Spring ball is over in Columbus, but OSU football is a year-round sport, and there’s always something to report on with the program. We’ll get to the Buckeye news, which includes more prison time for a former quarterback, and a highly-ranked recruit de-committing after an OSU fan he met on a visit turned out to be a registered sex offender. Yes, the creepiness quotient was unusually high this week in Buckeye country.

But the big news in college football is the progress made by the powers that be toward a playoff system to determine the sport’s national champion. The conference commissioners gathered in south Florida the last week of April and whittled down a number of proposals to a handful that will be further tweaked and presented to the schools for consideration sometime in June.

One thing is certain. The BCS is dead...by popular demand. A new playoff system, almost certainly one involving just four teams, will take effect for the 2014 season. How those four teams will be selected, and where they’ll play the games are the key details still to be worked out, but at the very least, now the two teams meeting for the title will have to qualify on a football field against a quality opponent, instead of strictly in the polls. And that is a big step in the direction long demanded by the fans of the sport. Whether it turns out to be an improvement over the current setup is another matter.

Read more...

Ohio State held their annual spring game Saturday, a combination football exhibition and recruiting showcase, as Braxton Miller and freshman receiver Mike Thomas grabbed the headlines on the field, and another blue-chip recruit succumbed to the allure of playing for Urban Meyer’s Buckeyes. Meyer was a visible presence all afternoon, staying close enough to the action to take a shotgun snap from center after firing up his troops with a one-on-one drill at midfield before the game.

Both teams came out throwing the ball, as Meyer had promised they would, and Miller’s Scarlet squad came out on top 20-14 with the help of Thomas’ 12 receptions for 131 yards. It didn’t escape notice after the game that OSU’s leading receiver had 14 receptions for the entire 2011 season. Meyer said last week that total was more like a game’s worth, and he set out to prove it Saturday.

Miller and backup Kenny Guiton combined for 57 pass attempts, against just 36 combined rushes. Miller and the Scarlet got 15 first downs passing, and only three running the ball, as Buckeye fans got their first look at Meyer’s no-huddle spread attack. Both quarterbacks established the pass to the perimeter early, opening up the short inside throws and seam passes to the tight ends.

Read more...

If you polled Buckeye players asking for the word to best describe spring football under Urban Meyer, the winning entry would probably be “intensity”. That’s the tone set by the coaches. That describes the pace of the practices. That’s the driving force behind turning everything they do - right down to their stretching - into a competition under Meyer. As senior fullback Zach Boren predicted at the outset of spring ball, “There is no on-off switch. Everyone will be going full-go, every play”.  And that’s exactly the way it has gone so far.

One thing the first-year Ohio State coach has made abundantly clear is that he will demand the same single-minded will to win in his players that he brings to the job himself. Speaking of identifying team leaders, Meyer had this to say: "We're looking for leadership by doing, by work ethic, by leading. I'm not interested in a bunch of group hugs or team meetings. I really want to see guys lead by not losing. You want to be a great leader, then go win."

It will be five months before he can begin erasing the bad memories from a disastrous season, but for now Meyer can be contrasted with his predecessor by how fast everything moves with him in charge.

Read more...

This year, I decided, was as good as any to skip the whole thing.  I didn’t fill out a bracket, which meant I wasn’t obsessing over things that mid-major powerhouses did well enough to scoot past a high-major with a mediocre basketball resume.  I wasn’t beating myself up over the conundrum of, “I want so and so to win, but I have blah-blah-blah in my bracket.”  For the most part, I did not have much concern for who was still standing on the final Saturday of March.

None of this is being written to say that I’m not a fan; nothing could be farther from the truth.  In most years, I’m glued to the tube for the conference tournaments, trying to determine the best back court that no one knows about, looking for a team that scratches and claws for every rebound, and identifying any potential Cinderella team that might just have a chance to stand on their own two feet after the opening weekend.  I have a system, and like the Blackjack player with big Vegas dreams, it’s usually a system with flaws.  This year, there would be no system; there would be no bracket.

Of course, I still wanted to weigh in with an opinion of some sort.  There were some things that I just really wanted to see happen, so I just floated some things out there.  Any take I had was almost immediately met with a question about my bracket, my Final Four, or who I thought would win it all.  Since I didn’t fill out a bracket, or even look at one, it was impossible to slate teams in a Final Four because I didn’t know who was in what region.  Picking Kentucky to win it all was a little bit easier because I don’t think anyone can beat them in a game that matters, regardless of what their path to and through New Orleans might have been.

Read more...

What a collapse.

The Ohio State Buckeyes had full command of the game in the first half -- leading at one point by 13 with all the momentum on their side. Even late in the game -- after a huge rally by Kansas -- the Buckeyes were able to push the lead back to six with five minutes to go.

They couldn’t hang on.

Too many bad shots down the stretch combined with too many easy baskets given up on defense allowed the Kansas Jayhawks to come from behind for a 64-62 victory.

“Down the stretch as this tournament goes, it comes down to making some plays,” Ohio State coach That Matta said. “Give them credit, they did a great job of finishing -- where we had the ball, had some great shots, and wasn't able to go in for us.”

For Kansas coach Bill Self, his goal was to keep his team focused on what they needed to do, "It's a 40-minute game," Self said. "There's no 13-point plays. You have to grind it and get one stop at a time."

Read more...

Spring football practice begins this week in Columbus, and for new head coach Urban Meyer, it’s going to be like Christmas morning. “I’m excited to see our presents,” Meyer said of his first look at his Buckeye players in uniform and on the practice field. Meyer claims to have not watched film of last year’s games, in order to fairly evaluate his personnel in the flesh this spring. But even before he toots his whistle for the first time, Urban Meyer has put his own indelible stamp on this Ohio State program.

To begin with, the buzz is back. A year ago, Jim Tressel had been suspended but not yet terminated. The 2011 season was set to begin without several key players, and with a different head coach on the sidelines. Then it got worse. From the lofty heights reached during a decade under Tressel, it got nightmarishly worse.

Then over the course of a humiliating 6-7 season, an OSU administration that had appeared unsteady on its good days and clownishly inept on its worst ones, did one very big thing right. They got Urban Meyer to agree to coach the Buckeyes, and in a moment turned the fortunes of OSU football 180 degrees.

Read more...

The Ohio State Buckeyes started the regular season with expectations of a Final Four, but finished with a fluster of losses that had many people questioning the team’s mental strength and toughness.

The Buckeyes used that as motivation and rolled through the East region, capped by a 77-70 victory over the Syracuse Orange in Boston Saturday night. Ohio State’s victory -- it’s 31st of the season -- punched Ohio State’s ticket to New Orleans for their first Final Four appearance since 2007.

Ohio State coach Thad Matta talked about the late season struggles and how it motivated his team, "That loss [to Wisconsin in February] opened their eyes and said, 'Hey, maybe we're not as good as we think we are.’ Maybe it got us pointed in the right direction."

Jared Sullinger elaborated, “When we were going through that slump in February, everybody was saying this basketball team was kind of on a downhill. We heard negative comments. I want to thank y'all because through all the adversity, we constantly pushed through that.”

Sullinger finished the game with 19 points and seven rebounds despite playing just six minutes in the first half due to foul trouble. Lenzelle Smith, Jr. suffered a laceration above his right eye that required three stitches, but he overcame the injury and an 0-4 shooting performance in the first half to finish the game with 18 points -- half of which came from behind the arch via three momentum-changing 3-pointers. The Buckeyes had four scorers in double figures as Deshaun Thomas had 14 and William Buford finished with 13.

Read more...

Maybe this Ohio State team is maturing.

We’ve watched these Buckeyes lose big leads against Illinois and Wisconsin in ugly, momentum crushing losses this season. Whether it was a lack of team chemistry or a lack of killer instinct, it didn’t seem like Ohio State had the mental fortitude to make a run come tournament time.

That lack of mental fortitude looked to be rearing its ugly head last night in Ohio State’s sweet 16 matchup with Cincinnati. Ohio State was comfortably in charge, leading by 12 points heading into the second half. The momentum swung rapidly though as the Bearcats caught fire, hitting nine of their first 11 shots to start the second. Meanwhile, Ohio State had gone absolutely cold and Cincinnati tied the game with a 16-4 run that spanned just five minutes.

That stretch and multiple timeouts by Ohio State coach Thad Matta still couldn’t shake the Buckeyes out of their funk as Cincinnati took a four point lead with just under 12 minutes to play.

Needing something to spark the team, Aaron Craft put his foot down and started making plays. In a four minute span, Craft forced four turnovers and accounted for five of Ohio State’s 10 points in a 10-1. The Buckeyes kept their foot on the gas and pushed their six point lead out to a 13 point lead before Cincinnati could recover. The Buckeyes went on to cruise to an 81-66 victory.

Read more...

The Gonzaga Bulldogs had Jared Sullinger and Ohio State on the ropes in Pittsburgh yesterday.

A 13-3 run late in the game by Gonzaga made Ohio State’s 10 point lead evaporate into nothing with four minutes left. Sullinger had been stonewalled by Gonzaga’s frontcourt all game -- he had no points in the paint through 36 minutes -- but that didn’t stop the Buckeyes from playing through him down the stretch.

With the game tied at 61, Aaron Craft drifted to Sullinger’s side of the court and got him the ball. Sullinger hesitated, made his move and got his first bucket against Robert Sacre, who for much of the game altered or blocked every shot attempt Sullinger made in the paint. Two possessions later, Craft got the ball to Sullinger in the exact same spot and he produced the same result. Gonzaga couldn’t make the same kind of plays on the other end -- they had multiple 3-pointers rim in-and-out down the stretch -- and the Buckeyes went on to earn a place in the sweet 16 with a 73-66 victory.

"Right down the stretch we wanted to get the ball in [Sullinger’s] hands," Ohio State coach Thad Matta said. "He's a winner. We'll ride that down the stretch."

Sullinger might be a winner, but Aaron Craft was the one who put Ohio State in the position to win yesterday. The sophomore point guard played one of his best games as a Buckeye against Gonzaga, scoring 17 points with 10 assists to go along with his bullish, lockdown defense.

Read more...

A short time ago, before the 9-1 streak was broken last November, you could hear OSU fans lamenting the state of the Michigan rivalry and longing for the day when the Wolverines would return to challenge the Buckeyes like the good old days...or something. “For the Big Ten Conference to be respectable, Michigan has to be good.”, or words to that effect. Okay, I might have been one of those people.

It’s still true. You just don’t hear Buckeye fans mouthing it a lot anymore. There are a lot of indications that Brady Hoke has the Wolverine program back on its feet. An 11-win season, a top five recruiting class, and a BCS bowl win are just a few of them. It’s debatable of course, but it’s important that they believe it. And if their demeanor...and their swagger...and their smack talk after one consecutive victory over the Buckeyes is any indication, they do believe it.

Read more...