading this I think we all need to take a deep sigh of relief and remind ourselves that last year’s secondary will not be returning. Yes, losing Bradley Roby does not help, but inheriting Chris Ash should off-set Roby’s loss. With some of Ash’s new schemes, he has caused a bit of a shake-up in the linebackers room and a new name has emerged as a starter. Continuing the trend from back to front I’m going to take a look at some of the depth and rotation new d-line coach Larry Johnson Sr. is creating. Don’t worry Noah Spence, Adolphus Washington, Michael Bennett, and Joey Bosa will still have the green light to reek havoc with offensive lines across the Big Ten. However, Johnson is focusing on creating depth this spring. Let’s take a look at all of these position changes and battles.

Secondary
As the Buckeyes took the field this spring the only true returning starter in the secondary was going to be Doran Grant. However, as the practices have gone by the unit has taken shape very quickly. Vonn Bell, Tyvis Powell, Armani Reeves, Cam Burrows, and Gareon Conley have all been names that have cracked the rotation at their respective positions. Vonn Bell was lost early in the spring due to injury, but coaches have liked what they have seen out of Cam Burrows at safety in the past few practices. The way the safeties in Ash’s defense are asked to cover receivers it’s not surprising that Burrows has made the position change from corner to safety with some ease. Bell should re-take the starting spot once he returns from injury, but Burrows will not be completely excluded from the defensive rotation with the quality of spring he has had.

Armani Reeves is the starter opposite of Doran Grant. As much as it hurts me to say that, that seems to be where the coaching staff is going at least in the base defense. When going to nickel, Reeves moves over to the nickel corner and either Eli Apple or Gareon Conley come in as the opposite corner. Speaking of Conley and Apple, that battle for the #3 corner has turned in to the hottest position battle the past couple of practices. Both Apple and Conley had themselves excellent scrimmages last Saturday. Apple caught a lot of headlines losing his black stripe finally, but Conley had an equally excellent practice.

Judging from Reeves performances last season, I believe in Reeves to be a very solid nickel corner, and Apple or Conley should be competing for the #2 outside corner. However, being the mere blogger that I am, I can only suggest and dream.

Linebackers
The big story line coming in to spring was whether or not Raekwon McMillan would challenge Curtis Grant for the starting middle linebacker spot. Whether that was a legitimate opportunity or not, it has motivated Curtis Grant and according to Meyer the senior linebacker is having his best spring as a Buckeye. McMillan is still battling to get any reps with the ones. Cam Williams split some reps with Grant with the ones and McMillan was limited to just playing with the twos this past Saturday. It seems like the new scheme Chris Ash has brought in has actually helped Grant. Grant does not have to play in coverage too often and is able to play downhill like he prefers. His leadership has improved and I believe he will be the starting middle linebacker. The McMillan hype seems to be dying down and now he is in a battle for the number two linebacker with Cam Williams.

The story that has surfaced out of spring practice from the linebacker room has been of Darron Lee. Yes, Darron Lee the 3 star recruit who played quarterback, safety, and wide receiver in high school, is your new outside linebacker at Ohio State. Why? Lee’s versatility, athleticism, and more importantly his relentless effort have coaches raving about the kid. He goes from point A to point B as fast as he can even though according to Coach Meyer “he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.” The kid has played fast, hard, and will be filling a similar role that Ryan Shazier had last season. Lee has become the unheralded star of spring practice and the more reps he earns, the more Lee will find his way to the spotlight.

Defensive Line
The starting defensive line for Ohio State is set in stone. Even though Noah Spence will be suspended for the first two games of the 2014 season, he along with Joey Bosa should man the edges with Bennett and Washington plugging up the middle. It is the depth where there is constant battle and rotation. Larry Johnson Sr. would like to rotate 8 to 9 players on the defensive line. However, good luck picking between Steve Miller, Tommy Schutt, Donovan Munger, Michael Hill, Tyquan Lewis, Chris Carter, Tracy Sprinkle, and Rashad Frazier. Something has happened with Jamaal Marcus where he did not practice Saturday and has somewhat disappeared in the rotation after a stellar Orange Bowl performance. Tyquan Lewis seems to have impressed coaches enough to overtake Marcus as Lewis started the spring with the number two’s.

Needless to say, LJ Sr. has a ton of talent to work with and his dream of having defensive line shifts could easily become a reality this fall.

Predicted Two Deep Post Spring Practice
LE- Noah Spence
Steve Miller

DT- Adolphus Washington
Tommy Schutt/Michael Hill/Tracy Sprinkle

DT- Michael Bennett
Donovan Munger or Chris Carter

RE- Joey Bosa
Tyquan Lewis

SAM-Darron Lee
Chris Worley

MIKE-Curtis Grant
Camren Williams

WILL-Joshua Perry
Trey Johnson

CB-Armani Reeves
Eli Apple

CB-Doran Grant
Gareon Conley

FS-Vonn Bell
Cam Burrows

SS- Tyvis Powell
Ron Tanner

The 2014 Ohio State offense could truly live up to the title of Dream ’14 if they sort through early spring injuries and youth. Replacing the best offensive line-running back tandem in the country from last year has been the biggest question mark surrounding spring practices. However, with those two areas of concern in the forefront it has brought some light on the area of the Buckeye offense that will have to carry them early in the season, the outside play-makers. Let’s take a look at a few of the battles that are being watched closely by the coaching staff.

Offensive Line
Three of the five spots along the line have been virtually locked up with Taylor Decker and Darryl Baldwin securing both tackle spots, and Pat Elflein being named as the starter at right guard. Left guard may be the most wide open position battle left to be decided until this fall. Incoming freshman Demetrius Knox will have the opportunity to compete for the job with Antonio Underwood (Jr.) and Joel Hale (Sr.), both of whom are currently fighting for the job. Since Knox did not enroll early he will have to wait until the fall to get in to the mix. Jacoby Boren is taking the majority of the reps with the ones at center and I imagine he will continue to get the nod as he has been bred for this position for the past two seasons behind Corey Linsley.

Prior to the 2012 season Ed Warinner and his unit faced several questions regarding the performance of his unit and its potential. As you all know, the 2012 offensive line unit turned in to one of the teams most consistent groups. I fully expect Warinner to provide similar results for this years unit.

Running Back
Entering the off-season, it was strongly believed that Ezekiel Elliott had the inside track to the starting running back role. However, Rod Smith has proven in practice that he too deserves reps as he has been running extremely violent in between the tackles, and has provided the punch that the Buckeye offense lost with Hyde’s departure. A name also surfacing in the running backs room has been Curtis Samuel. Samuel has been placed in the running backs room and could very well earn his share of touches. With the emergence of Samuel, running backs coach Stan Drayton will have the ability to pull from a variety of backs. Elliott is more of an all purpose back, Samuel can serve as a speed back, and Rod Smith can be the power back the offense needs for the inside zone read. Brionte Dunn and Warren Ball will be competing with Rod Smith for time in the power back role. At this point I expect Dunn and Ball to be on the outside looking in again.

At the end of spring practice, I’m expecting Elliott and Smith to split carries. Elliott has put on an extra 25 pounds this off-season, however adding weight and running with it are two different things. We will see how Elliott uses his new found bulk. If he can run violently and still maintain his shiftiness in space I would expect him to receive the bulk of the reps, as he could very easily be an every down back.

Wide Receiver
This may be the most intriguing battle on offense. The wide receiver group will be one of the youngest on the team, but arguably the unit with the most talent. Devin Smith and Evan Spencer are the returning starters on this unit, but Spencer has been held out of spring practice in order to recover from surgery. Incoming freshman Johnnie Dixon has left a considerable impression on all coaches. He possesses great hands, speed, and has done everything the coaches have asked. Michael Thomas, the spring game all-star, has surfaced as the starter opposite of Devin Smith due to Evan Spencer’s absence. Corey Smith has also had a very productive spring. He too also has phenomenal hands and could possibly be the best route runner in the bunch.

Devin Smith, Michael Thomas, Corey Smith, and Johnnie Dixon are the top four receivers right now and I do not expect that to change. James Clark and Jalin Marshall have had set backs due to injury this spring, and Jeff Greene is still battling to see more reps. Greene could get in on red zone situations due to his size, but currently he is pretty far down the pecking order. The spring game should prove to be a fun preview as to what to expect this fall from the more talented and competent receiving core.

Post Spring Practice Two Deep Prediction
QB- Braxton Miller
Cardale Jones

RB- Ezekiel Elliott
Rod Smith

WR(X)- Devin Smith
Johnnie Dixon

WR(Z)- Michael Thomas
Corey Smith or Evan Spencer

TE- Jeff Heuerman
Nick Vannett

LT- Taylor Decker
Evan Lisle

LG- Antonio Underwood
Joel Hale

C- Jacoby Boren
Billy Price

RG- Pat Elflein
Chase Farris

RT- Darryl Baldwin
Kyle Trout

Recently Ohio State athletics was thrust into the collegiate pay for play debate in a deliciously ironic way. Shortly after Ohio State’s Logan Stieber won his third NCAA wrestling title, sports writer Dan Wetzel gained his usual amount of national recognition by noting that Stieber’s efforts, for which he is not paid, triggered an $18,000 contractual bonus to Ohio State’s Athletic Director Gene Smith.

Dan Wetzel is at least two things: a sports journalist for Yahoo! Sports and a clear advocate for drastic change in the collegiate athletic model. Right on cue, he made his points that collegiate amateur status is a difference without distinction. The Smith payment not only dramatizes his point that college athletics is a professional enterprise (one feels he can only barely hold back from also calling it a criminal enterprise), but it shows, in Wetzel’s fantasy, a gross hypocrisy of the current state of affairs by rewarding a fat cat like Smith who, no doubt in Wetzel’s mind, sat on his couch drinking a rum and coke while the (literally) starving wrestler beat up an overmatched Devin Carter of Virginia Tech (after also demolishing wrestlers from Missouri, Oklahoma State, Harvard and Penn State).

Wetzel, presumably a nice and likable guy with some real talent, often asks for critical thought on the larger subject (a point I find ironic given that after asking him to do exactly that a year or so ago, I started receiving trolling tweets from Yahoo!’s mini-lawyer legal “specialist”—who, while representing Yahoo! has a history of trolling and badgering people on Twitter— mocking my professional credentials and hitting me with some form of humorous seventh grade political economic babble). Unfortunately Wetzel offers up little of his own critical thought though you can understand why. I applauded Wetzel for diving into the Penn State and Steubenville dramas, but you will never see a guy like Wetzel actually breaking such stories (for example, it has been my understanding the Penn State story was busted open by a female journalist who does not cover sports).

Sports journalists who need to make a living to pay for their family’s well-being have one primary need—access to athletes. Yes, coaches, administrators, referees, fans are all important. But what gives a guy like Wetzel the cache and insider importance is access to athletes. No matter where you look in sports journalism that is the one common thread. Yes, Wetzel can jump on Aaron Hernandez and Jerry Sandusky after the court system has caught them in their midst and made them dead to a sports journalist, and of course Wetzel can go after a high school football program that would otherwise be completely below the sphere of influence that puts bread on his table (or in the case of Yahoo!’s paralegal—fast cars—how is that for a cliché?).

But a guy like Wetzel would never survive with the reputation of an investigative journalist looking to expose the unknown acts of bad athletes or coaches. Athletes are mostly like any other large group of people—there are the very good and the very bad people, even if it just might be that the athlete population might have a little more than its share of bad guys. No, Wetzel’s job is to bring sports to the public but to do that he has to have the trust of athletes. Not only is he not going to be looking for dirt, one has to believe he is going to actively support their attitudes toward the sports world.

But the texture is even more delicious. Do you think Wetzel cares about a wrestler—even as great a wrestler as Logan Stieber? I saw no indication Wetzel even bothered to talk to Stieber before he wrote his piece. Wetzel writes what, 100, 200 articles a year? How many are on college wrestling? How much aligned do you suppose Wetzel is to the views of a Logan Stieber? In his original piece, did Wetzel know or even care that Stieber is thankful for the opportunity he has—to compete on a great stage for a great university and to receive a great education, and that he is thankful to Gene Smith for making that happen?

Probably not. The Logan Stieber story is an uncomfortable truth in the Wetzel narrative. Perhaps Wetzel is from the school of socio-political school of thought that there is always more money—that vast resources can be taken from one outlet and be replaced—perhaps from the StubHub money/ticket tree. If the Wetzel fantasy were to become reality, large collective sums would be taken from those who “use” and are enriched from collegiate football players and given to abused football and basketball players who in Wetzel’s world “earn” the money.
In reality, that money would be taken, not from Gene Smith or the NCAA (well money might in fact be taken, but not enough to fulfil the fantasy). No, the money would be taken from the athletic budgets of the very rich athletic programs of Ohio State. It would also be taken from the nearly poor programs like the University of Maryland—in such bad shape financially it had to abandon the ACC where it was a charter member. How do you think programs such as wrestling, baseball, soccer, etc. will fare after such a wealth transfer? But wait, it gets worse.

There is a thing called Title IX. I suspect this is a complicated matter but the basic premise of Title IX is to create a certain parity in financial commitment to men’s and women’s athletic opportunities. It is kind of hard to imagine there could be a new transfer of sums to even one men’s program without a similar increase for women’s sports. So the carnage to other men’s programs practically doubles. Maybe an Ohio State could survive, maybe not. But what about poor Northwestern, Purdue, Minnesota, Cal, Bowling Green, etc? In the future could a Virginia Tech maintain a program so that a future Devin Carter could go face to face with the future Logan Stieber?
Wrestlers who follow in the footsteps of Logan Stieber may in fact be able to compete for an NCAA title in the world hoped for by Dan Wetzel, but the number of competitors might dwindle to what—5? Twelve?

Do I have concern for the victims in Dan Wetzel’s narrative? Of course I do. If one comes from a poor background—as I did—s/he may well suffer the anguish and uncertainty that I did when my father apologized that he could not give me the money I needed in addition to my summer earnings to close the gap of the cost of education as an athlete not on scholarship. Would I support compassionate need based-stipends to bridge the gap? Of course I would, but you still have the question of where does the money come from, who would get hurt and how do you avoid creating a chasm between programs that can afford and those that cannot?

Should the NCAA institute its own compassionate program funded by a tax on coaching salaries such that those who benefit the most financially from the system provide the bridge over the gap for those that struggle the most under the current system? But is that all we are really talking about? Maybe the NCAA could permit high profile athletes to sign endorsement deals that would require significant allocations to such a fund. What would the Title IX implications of any such funding efforts?

While we are talking about someone’s fantasy, how about embracing one of mine—that the pool of fatcats who make a living off the athletes—journalists from say Yahoo!—pay for their access by contributing to the fund that can be used to ease their pain. Gene Smith is hired in part because of his participation in the world of sports. But he is also asked to employ the tools of the CEO of an enterprise vastly more complex than most companies. If anyone is a professional in sports here and if anyone with little other portfolio is making money off the efforts of college football and basketball players—it is Dan Wetzel. Let’s be fair—ask him to open his accounts and what he makes off sports, and then compare it to the complexity of his duties. Strictly fantasy of course, but if he wanted to be totally pure on this issue, he should deal with the inherent conflict of the sports journalists who are so offended by the current system.

Am I blind to the fact that schools sometimes take advantage of athletes that have brought honor to their school? No—the stories, alleged or not, of Ohio State’s treatment of Jesse Owens have always deeply bothered me. A little conscience and consideration go a long way and I support any journalist who is trying to bring any amount to the world of sports. For that reason I have some sympathy for the unionization efforts at Northwestern (I would have more if I thought our nation’s labor laws actually foster a constructive environment, but too often the result seems to be more focused on the rights of labor leaders and not on the expansion of opportunity).

But my point is that of the hundreds of thousands of collegiate athletes who participate annually, as the commercial says, only a very few will go pro in their sport. The vast majority are people like me who had the opportunity to compete in collegiate athletics, who witnessed how vital all sports are to a college campus, who feel they received a lifetime of benefit from that participation and who in fact were students who depended and will to depend on their career as students to provide for them over the huge expanse of life to be traversed after hanging up the cleats—or singlets.

What people like Wetzel really are decrying is the lack of opportunity below the level of our highest sports leagues. There are very few football “minor” leagues and for those that exist, hardly anyone watches and no meaningful money can be made—let’s just guess it might be what–$200 per game? I am just going to hazard a guess that of the 10,000 or so Division I football players each year, maybe 5 or 6, or some very small number like that could go directly into the NFL from high school. Without a college campus, where would the others go? I would guess they would fight for a few spots in the minor leagues. I would guess the minor leagues would become a little more successful, but much beyond, for example, what minor league baseball players enjoy?

The vast majority of collegiate football players never make it to the NFL and those who do labor in a difficult world and often wash out after a few years. The rest would be consigned to the obscurity of the minor leagues but for college football. Collegiate football players—largely being of minor league quality for much of their collegiate career—become celebrated heroes not for their athletic prowess in isolation. Rather, their talent gets a stage provided solely by a university that alumni and the entire community embraces and supports. The entire university is connected by a long and common experience and identity that is a community asset, not a club owned by an owner. A university is a vast interconnection owned by all and embraced by many.

It is that connection that celebrates the talents of a young man or woman who chooses to become part of the community—if he and his or her colleagues were to go compete with and against each other in a minor league system they would receive no more notice than a talented guy like Matt Barnes receives when he plays summer basketball with other NBA players in the San Francisco rec center on the Kezar Stadium football grounds.
So when you compare the value of a four year full paid scholarship (which I never got and which Logan Stieber is very grateful for—as Wetzel noted, schools are only allowed ten 9.9 equivalent wrestling scholarships for a team that has 30 or more wrestlers) to $200 per game, the financial reward to nearly all collegiate football players is not only a handsome payoff, it results in an education to carry them well past the three year NFL playing career average of those fortunate to make it to the League. And while we are at it—just what do you think the health care commitment of a minor league system would be? How do you suppose the training and safety equipment of a minor league team would be compared to a major college football program? Again, this community “abusing” athletes seems to be providing resources, assets and opportunities that far outweigh those that would be otherwise available to the vast majority of even the elite of college football.

And there is one more point. Even for the small numbers of football and basketball players who can achieve NBA or NFL status—they need a place to get ready. Just as only a few collegiate English majors can achieve a common “ultimate” goal of teaching in a university English department, those that can achieve professional sports status learn their craft in the same old university tradition—working their butts off in their chosen lab. Who has sympathy for the vast majority of English grads who labor countless hours studying only to end up working in an unrelated field having gotten nothing from their studies but broader life lessons? How is it much different from the committed football and basketball stars at both ends of the spectrum—except that English majors have no hope of the four year-long interview platform that big time collegiate sports offers to students and prospective employers.

So when you add it all up—the rewards of a scholarship, a place to live, food to eat, a facility and program to teach you what you came to learn, and the platform on which to achieve and become known for long after you are done playing—who really is taking advantage of whom?
Yes, I am sure you could legislate drastic reductions in the salaries paid to Gene Smith even though he has to oversee dozens of programs, hundreds of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars of plant and equipment. I am sure you could wipe out lavish dinners, drinks and perks leaking out of the college bowl system. You could squeeze every villainous fat cat you can get your hands on. We are in an Occupy world where there is a belief that you somehow can enrich the downtrodden by slicing up the people at the top.

The truth is, the end result would be to greatly diminish an asset we all cherish and benefit from that goes way past the few hours a year we spend in front of the TV watching our favorite college football team. We could do all that only to really punish the great number of athletes who survive on much less so that we can give it to a very few who already enjoy a pretty good deal relative to what they could accomplish by never setting foot in a classroom.

At that summer job I referred to, I cut grass and did maintenance for the Westerville Parks and Recreation Department. My boss was a middle aged guy named Dale DeBolt. In the mid-fifties, Dale had been offered a full football scholarship to the University of Wisconsin, but instead he “went pro”—i.e., joined the Navy. Forever acknowledging his mistake he longed for what would have been his had he embraced the opportunity to earn a degree and escape the drudgery of overseeing college students with futures that only added to his inner torture. Dale would have had hardly any more chance of playing at a pro sports level than the vast majority of other Division 1 football players—but he would have had a life he could have been proud of rather than the one I saw him struggle with.

I am just going to guess that Dan Wetzel has never talked with Logan Stieber, while Gene Smith has on many occasions. I am also going to state that while it is nice Dan Wetzel can notice how far at the bottom of the food chain wrestling, baseball, soccer and similar programs are compared to basketball and football, his “critical thinking” either has not extended to the ramifications to those programs, a campus or the mission of a university, or he simply does not care—and why should he—writing about wrestlers is not going to improve the quality of the car he drives. But Logan knows that Gene Smith went out of his way to ensure a new state of the art wrestling facility is put into the near term university plan, a facility that whether Dan Wetzel wants to embrace it or not, will benefit honest to God student athletes.

Dan Wetzel could embrace the power of a world where opportunity is there for the taking. Rather, he chooses to fire away with the pen of hypocrisy at the very people fighting to preserve that opportunity.

So at the end of it all, when Dan Wetzel writes a stacked piece about a program he shows little regard for without bothering to even express the views of his subject, then I ask, who really is the one taking advantage of Logan Stieber?

Recently Ohio State athletics was thrust into the collegiate pay for play debate in a deliciously ironic way. Shortly after Ohio State’s Logan Stieber won his third NCAA wrestling title, sports writer Dan Wetzel gained his usual amount of national recognition by noting that Stieber’s efforts, for which he is not paid, triggered an $18,000 contractual bonus to Ohio State’s Athletic Director Gene Smith.

Dan Wetzel is at least two things: a sports journalist for Yahoo! Sports and a clear advocate for drastic change in the collegiate athletic model. Right on cue, he made his points that collegiate amateur status is a difference without distinction. The Smith payment not only dramatizes his point that college athletics is a professional enterprise (one feels he can only barely hold back from also calling it a criminal enterprise), but it shows, in Wetzel’s fantasy, a gross hypocrisy of the current state of affairs by rewarding a fat cat like Smith who, no doubt in Wetzel’s mind, sat on his couch drinking a rum and coke while the (literally) starving wrestler beat up an overmatched Devin Carter of Virginia Tech (after also demolishing wrestlers from Missouri, Oklahoma State, Harvard and Penn State).

Wetzel, presumably a nice and likable guy with some real talent, often asks for critical thought on the larger subject (a point I find ironic given that after asking him to do exactly that a year or so ago, I started receiving trolling tweets from Yahoo!’s mini-lawyer legal “specialist”—who, while representing Yahoo! has a history of trolling and badgering people on Twitter— mocking my professional credentials and hitting me with some form of humorous seventh grade political economic babble). Unfortunately Wetzel offers up little of his own critical thought though you can understand why. I applauded Wetzel for diving into the Penn State and Steubenville dramas, but you will never see a guy like Wetzel actually breaking such stories (for example, it has been my understanding the Penn State story was busted open by a female journalist who does not cover sports).

Sports journalists who need to make a living to pay for their family’s well-being have one primary need—access to athletes. Yes, coaches, administrators, referees, fans are all important. But what gives a guy like Wetzel the cache and insider importance is access to athletes. No matter where you look in sports journalism that is the one common thread. Yes, Wetzel can jump on Aaron Hernandez and Jerry Sandusky after the court system has caught them in their midst and made them dead to a sports journalist, and of course Wetzel can go after a high school football program that would otherwise be completely below the sphere of influence that puts bread on his table (or in the case of Yahoo!’s paralegal—fast cars—how is that for a cliché?).

But a guy like Wetzel would never survive with the reputation of an investigative journalist looking to expose the unknown acts of bad athletes or coaches. Athletes are mostly like any other large group of people—there are the very good and the very bad people, even if it just might be that the athlete population might have a little more than its share of bad guys. No, Wetzel’s job is to bring sports to the public but to do that he has to have the trust of athletes. Not only is he not going to be looking for dirt, one has to believe he is going to actively support their attitudes toward the sports world.

But the texture is even more delicious. Do you think Wetzel cares about a wrestler—even as great a wrestler as Logan Stieber? I saw no indication Wetzel even bothered to talk to Stieber before he wrote his piece. Wetzel writes what, 100, 200 articles a year? How many are on college wrestling? How much aligned do you suppose Wetzel is to the views of a Logan Stieber? In his original piece, did Wetzel know or even care that Stieber is thankful for the opportunity he has—to compete on a great stage for a great university and to receive a great education, and that he is thankful to Gene Smith for making that happen?

Probably not. The Logan Stieber story is an uncomfortable truth in the Wetzel narrative. Perhaps Wetzel is from the school of socio-political school of thought that there is always more money—that vast resources can be taken from one outlet and be replaced—perhaps from the StubHub money/ticket tree. If the Wetzel fantasy were to become reality, large collective sums would be taken from those who “use” and are enriched from collegiate football players and given to abused football and basketball players who in Wetzel’s world “earn” the money.
In reality, that money would be taken, not from Gene Smith or the NCAA (well money might in fact be taken, but not enough to fulfil the fantasy). No, the money would be taken from the athletic budgets of the very rich athletic programs of Ohio State. It would also be taken from the nearly poor programs like the University of Maryland—in such bad shape financially it had to abandon the ACC where it was a charter member. How do you think programs such as wrestling, baseball, soccer, etc. will fare after such a wealth transfer? But wait, it gets worse.

There is a thing called Title IX. I suspect this is a complicated matter but the basic premise of Title IX is to create a certain parity in financial commitment to men’s and women’s athletic opportunities. It is kind of hard to imagine there could be a new transfer of sums to even one men’s program without a similar increase for women’s sports. So the carnage to other men’s programs practically doubles. Maybe an Ohio State could survive, maybe not. But what about poor Northwestern, Purdue, Minnesota, Cal, Bowling Green, etc? In the future could a Virginia Tech maintain a program so that a future Devin Carter could go face to face with the future Logan Stieber?
Wrestlers who follow in the footsteps of Logan Stieber may in fact be able to compete for an NCAA title in the world hoped for by Dan Wetzel, but the number of competitors might dwindle to what—5? Twelve?

Do I have concern for the victims in Dan Wetzel’s narrative? Of course I do. If one comes from a poor background—as I did—s/he may well suffer the anguish and uncertainty that I did when my father apologized that he could not give me the money I needed in addition to my summer earnings to close the gap of the cost of education as an athlete not on scholarship. Would I support compassionate need based-stipends to bridge the gap? Of course I would, but you still have the question of where does the money come from, who would get hurt and how do you avoid creating a chasm between programs that can afford and those that cannot?

Should the NCAA institute its own compassionate program funded by a tax on coaching salaries such that those who benefit the most financially from the system provide the bridge over the gap for those that struggle the most under the current system? But is that all we are really talking about? Maybe the NCAA could permit high profile athletes to sign endorsement deals that would require significant allocations to such a fund. What would the Title IX implications of any such funding efforts?

While we are talking about someone’s fantasy, how about embracing one of mine—that the pool of fatcats who make a living off the athletes—journalists from say Yahoo!—pay for their access by contributing to the fund that can be used to ease their pain. Gene Smith is hired in part because of his participation in the world of sports. But he is also asked to employ the tools of the CEO of an enterprise vastly more complex than most companies. If anyone is a professional in sports here and if anyone with little other portfolio is making money off the efforts of college football and basketball players—it is Dan Wetzel. Let’s be fair—ask him to open his accounts and what he makes off sports, and then compare it to the complexity of his duties. Strictly fantasy of course, but if he wanted to be totally pure on this issue, he should deal with the inherent conflict of the sports journalists who are so offended by the current system.

Am I blind to the fact that schools sometimes take advantage of athletes that have brought honor to their school? No—the stories, alleged or not, of Ohio State’s treatment of Jesse Owens have always deeply bothered me. A little conscience and consideration go a long way and I support any journalist who is trying to bring any amount to the world of sports. For that reason I have some sympathy for the unionization efforts at Northwestern (I would have more if I thought our nation’s labor laws actually foster a constructive environment, but too often the result seems to be more focused on the rights of labor leaders and not on the expansion of opportunity).

But my point is that of the hundreds of thousands of collegiate athletes who participate annually, as the commercial says, only a very few will go pro in their sport. The vast majority are people like me who had the opportunity to compete in collegiate athletics, who witnessed how vital all sports are to a college campus, who feel they received a lifetime of benefit from that participation and who in fact were students who depended and will to depend on their career as students to provide for them over the huge expanse of life to be traversed after hanging up the cleats—or singlets.

What people like Wetzel really are decrying is the lack of opportunity below the level of our highest sports leagues. There are very few football “minor” leagues and for those that exist, hardly anyone watches and no meaningful money can be made—let’s just guess it might be what–$200 per game? I am just going to hazard a guess that of the 10,000 or so Division I football players each year, maybe 5 or 6, or some very small number like that could go directly into the NFL from high school. Without a college campus, where would the others go? I would guess they would fight for a few spots in the minor leagues. I would guess the minor leagues would become a little more successful, but much beyond, for example, what minor league baseball players enjoy?

The vast majority of collegiate football players never make it to the NFL and those who do labor in a difficult world and often wash out after a few years. The rest would be consigned to the obscurity of the minor leagues but for college football. Collegiate football players—largely being of minor league quality for much of their collegiate career—become celebrated heroes not for their athletic prowess in isolation. Rather, their talent gets a stage provided solely by a university that alumni and the entire community embraces and supports. The entire university is connected by a long and common experience and identity that is a community asset, not a club owned by an owner. A university is a vast interconnection owned by all and embraced by many.

It is that connection that celebrates the talents of a young man or woman who chooses to become part of the community—if he and his or her colleagues were to go compete with and against each other in a minor league system they would receive no more notice than a talented guy like Matt Barnes receives when he plays summer basketball with other NBA players in the San Francisco rec center on the Kezar Stadium football grounds.
So when you compare the value of a four year full paid scholarship (which I never got and which Logan Stieber is very grateful for—as Wetzel noted, schools are only allowed ten 9.9 equivalent wrestling scholarships for a team that has 30 or more wrestlers) to $200 per game, the financial reward to nearly all collegiate football players is not only a handsome payoff, it results in an education to carry them well past the three year NFL playing career average of those fortunate to make it to the League. And while we are at it—just what do you think the health care commitment of a minor league system would be? How do you suppose the training and safety equipment of a minor league team would be compared to a major college football program? Again, this community “abusing” athletes seems to be providing resources, assets and opportunities that far outweigh those that would be otherwise available to the vast majority of even the elite of college football.

And there is one more point. Even for the small numbers of football and basketball players who can achieve NBA or NFL status—they need a place to get ready. Just as only a few collegiate English majors can achieve a common “ultimate” goal of teaching in a university English department, those that can achieve professional sports status learn their craft in the same old university tradition—working their butts off in their chosen lab. Who has sympathy for the vast majority of English grads who labor countless hours studying only to end up working in an unrelated field having gotten nothing from their studies but broader life lessons? How is it much different from the committed football and basketball stars at both ends of the spectrum—except that English majors have no hope of the four year-long interview platform that big time collegiate sports offers to students and prospective employers.

So when you add it all up—the rewards of a scholarship, a place to live, food to eat, a facility and program to teach you what you came to learn, and the platform on which to achieve and become known for long after you are done playing—who really is taking advantage of whom?
Yes, I am sure you could legislate drastic reductions in the salaries paid to Gene Smith even though he has to oversee dozens of programs, hundreds of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars of plant and equipment. I am sure you could wipe out lavish dinners, drinks and perks leaking out of the college bowl system. You could squeeze every villainous fat cat you can get your hands on. We are in an Occupy world where there is a belief that you somehow can enrich the downtrodden by slicing up the people at the top.

The truth is, the end result would be to greatly diminish an asset we all cherish and benefit from that goes way past the few hours a year we spend in front of the TV watching our favorite college football team. We could do all that only to really punish the great number of athletes who survive on much less so that we can give it to a very few who already enjoy a pretty good deal relative to what they could accomplish by never setting foot in a classroom.

At that summer job I referred to, I cut grass and did maintenance for the Westerville Parks and Recreation Department. My boss was a middle aged guy named Dale DeBolt. In the mid-fifties, Dale had been offered a full football scholarship to the University of Wisconsin, but instead he “went pro”—i.e., joined the Navy. Forever acknowledging his mistake he longed for what would have been his had he embraced the opportunity to earn a degree and escape the drudgery of overseeing college students with futures that only added to his inner torture. Dale would have had hardly any more chance of playing at a pro sports level than the vast majority of other Division 1 football players—but he would have had a life he could have been proud of rather than the one I saw him struggle with.

I am just going to guess that Dan Wetzel has never talked with Logan Stieber, while Gene Smith has on many occasions. I am also going to state that while it is nice Dan Wetzel can notice how far at the bottom of the food chain wrestling, baseball, soccer and similar programs are compared to basketball and football, his “critical thinking” either has not extended to the ramifications to those programs, a campus or the mission of a university, or he simply does not care—and why should he—writing about wrestlers is not going to improve the quality of the car he drives. But Logan knows that Gene Smith went out of his way to ensure a new state of the art wrestling facility is put into the near term university plan, a facility that whether Dan Wetzel wants to embrace it or not, will benefit honest to God student athletes.

Dan Wetzel could embrace the power of a world where opportunity is there for the taking. Rather, he chooses to fire away with the pen of hypocrisy at the very people fighting to preserve that opportunity.

So at the end of it all, when Dan Wetzel writes a stacked piece about a program he shows little regard for without bothering to even express the views of his subject, then I ask, who really is the one taking advantage of Logan Stieber?

It is no secret that the Ohio State defense has not lived up to their typical dominant selves the past two years. Since Jim Heacock has left and Luke Fickell has taken over the defense the Silver Bullets have been at best inconsistent and at worst a swiss cheese like sieve.

While the OSU offense continues setting records, the defense continues to make average opposing quarterbacks look like Joe Montana riding a golden unicorn throwing lightening bolts of joy to the masses. The defense has been blamed for losses to Michigan State which cost OSU a chance at a national title and a BCS Bowl loss to Clemson.

OSU fans always seem to need a scapegoat. Whether it’s an entire unit, in this case the defense or one of the coaches that coaches the defense, in this case Luke Fickell. Before Fickell it was Jim Bollman, who in his time at Ohio State was much maligned for his ultra conservative offense, while the OSU defense was one of the highest rated defenses year in and year out.

While I agree that the defense has struggled, I don’t believe it’s all Luke Fickell’s fault. I also believe the struggles of defense started before Jim Heacock left the Buckeyes.

Ohio State’s national defensive rankings since Luke Fickell was named Co-Defensive Coordinator:

2005: 8th
2006: 2nd
2007: 1st
2008: 7th
2009: 5th
2010: 3rd

2011: 26th
2012: 31st
2013: 28th

Jim Heacock left before the start of the 2012 season. Ohio State’s issues on defense started in 2011, when Jim Heacock was still running the defense. Luke Fickell, sans his head coaching title in 2011 has had the same title since 2005. So in 2011, what changed? How did a once dominant defense go from being ranked consistently in the top ten to a mediocre 26-31st?

Most Buckeye fans would just blurt out, “FIRE LUKE FICKELL.” Or, “THAT DAMN FICKELL (inaudible grunting).”

What changed? Luke Fickell has never run the defense on his own. He’s had Jim Heacock and Everett Withers sharing the title of Co Defensive Coordinator. When OSU’s defense shined….Heacock got the glory. And in 2011, when they began to stumble….Fickell got the blame. And when the great and powerful Urban Meyer took over the team in 2012 Fickell was made the full time scape goat of the defense.

1. Defensive turnover. Ohio State lost an incredible amount of defensive talent via transfers, player injuries etc…

Players That Left By Year:

2009:

Adam Bellamy-3 star defensive lineman
Melvin Fellows-5 star defensive end
Jordan Whiting-3 star LBer
Dorian Bell-5 star LBer
Dominic Clarke-4 star DB

2010:

Christian Bryant-4 star DB
Jamel Turner-4 star LBer
David Durham-3 star LBer
Scott McVey-4 star LBer
Chad Hagan-3 star LBer

2011:

Ken Hayes-4 star defensive end
Conner Crowell-3 star LBer
Jeremy Cash-3 star safety
Derjuan Gambrell-4 star defensive back

2012:

Se’von Pittman-4 star defensive end
David Perkins-4 star LBer
Luke Roberts-3 star LBer
Devan Bogard-4 star safety
Najee Murray-4 star defensive back

2013:

Michael Hill- 4 star defensive lineman
Donavon Munger-4 star defensive lineman
Jayme Thompson-4 star safety

That is a TON of talent to not have at ones disposal. I won’t get into the reason each of these players left, but none of them have to do with Luke Fickell. It would have been nice to have that depth and talent at times the past two seasons. every team deals with turnover, but the amount of turnover on the defensive side of the ball has been tough to deal with.

2. New defensive regime. Along with Urban Meyer came a group of new defensive coaches. Kerry Coombs coached the cornerbacks and special teams, while Everett Withers was the co-defensive coordinator and coached the safety position. Coombs has been demoted from his position as cornerbacks coach and Everett Withers has accepted the head coaching position at James Madison. Both coaches have been replaced by one man, Chris Ash who has taken over the co-defensive coordinator and safeties coaching positions. He will be charged with revamping a terrible OSU pass defense.

OSU Pass Defense Ranking:

2009-13th
2010-8th
2011-14th
2012-78th
2013-112th

In the 2 years since OSU was ranked a respectable 14th in the country in pass defense, they dropped to 112th. ONE HUNDRED AND TWELFTH. Since most OSU fans think it’s Fickell’s fault, what did he change? I’d say nothing. I’d say handing the secondary over to a glorified high school coach in Coombs and an average coach in Withers was a giant mistake.

If Urban Meyer, who is widely regarded as one of the best coaches in college football demoted Coombs and let Withers go to East Bagdad Tech…while allowing Fickell to remain at a position he has held since 2005 that should be quite telling. Urban Meyer wants nothing more than to win football games. If he felt Fickell was detrimental he would have let him go. He didn’t.

3. Fickell’s bestest buddy. Mike Vrabel was brought into the fold in 2011 to coach the linebackers. In 2012 Meyer kept Vrabel on to coach the defensive line. Vrabel ended up leaving to take a job with the Houston Texans in the NFL in the offseason after the loss to Clemson. While Vrabel was a tremendous recruiter he was suspect as a position coach. Vrabel was replaced by longtime PSU coach Larry Johnson, who upon seeing the wealth of talent on the OSU defensive line said he would immediately start regularly rotating defensive linemen more often and situationally. Something Vrabel didn’t do. Vrabel, for right or wrong left his best players in the game for most of the snaps, while backups were just that…backups. This lead to players getting winded when OSU needed them the most. I remember game one of the Urban Meyer regime vs. Miami of Ohio. Late in the 4th quarter Miami of Ohio was continuing to have success throwing the football and Meyer confronted Vrabel and Fickell on the sideline in what looked like a heated chat. Meyer was upset that there was a lack of pressure…a storyline that has plagued OSU’s defense for 2 years.

I’m not saying OSU fans should give Fickell a pass. He has been the responsible party for the Buckeye defense and their results, as has Urban Meyer. To me, the buck stops with Meyer, not Fickell. Meyer has made the changes he has felt necessary to have a successful defense. We shall see how those changes transform an underperforming defense. Meyer seems to get a pass because he’s a rock star. I hate to say it but up until now Meyer hasn’t won anything at OSU except a couple division titles and 24 games that are largely meaningless. No B10 titles. No Bowl wins. #gottabefickellsfault

I’m saying as a Buckeye fan you need to stop and think about why the OSU defense is actually struggling. There is more that goes into it than “IT’S FICKELL’S FAULT!!!” It’s flat out lazy, ignorant and disrespects a former player and current coach who has given the Buckeyes 5 years as a player and 12 years as a coach, most of which have been highly successful.

Time will tell if the changes in coaching and defensive philosophy will improve the results on the field. One thing is for sure, if the Buckeyes do have greater success on the defensive side of the ball Fickell will likely never receive any of the credit. Too many OSU “fans” have already made up their minds.