This newest recruit is pretty unknown to most OSU fans and to those on twitter though he is known as the guy who claimed to be a Buckeye but wasn’t a Buckeye. His story is strange and sad but ended with a story book happy ending. About a month ago he announced on his twitter account that he was OSU bound and was the newest member of the 2013 class the only problem was Ohio State wasn’t ready to accept his commitment. Coach Meyer asked the young man to prove he really wanted his spot and to lose 20 pounds before his next visit to OSU for Friday Night Lights. He did exactly what they asked of him and his commitment was accepted to the relief of him and his family. Crisis averted here is the info on the 16th member of the OSU 2013 recruiting class.

Tim Gardner is a 6’5″ 320 lbs OLman from Indianapolis, IN. According to ESPN he is rated a 3 star Guard who is tough and strong and will bring a physicality to the OL. 247sports and Rivals both have him as a 3 star as well but Scout lists him as a 2 star. He doesn’t really fit the body style OSU has recruited for OL but has shown he is willing to put in the hard work needed to get where they want him.

In what can only be described as mind boggling a few months after ESPN unsuccessfully sued Ohio State in Ohio they have decided to do a weeks long filming of OSU football training camp. Many OSU fans will no doubt be confused and pulled in both directions as I know I am. Do I continue my personal boycott of the media company that claims to be the World Wide Leader? Do I consider this programming as a live game which is the only thing I watch on their network? I don’t know about the rest of you but I am too intrigued at seeing this much OSU football info before the season starts to not watch it. To each their own though I fully understand if many of you choose not to watch but if you do below you will find a complete schedule as well as the press release from OSU.

Here is the press release from OSU-

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio State fans will get a close-up on the 2012 Ohio State Buckeyes and new head coach Urban Meyer when ESPN debuts a series of All-Access specials beginning August 14 on ESPNU and additional ESPN platforms. The network is coming to Columbus the first week of fall camp to shoot ESPN All-Access: Training Days Ohio State.

With extensive behind-the-scenes access to on- and off-field play, team meetings and campus facilities, ESPN cameras will introduce players and coaches as they work through pre-season training across six days. Viewers will see four, 30-minute specials on ESPNU (August 14-17), a five-part series across College Football Live (August 19-23) and a one-hour special on ESPN (August 22).

Previously, ESPN All-Access: Training Days has spotlighted the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Oklahoma Sooners’ programs.

ESPN All-Access: Ohio State Training Days – Schedule

If ESPN is not your thing there will be a 1 hour special on the Big Ten Network on Aug. 19th at 10 PM EST. The special will be the BTN behind the scenes show giving you an inside look at OSU football training camp as well.

After what I assume most of you know by now was devastating sanctions leveled against the PSU football program you must be asking why I think the NCAA did them a favor. Here is my thought process in a nut shell up until 2 days ago most PSU fans and a lot of CFB fans didn’t believe the NCAA would do anything to PSU and that the courts would handle punishing them for their transgressions. But in a 48 hour span Mark Emmert President of te NCAA became judge, jury, and executioner. He relied solely on an outside investigation the Freeh Report.

The NCAA didnt have a long drawn out investigation and dig into all the things PSU may have covered up or to find out what rules may have been broken in the career of Joe Paterno. The NCAA didn’t make PSU and its fans wait months or even years to find out how they will be punished. The NCAA didn’t let a group of corrupt officials make their own findings and punishments. The NCAA allowed Emmert to come up with all of this based on a report payed for by the BOT of PSU. Sure the sanctions are horrendous and difficult to deal with for PSU and its fans. Some will say they are fair and others will say they are unfair but it is done and over with. PSU fans wont have to deal with 10 months of ESPN talking heads saying what they think could happen if the NCAA sanctions them. Below you can see a list of the sanctions levied by the NCAA and judge for yourself the harshness of them. But PSU fans be thankful the NCAA did you a favor and ended this today and didnt drag it out and your school for months or years to come.

Penn State has been hit with a 4-year bowl and-postseason play ban.

Penn State has been fined $60 million, which will go into an endowment for children’s causes.

The Big Ten also gave its punishments to PSU today because when there is a pile you better make sure you are on it. PSU is banned from B1G CCG for 4 years and will not be awarded any bowl monies for those 4 years. Roughly 13 million more. All of which will go to charities for children just like the NCAA fines. Penn St. was also hit with censure which means it has NO say on any B1G conference policy discussions.

If you want to see completely irrational and biased opinions on todays sanctions and the whole scandal stop by our friends at Black Shoe Diaries and just read the comments on their articles. Here is hoping they can all find closure soon and at least remember this is all about pedophilia and the cover up there of. If you do anything today remember the poor children who were devastated by the actions of Sandusky and the Big Wigs at PSU including one Joe Paterno.

Here is a video of PSU students reactions to todays sanctions live…. I assume they are so upset about what the kids went through right?

Video via Tony Gerdeman at The Ozone @GerdOzone

For nine months all I have heard is how much Urban Meyer loves and needs speed at the skill positions heck at all positions. For nine months I have followed closely all the OSU recruiting “experts” tell me over and over about what WRs OSU will get or at least wants to get. Today we got a commitment from a guy not one of them has mentioned before yesterday as a WR we could get or OSU wants to get. So here is recruit no. 15 for the 2013 OSU recruiting class.

Taivon Jacobs according to ESPN is a 5’10” 165 lbs 4 star WR/Ath from Forrestville, MD. He is a speedster who was recently clocked at 4.35 in the 40 and runs track at a high level in HS. Scouts has him as a 2 star and 247sports and rivals have him as a 3 star. Although an unknown to many of us he clearly was on OSUs radar the whole time even if he doesnt have the recruiting buzz that other WRs in the class have he has the one thing that the others dont as of yet a spot in the 2013 class. You can see his highlight reel below and hopefully all of Buckeye Nation will become more familiar to the newest member of the class.

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.

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.

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.

Last night all hell broke loose when The Lantern, the student newspaper at The Ohio State University, released an article of an interview with Gene Smith the OSU AD. In the article about OSU violations The Lantern had this…

“Smith told The Lantern Tuesday the athletic department has 12 pending NCAA violations, and he doesn’t know if they will be deemed primary or secondary violations.”

“We’ve got 12 pending,” Smith said. “It may turn out to be secondary. It may not.”

and then this….

“OSU spokesman Dan Wallenberg said in a Wednesday email to The Lantern, that there were actually less than 12 pending violations. Wallenberg did confirm that the additional violations are being “processed,” although he did not “know the status of each situation” in regards to whether it was being processed by the university or the NCAA.”

“Smith’s mention of the additional violations to The Lantern comes less than a week after OSU released documents that revealed 46 self-reported secondary NCAA violations since May 30, 2011 — the day former Buckeyes football coach Jim Tressel was forced to resign.”

Those 46 secondary violations were amusing at best and a great example of the juggernaut that is the NCAA rule book.

But there was a widespread panic by journalists from major news outlets to spread the fact that OSU is under serious investigations for these new twelve or so violations and these may put the death nail in an OSU coffin they have been trying to bury for over a year. To OSU fans it was just another unneeded headache that we all assumed would be similar to the 46 “funny” violations that we learned about last week. We also knew that the media and the CFB world would instantly jump on this story and go to the worst possible scenarios and report it as truth, rather then guesses.

Then came clarification from Gene Smith this morning in the following response to the Lantern article…..

“Contrary to reports attributed to me, Ohio State Athletics is not facing any major NCAA violations,” Smith said. “There are several secondary violations being processed by our compliance office. These are similar to those released last week. Again, these are secondary in nature and consistent with our culture of self-reporting even the most minor and inadvertent violations.

“Again, to be clear, the Ohio State football program, its coaches and staff are not facing any violations.”“Contrary to reports attributed to me, Ohio State Athletics is not facing any major NCAA violations,” Smith said. “There are several secondary violations being processed by our compliance office. These are similar to those released last week. Again, these are secondary in nature and consistent with our culture of self-reporting even the most minor and inadvertent violations.

“Again, to be clear, the Ohio State football program, its coaches and staff are not facing any violations.”

Who knows how the article in the Lantern got to where it got and whether or not there were misunderstandings or if things were taken out of context. Maybe Gene Smith said exactly what they say he said; that is very believable. What isn’t believable is that the national media will print this clarification as fast and fervently as they did the initial story. So expect lots of people not understanding this situation and using it to fit whatever argument they want to expand on their hate for OSU.

The truth is OSU has 40 or so sports teams with 400 or so coaches and over 1100 student athletes and is the largest Athletic Department in the country. The NCAA rule book is GINORMOUS and very detailed. OSU will have many violations each and every year. Just like every other school does (If they don’t then they are hiding their violations) yet when OSU has them they are front page news and fodder for all those reporters who love to espouse their hatred for either OSU or the NCAA or both.