M-Borg vs. THE Flavortown U Thread, Orig. by Buckeye Paul, absconded w/by talent.

[iam416]

I'm not sure what to make of Herman. I like Withers. I like Hinton. And I'm thrilled that they kept Fickell and, to a lesser extent, Drayton. It also looks like Vrabel will make the cut.

I'll defer to UFM for the moment. Speaking of which, I'm even more bullish on the close to this year's class. I *think* UFM might take them from 1 player in Scout's top 55 to 7. If that comes to pass, that's borderline miraculous.

[Optimus Prime]

Kept Fickell? Simply outrageous.

Everett Withers, North Carolina’s interim coach this season, could soon be on Urban Meyer’s staff at Ohio State.

Meyer was interviewed on WBNS radio in Columbus, Ohio. He said that Withers is “in the mix” and would share defensive coordinator duties with Luke Fickell.

Fickell will call the defensive plays, Meyer said.

“Luke Fickell will have the (coordinator) title,” Meyer said on the radio station. “It might be a co-, it might not, but at the end of the day, he’ll be calling the defense.”

If Withers does come on board, that would seem to eliminate Mike Stoops from the picture. Meyer said that he has spoken to Stoops, who was fired as Arizona’s head coach. Stoops could be a candidate for the defensive coordinator’s job at Nebraska, where Carl Pelini left for FAU; and at Iowa, where defensive coordinator Norm Parker is retiring after the Insight Bowl.

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2011-12-13/everett-withers-could-join-meyers-ohio-state-staff-as-co-defensive-coordinator

[iam416]

I could be wrong, but I don't see Herman, on his own, as a Pro-set, power run, with a smattering of spread kind of guy. His experience seems to be putting high scoring offenses that throw for 400 yards and run for 50 on the field. More likely, Herman, a relatively young guy, is seen as the kind of coordinator who furbin can shape and will do what he is told.

I'll defer to UFM. I know he won't hire any assistant who can't recruit. Herman is, supposedly, a pretty good recruiter. We'll see how the staff coaches come next fall. I would anticipate standard transitional growing pains on offense. Fortunately, OSU's schedule should be kind enough to allow for such hiccups/convulsions.

[iam416]

In other recruiting news, LB Camren Williams visited OSU over the past two days. Williams would be a nice get, as OSU is short on LBs. But the significance of it is that Williams is "committed" to PSU and has been one of the leaders of that class. He's now considering OSU (while waiting to see who is named HC at PSU). I think he'll probably stick with PSU. But, it ought to illustrate the sort of problems PSU is facing. This year's class is crumbling. It's going to be difficult to recruit next year for them. Penn State could, legitimately, find itself in the, heh, "wilderness" for 4 or 5 years -- perhaps longer. They really need to make a good hire.

I have almost entirely nothing but hate for those asshats, but I don't think I'd like to see them fall of the face of the Earth, even if it more or less turns whatever division OSU is in into an OSU-Wisky battle every year.

[Hannibal]

They do seem to be coming apart at the seams. I wish that we were better positioned to take advantage of it.

From my perspective, PSU seems to have been on the verge of collapse for a long time. Like you said, they could be spending some time in the wilderness.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Frankly, I don't give a crap if PSU falls off the edge of the earth.

I've said this for a long time. This shit about trying to level the playing field that the NCAA has undertaken as one of its missions in life has caused nothing but problems. 85 scholarships sucks and always has. The NCAA rules are impossible to follow and create way more problems than they solve, the NCAA's efforts to define amateurism have fallen afoul of the same sorts of things that efforts by the Olympic Committee to do the same with Olympic athletes experienced ..... WTF.

I liked it when there were somewhere between 20 and 30 elite teams who did well because they attracted the best football players (for any number of reasons including paying them), saw football as a way to advance their respective universities and hired people to run the athletic department that understood that and freaking knew what the hell they were doing in Don Canham fashion.

Now, because the playing field is supposedly level (it's not even close so why think it is) we have programs like Kansas that make stupid decisions like hiring Charlie Wise as their HC, Boise and others who perennially whine about not being in the BCS (never mind that these teams never have competitive schedules) and arguments about AQ status involving the Big East that looks like it is going to have 5 schools a jillion miles geographically displaced from 5 other schools ...... WTF is that?

These are just a few of many stupid decisions being made by deciders in CFB that should be allowed to fail massively because they are stupid and made by people who obviously have no idea what they are doing. They should collapse on on their own lack of merit. Instead they get propped up in some horrid way all in the name of leveling the playing field, or in other words, everyone gets to be a winner and get a piece of the pie.

Screw that (in this narrow sense anyway)...... the fittest survive. Let's return to the days when if you wanted to play at the top of the game of College Football, you learned how to play to get there. If the Big Ten evolves to Michigan, osu and Nebraska, all elite programs in their own right currently and historically, duking it out to see who gets the best record on the backs of the rest of the league who never were and never will be consistently good, fine.

[lineygoblue]

But Herman will play a large role in implementing the spread offense in Columbus

oh, .. the irony ....

[iam416]

Buchanan: lots of good points.

In other news, looks like Dunn stays put.

[lineygoblue]

Yep, looks like he just recommitted.

Well, at least he gave us a look. We made him think. Hopefully, we'll get one of our current people to step up and become that back we need.

[Optimus Prime]

oh, .. the irony ....

Meyer has run the spread-option with tremendous success, Rich Rod was a fraud and no Urban Meyer.

[lineygoblue]

Yeah, but Meyer learned it from Rodriguez.

[iam416]

I think Hoke did more than get s look. I think he had him three weeks ago. I think he did a hell of a job with Dunn. I think there was literally one coach OSU could have hired that could have pried him from M. As I said up thread, Hoke is going to kill all other OoS schools in ohio.

Anyway, more good work from UFM. The Bobcats are putting together a pretty decent class afterall.

[Optimus Prime]

Wait until OSU gets hit with a two year bowl ban courtesy of Tressel. Rats leaving a sinking flagship more like it.

[Ghengis Jon]

Sadly, I think the NCAA is going to 'slap' osu with a glowing letter of commendation for letting St Jim retire with a lucrative state funded retirement as punishment. If the NCAA is going gleefully allow a dual coaching staff at osu (and yes, UFM is a one man recruiting machine), necessitated solely by the osu AD shitting on Fickell who happened to step in for the disgraced and departed Coach Cheater, what makes you think that any sort of sanction at all will be handed down? The NCAA will tell osu that their self imposed 'sanctions' are more than enough and that the books are officially closed. Sickening.

I want to know who blew who and how much money has changed hands.

[iam416]

I guess Dunn was the big news for today. Dodson will have to wait, though that's done. Eat it, Bielema.

Noah Spence looking good. Jameis Winston is actually in play, too, for OSU. Unfathomable.