In true Columbus Disptach fashion, they have ignored the requested news embargo and prempted everyone’s coverage of the upcoming report from the NCAA. The news is bad. All around bad:

The NCAA today stunned Ohio State University’s football program by banning it from postseason play after the 2012 season, multiple sources told The Dispatch.

The penalty means Ohio State automatically is out of the running for any bowl, or a Big Ten or national championship next year, just as newly appointed head coach Urban Meyer is wooing recruits to the Buckeyes.

Athletic Director Gene Smith said previously that while Ohio State has been declared a repeat violator that failed to properly monitor its football program, a bowl ban would be out of line with penalties handed to universities with similar violations.

There will be time to opine on the nuances at a later time, but for now we’ll just say that this sucks. Punishing the upcoming seniors like Jake Stoneburner, John Simon and others really stings.

What’s your initial take?

This past Friday Ohio State coaches Urban Meyer and Luke Fickell and Mike Vrabel all made a trip out to Hershey, PA to watch Noah Spence play in his High School State football championship game. Noah Spence team lost that game by a huge margin. After the game Noah Spence consoled his teammates and celebrated his high school career by getting on a plane and headed to Columbus, Ohio to spend the weekend on an official visit at The Ohio State University. Noah Spence is a 5 star player ranked as the no. 4 recruit in the country according to ESPN.

The 6’4″ 245 lb DE from Harrisburg, PA runs a 4.4 40 and is rated as the no. 1 DE in the country by every recruiting service. He is an all around solid DE in both Pass Rush and Run Def. He is an instant impact player and is the 4th highly rated DLmen to verbal to OSU in the last 4 weeks.

According to Bob Lictenfels a Scouts recruiting expert Noah Spence told Coach Meyer tonight “Coach I’m done, love it here and I want to be a part of the Buckeye Nation” #OSU.

Noah Spence was for biggest part of his recruiting time a strong lean to Penn State if not a silent Verbal to them. Following the PSU scandal and firing of Coach Paterno he opened his recruiting up more and with the hiring of Urban Meyer it didn’t take long for him and his family to find themselves members of Buckeye Nation. Spence becomes the 19th member on this years recruiting class.

Less than a month ago Ohio St. was struggling through with their toughest season in a while. Losing games and dealing with lots of distractions and injuries. Most recruiting “experts” made the declaration that Ohio St. was dead in the water for this years recruiting class. Then a rumor started floating around that Urban Meyer was going to be hired as the next coach at Ohio State. The story was broken by our friends at Eleven Warriors. Shortly after the rumors started OSU got verbals from two high ranking recruits. Then he was hired and quickly Ohio State applied for and received an exemption to allow Coach Meyer to recruit. If this was 1985 the phone bill OSU would have to cover all the long distance phone calls made by Urban and the rest of the OSU staff to recruits would be astronomical. Not only phone calls but gas from driving all over Ohio and plane tickets all over the country. Coach Meyer put an emphasis on recruiting the likes that we have never seen before at Ohio St or the B1G. He is calling high school coaches all over the country at places where there aren’t even any kids he is recruiting just to touch base and reconnect. He has called nearly every recruit on the planet whether they are committed elsewhere or not. He managed to Flip 2 high profile recruits from other teams. He also managed to keep Bri’Onte Dunn in this years class shutting the door on TTUN and their HC who was trying their best to steal him from Meyer.

All these new recruits and keeping this class together has taken a class that wasn’t in the top 25 of recruiting classes all the way up to 6th in 3 weeks time. Scouts has OSU ranked 6th and they have a higher player ranking avg. then TTUN that everyone said couldn’t be caught for best class in 2012.

Don’t for one minute think Coach Meyer is done either he is hosting several top recruits again this weekend including the no. 4 recruit in the nation 6’4″ 245 lbs 5* DE Noah Spence from Harrisburg, PA who runs a 4.4 40 yard dash and is an instant impact player. He is extremely high on Ohio St. and many expect him to commit to Coach Meyer over the weekend visit. Ohio St. is also heavily recruiting current Wisconsin Commit 6’5″ 315 lbs OT Kyle Dodson and also 6’6″ 300 lb OT Jordan Diamond. Ohio St. is high on the list of current commit of PSU recruit 6’1″ 210 lbs LB Camren Williams and Former Notre Dame commit 6’1″ 210 lbs LB David Perkins.

I am sure there are more recruits on the watch list who should be mentioned but those are the top ones in my eyes. Ohio St. will end up with a larger class then expected due to having so many unused schollies from last year and players enrolling early in January and current players leaving the program for one reason or another. If you are a fan of recruiting then there has never been a more fun time to be a Buckeye fan then right now. So sit back and enjoy the show and hope Urbans hair really doesn’t catch on fire.

Urban Meyer had OSU RB commit Bri’onte Dunn come to OSU last weekend and gave him a complete look at what the OSU offense could be if he was a part of it. That look wasn’t the same thing that the University of Michigan Brady Hoke was saying OSU would use. Coach Hoke and his employees and the fans of the team for weeks now have been saying Urban Meyer can’t and won’t ever have a 1000 yard RB and that his offense isn’t suited for a big RB like Dunn. All this and the thought of not being a featured back at OSU had to give Dunn some doubt. Coach Meyer made sure the first person he called after getting the NCAA waiver to recruit was Bri’onte Dunn and he made sure to let him understand he has never had a RB like him but that he could flourish in the kind of offense he runs. He explained to him the misnomer that he doesn’t like or use traditional B1G type RBs. It took a few phone calls and a weekend visit followed up by an in-home visit tonight by Coach Meyer but he was able to sell him on the system and the school and tonight Bri’onte Dunn has reaffirmed his commitment to OSU 100% and Coach Meyer is going to try and help Dunn enroll early next month like he has always wanted. The bottom line is Dunn always wanted to be a Buckeye and he just needed to know Coach Meyer wanted him to be his RB of the future. Once again Meyer has proven he is a top notch recruiter and a force to be reckoned with in the midwest and throughout the country.

What has quickly become bizzarro world only a month ago Ohio State was looking at what was one of their worst looking recruiting classes in a long time. Then rumors started floating around that Urban Meyer was going to be our next head coach. Shortly after the rumors started Adolphus Washington and Riquan Southward both gave verbals to OSU. Those are 2 very good 4* recruits. Then Meyer was actually hired and instantly applied for and received an exemption from the NCAA to allow him and anyone he hires to focus on recruiting while Coach Fickel handles day to day and bowl prep. Some schools cried foul I am looking at you scUM. Others followed suit TaMu, UCLA, Illinois, and others. Coach Meyer has just been a kid in a candy store calling recruits and visiting them and having them visit OSU. Earlier tonight he got a verbal from a 5* who always like OSU to flip from Penn State and then tonight while on a home visit to Canton, Ohio he got his second commit of the day and this is a flip too and the new OSU recruit is…..

6’5″ 245 lbs 4* Speed rush DE Se’Von Pittman from Canton Mckinley High in Canton, Ohio to flip from Michigan St. to OSU. Pittman becomes the 18th commitment in the 2012 recruiting class for OSU and the second commit for Coach Meyer in his 2nd week on the job. Pittman is another ESPN 150 recruit and the 3rd DLman to commit in the last few weeks all of which are ESPN 150 guys. Pittman is a huge get because he has speed and strength to be a true stand up edge rusher but also is very strong in the rush defense and could very well get lots of early time playing.

There are other possible flips we could hear about soon including 2 more from PSU in Noah Spence and Camren Williams. Both are leaning towards OSU right now. Keeping Bri’Onte Dunn has become a high priority as well and there are a few other big names floating out there who are still going to visit OSU and meet Coach Meyer. OSU will have a few extra schollies to offer due to transfers already getting one from Taylor Graham leaving OSU late last week. Times are exciting if you are a recruiting fan. So enjoy the ride and start to imagine what the 2013 class will look like with Urban getting a full year to recruit.

To say that Urban Meyer has been hitting the recruiting trail like his hair is on fire would be a huge understatement. It would be safer to say he has set the entire world on fire. Mostly though he has set other schools coaches and fans in a hissy fit that would make any 8 year old school girl envious. Last weekend Urban hosted about 25 recruits and several of them are soft verbals to other schools in the Big ten. Most notably PSU and MSU. It was a who’s who of top recruits many of who have more stars then the Milky Way. As it is many left town with so much excitement they couldn’t hardly wait to get back to their homes and call the other coaches to tell them they were flipping on their commitments to those schools. The first recruit to go fully public with his change of commitment is….

6’3″ 305 lbs 5* DT Tommy Schutt from Glen Ellyn, Illinois flipped from Penn State to Ohio State to become the 17th commitment in the 2012 recruiting class and Coach Meyers first verbal in his 2 weeks on the job at OSU. Schutt is a huge get as he is an ESPN 150 recruit and a top 5 DT prospect in the country. It also takes away PSUs highest ranked recruit and the first of 3 possible PSU verbals who may flip to OSU with LB Camren Williams currently visiting OSU and Noah Spence the no. 5 recruit in the nation visiting this coming weekend. Schutt will make a instant impact on the DL next year being so big and strong. His motor is non-stop and has strength and speed you dont see often in DT. He will be great next to Big Hank. Urban has set ablaze the recruiting trail and you will see many more like this in the coming weeks.

In a year of uncertainty and unusually bad football for Ohio State they still proved to be a draw for bowl game big wigs. Ohio St. was selected by the Gator Bowl to play the Florida Gators on Jan. 2, 2012. The gator bowl passed on teams in the B1G that had better records and worse had beaten OSU. Dropping Northwestern, Purdue, and Penn St. down to lesser B1G tie in bowl games. Unfortunately they drew a team that is having an equally disappointing year in the 6-6 Florida Gators. Florida has been bad in just about every aspect of football this year from offense to defense to special teams…. BUT and it is a big but they have a new found reason to stick it to the Buckeyes this year. With the hiring of former UF coach Urban Meyer some current Gator players and to a lessor extent coaches and university leaders want to exact some revenge on Coach Meyer for what they feel is him quitting on them. It also doesn’t help that the game will be played about 70 miles from UF campus located in Gainesville to the bowl in Jacksonville.

To sum up my first thoughts OSU has received and accepted a bowl bid to play in the Gator Bowl. Which means if the NCAA does hand down a bowl ban now it wont be for this year. The 6-6 Buckeyes will play the 6-6 Gators in a virtual home game for Florida in what is no doubt the most disappointing year for both teams in quite some time. Florida has home field and motive to win. Ohio St. has pride and the responsibility to win this for Coach Meyer and to send Coach Fickell off with a win.

My early prediction (which will change once players get suspended for bad grades and bad behavior and injury info) is going to be Ohio State 9 Florida 6. Which will immediately make all voters to call it the game of the century and demand a repeat in next years BCS NCG.

I wonder if Urban Meyer could use such a player…hmmmm…

Nov 30, 2011 – The Big Ten Conference announced on Wednesday that Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller was chosen as the Thompson-Randel El freshman of the year. The true freshman is the inaugural winner of the award, named for Minnesota’s Darrell Thompson and Indiana’s Antwaan Randle El.

Miller, who took over as the starter four games into the Buckeyes season, finished among the conference’s top ten offensively, with 18 touchdowns altogether. Eleven of those touchdowns came in the passing game, where he threw for 997 yards and only had four interceptions, going 67 of 134. He also led the Buckeyes with seven rushing touchdowns and 695 yards. His last outing of the season, against Michigan, had plenty of season highs – 14-for-25 for 235 yards and two touchdowns.

He received the conference freshman of the week award twice this past season and led a comeback win over the Wisconsin Badgers earlier in the season, where he hit Devin Smith for a 40 yard touchdown in the final seconds. Miller has high expectations heading into next season, as the starting quarterback in Urban Meyer’s offense.

I cannot wait for Miller to run wild in Meyers offense. Dear rest of the Big Ten, enjoy your year off from playing a real Ohio State team.

With all the excitement of yesterday, I decided to hold of a day on our BlogPoll Ballot.

This week, our ballot is brought to you by SYR: