MotSaG 2012 College Bowl Pick ‘Em Results
Congrats are in order for Chris T, the winner of this year’s College Bowl Pick ‘Em contest. His TangemansPicksofDestiny just edged out atjbuckeye’s picks 467-462. For winning this year’s contest, Chris also wins himself a 50$ gift certificate to Amazon.com
MotSaG writer Trevor was the highest finishing member of the staff. For his good picks he gets NOTHING. (YOU GET NOTHING!)
Thanks to everyone who participated in this year’s contest. We plan on holding more contests in the future and hope you’ll join us again!
In Case You Missed It
THE RICH KEEP GETTING RICHER: In the biggest news to rock the Buckeye Blogosphere since forever, Vico and Michael from Our Honor Defend have defected over to join the Eleventy Warriors Behemoth (while Charles will take his talents over to the BBC). Congrats to Jason and the guys at 11W for landing these two blogging stalwarts (emphasis on the WARTS, of course).
THAT’S COACH HAYES TO YOU: Woody Hayes would have turned an hundred years old next month and even at a hundred, he would put a dent in your rear end and whip you into shape like nobody’s business. Ohio State will be honoring Mr. Hayes with a fund raising dinner. Ironic that Woody was born in Valentines day. In my version of things, he seems like he would be the most unromantic person on earth. The opposite was probably closer to the truth.
YEARRRRGHH!!!! I will be posting a little more about this very soon, but hopefully everyone has had a chance to see Coach Coombs pump everyone up. I wonder how many cube walls were punched and jugs at the water cooler were curled after watching this video.
WHAT IFS: “But the way we finished and the way we started playing defense and being a really good team there’s no doubt by the way we finished we would have been a contender,†Meyer said.
“I’m not bitter at anybody for where we are,†[Tim Hinton] said. “There is some disappointment that we have a group of young men that truly refused to lose and had opportunities to win another game and possibly two more games. It’s obviously been an unbelievable year. I wish for the players’ sake that we had the opportunity to win again, because they certainly earned the opportunity to perform and play at a high level. It is what it is. This was a great group to work with. I’ve been very fortunate to be a part of them.â€
COOOOOOP: John Cooper, the only coach to win the Rose Bowl with a Big Ten team and a Pac-10 team was inducted in to the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame, which apparently is a thing and is big enough of a thing to have the inductees introduced by Keith Jackson.
WE’RE MOVIN’ ON UP: MotSaG’s recruiting guru SYR has always favored 24/7 Sports recruit rankings, and Ohio State has been bumped up to #2 in their latest refresh of their class rankings, behind only Alabama.
ROLL TRIBE: I’m not exactly sure if this is the first time a Buckeye has ever become an Indian (that seems like a good stub for someone to start on Wikipedia) but Nick Swisher made a lot of Cleveland Buckeye fans happy by signing a four-year deal with the Indians. All it took was a visit from Urban Meyer. And Jim Tressel. And Thad Matta. Excellent recruiters, all of them.
WILLIS McGAHEE, MIAMI RUNNING BACK: We could tell it wasn’t going to be a gimme game like when we whooped on Nebraska [in the previous year’s title matchup]. They came to play. This Oral History of the 2003 Fiesta Bowl game is the greatest thing since… the 2003 Fiesta Bowl.
I don’t say this very often anymore, but: Read The Whole Thing.
AND FINALLY: In the department of no one wants to see this, David Boston was sentenced to six months of jail for assaulting a woman. While not an excuse, it is interesting to note that the article mentions that David Boston had suffered from four concussions. I wonder if this defense is going to become common in the near future.
MISC: We all love Urban Meyer and you’re going to love him even more watching him in this Tostitos Homecoming Party Bowl video. Terrelle Pryor is forever a Buckeye and hopes one day you’ll forgive him. New transfer rules forthcoming from the NCAA? Our Twittering Buckeyes page just keeps getting better and better.
In Case You Missed It
Well it’s been once again too long since the last In Case You Missed It, which means this is going to be a long dump of links I’ve accumulated since the last time I posted this. This list is long on the links, short on my comments. Bear with me as I work my way through these. These are disjointed and somewhat scattered.
So (deep breath) here we go:
Urban Meyer will be a guest analyst for BCS Championship Game pre-game show (according to Marcus Hartman and others on Twitter)
Doug Lesmerise’s “Urban Meyer’s top 6 moments of 2012“.
Speaking of Urban Meyer’s 2012 season, you can pick up the Ohio State Game Time 2012 Season in Review
Mike Adams was the Pittsburgh Steelers’ (vomit) team Rookie of the Year.
Donte Whitner is going to the Pro Bowl. No surpise. Alex Boone is a Pro Bowl alternate. Suprise! (Remember when Mr. Boone tried to punch out a tow truck?)
Forbes lists College Football’s Most Powerful Head Coaches, Urban comes in at #3.
Ohio State’s new floor at the Schott (Sure beats some abominations we’ve seen in the past [Oregon]).
ESPN’s Big Ten Blog took at look at the salaries of assistant coaches in the Big Ten. One of the knocks on the bigwigs of the B1G is that they are tightwads compared to other conferences (read: SEC). This is probably exhibit A.
Presented without comment.
Braxton Miller opens as even odds with Johnny Manziel for the 2013 Heisman Trophy Winner (at least according to one sportsbook)
Thanks to everyone who shopped through our links from our Christmas Gift List post. It’s greatly appreciated!
And check out the Twittering Buckeyes page. I’ve made a complete overhaul of the list and added a bunch new Buckeyes.
And from the really old but I feel like I should still link them category:
Eddie George returning to Ohio State as assistant VP for business advancement is some Grade-A level cool news.
Brandon Castel from the Ozone sits down with the Grittiest Grit Floorburner, Chris Jent.
Chris Cicero, who tipped off then-OSU football coach Jim Tressel in 2010 of player misdeeds, was suspended from practicing law for a year by the Ohio Supreme Court for violating attorney-client privilege.
No big deal, just B.J. Mullens bringing the hammer down (remember him?):
Misc: I couldn’t find it on Amazon.com for our Gift List, but I want one of these jackets. I mean, like, I want that. Here is one of the reasons why football helmets now have facemasks. It’s crazier than you think. Ohio State researchers, doing work (that one’s for you, sportsMonkey).
Finally, just because:
Kansas Live In Game Chat
MotSaG’s 2012 Holiday Gift Guide
With just a week before the holidays, we thought we’d throw out a helping hand with all you Buckeye fans picking some gifts for all the Buckeye fans in your life. This time of year is stressful and the last thing you want is to be stumped for what you should get for the Buckeye fan that has everything. (You could probably start by grabbing that guy a couple rolls of Ohio State Duct Tape
We know that we have a beautiful, intelligent female readership, so if your gifts are going to that man in your life, you can never go wrong with one of these
There are plenty of books about the history of Ohio State Football out there, but I’ve been meaning to read 1968; The Year that Saved Ohio State Football for a long time.
What about the Xbox 360 gamer in your life? This Ohio State themed Xbox 360 Vinyl is top notch:
Instead of going for a new console, these vinyls are designed to fit over your existing Xbox 360 console and pretty much announce to everyone in the living room that the gamer here in this household is also a Buckeye. For life. (or at least until the Xbox 720 comes out)
That’s a good boy!
We could go on, but let’s just finish up with a handful of the more quirky things you can find on Amazon including a Block O ice tray, a Block O toaster and the nightmare fuel that is that Brutus the Buckeye Bundt Pan.
And finally, I’m not trying to drop any hints or anything (Mrs. Kaiser I hope you’re still reading this) but I know someone really well who would love to find one of these under his tree this time next week: Vernon Gholston Signed Ohio State Buckeyes 8×10 Photo
(Note: All these Amazon.com links have our affiliate code embedded in them. If you purchase something through our link, we get a little commission and you support our site with no extra cost to you. It’s greatly appreciated.)
2012 MotSaG Bowl Pick-em (Win Stuff!)
We know it’s short notice, but we’d like to invite all our readers to join us in a little Bowl Pick ‘Em madness during the 2012 Bowl Season.
Yeah, the Buckeyes can’t win anything this year, but YOU can! We are still compiling the complete gift package, but right now we will be offering a $50 gift card to Amazon.com
You can join us at Yahoo Sports College Bowl Pick:
Group: 30381
Password: gobucks!!
Hope to see you there and good luck!
Basketball Week In Review/Preview
We don’t have the manpower to cover every basketball game that involves the Ohio State Buckeyes but we do still want to keep tabs on our team and have a place to discuss what is happening during this year’s hopefully extremely successful season.
Week in Review
11/28/2012: Ohio State 68 – Duke 73 (4-1, 0-0 Big Ten)
The 2011 match-up of Ohio State and Duke was a defining moment for two aspects of my life: my fandom of the Ohio State Buckeyes and my sports-relationship with my father-in-law. Your situation may be different, but sports-wise, my father-in-law and I rarely agree on anything. He is a huge Boston Celtics fan (sorry Chris, but, BARF), still idolizes Joe Paterno (although he has admittedly soured on him a bit in the past year) and he is a HUGE Duke fan. In the 15+ years I’ve been married to my beautiful wife, he has never failed to remind me of the superiority of his beloved Blue Devils. So it was with trepidation I approached last year’s Duke/OSU match-up because I knew he was going to be in town visiting and we most certainly would be watching it together.
Suffice it to say, that butt-whupping was so severe that year that I couldn’t take pleasure in watching my FIL’s team go down. I actually felt bad for him. That was embarassing.
It sure would have been nice if we could have had a repeat performance this year in the B1G/ACC match-up. That was not to be had, unfortunately. Luckily, he’s still smarting from last year’s game that I think he won’t be mentioning this to me at Christmas time.
12/1/2012: Ohio State 70 – Northern Kentucky 43 (5-1, 0-0 Big Ten)
The Buckeyes faced considerably less resistance a few days later as they faced Northern Kentucky but that didn’t solve all the questions Coach Matta had:
“The number one thing I wanted to see is if we would get up off the mat and have a little fight to us,” he said of the Buckeyes bouncing back from Wednesday night’s loss at Cameron Indoor against the second-ranked Blue Devils. “I don’t think we were as effective that way as I wanted to be.”
It wasn’t a complete game but it was nice to see LaQuinton Ross pick up the slack and show some flashes of what everyone is hoping will be a taste of what’s to come.
Week in Preview
12/8/2012 @ 12 PM (BTN) Long Beach State (3-5, 0-0) vs Ohio State (5-1, 0-0)
12/12/2012 @ 7 PM (BTN) Savannah State (5-4, 0-1) vs. Ohio State (5-1, 0-0)
Not a lot to say about these two matchups — they are a couple more snacks as the Buckeyes prepare for the looming match-up against Kansas ten days after taking care of business against Savannah State.
#2 Duke Outlasts #4 Ohio State, Wins 73-68
Going into this, one of the marque match-ups of the B1G/ACC Challenge, I’m not sure we had any kind of idea what kind of team Head Coach Thad Matta is fielding this year at Ohio State.
But in true Matta fashion, they came out strong against Duke, taking the fight and physicality to them in the first half and played a solid game overall.
It was definitely a tale of two halves. The first half saw some solid defense all around from the Buckeyes, with Craft obviously leading the way but with both Shannon Scott and Lenzelle Smith, Jr. playing great defense. The Buckeyes dominated the boards in the first half, pulling down as many rebounds (20) as Duke had shot attempts. Half of Ohio State’s rebounds were of the offensive variety. Ohio State looked the better team and looked to be in control. Things looked promising for Ohio State, maintaining the lead without leading scorer Deshaun Thomas sitting on the bench for an extended period of time.
But, of course, it was all because Duke was playing their fourth game of the week, and they were le tired.
Duke came out in the second half and made numerous mini-runs, getting inspired played from Mason Plumlee and Rashard Salami-man. Ohio State weathered them all and maintained a lead deep into the second half.
Deshaun Thomas came out demanding the ball and made some MAN-sized jumpshots. But ultimately, it wasn’t enough. Duke’s defense picked up and Ryan Kelly’s barrage of threes really distanced Duke in second-half.
Even with the loss, there are a lot of things to be happy about this game. Cameron Indoor Stadium is not an easy place to play in. (The advantages for Duke extend beyond the raucous crowd, getting more than their fair share of calls from referees). They played extended minutes without their best scorer, Thomas and Ohio State proved it can hang with a top five team. This could be a potential future match-up in March and we Buckeye fans should have an exciting season to look forward too.
Ohio State Dominates Michigan in the Second Half, Goes 12-0
We’ll obviously have a lot more to say about this game, but after suffering a handful of mental breakdowns in the first half, the Buckeyes come out in the second half and completely dominate Michigan, shutting them out for the final 30 minutes.
The Buckeyes finish the season, undefeated, 12-0.
