It’s Taco Tuesday, that famous phrase that Bitcoin enthusiast LeBron James once tried to trademark. It also means I’m personally shouting out El Ranchito on Brown Road on the west side of Columbus.
You’ll never find it in one of those “Best Mexican joints of Columbus” listicles, which is how you know it’s good. Trust me on this one.
OHIO STATE IS RANKED TOO DAMN HIGH! Is there anything dumber than a preseason poll? Yes, arguing about preseason polls.
Will that stop me from arguing subjective rankings with my own subjective rankings? Absolutely not. Polls are one of the many dumb things about this sport that make it great, actually.
My one take, however, is there should only be Top-10 rankings. Citing any ranking beyond No. 10 is peasant program behavior. You might as well be cheering for intramurals at that point.
That said, I want Ohio State disrespected in every preseason poll imaginable. I want to get mad reading that a collective of car dealers in suburban Atlanta thinks Ohio State is the 16th best team in the country. I don’t want to be respected in any poll other than the final one.
Unfortunately, the Coaches Poll, that is to say the Sports Information Directors Poll, misunderstood the assignment and tabbed the Buckeyes as the No. 2 team in the country.
Parentheses are last year’s records.
- Alabama (13-2)
- Ohio State (11-2)
- Georgia (14-1)
- Clemson (10-3)
- Notre Dame (11-2)
- Michigan (12-2)
- Texas A&M (8-4)
- Utah (10-4)
- Oklahoma (11-2)
- Baylor (12-2)
What I hate about this poll is that if an evil spirit told me Ohio State would dump everyone en route to the championship game only to lose by 18 points to Alabama… I would believe that spirit.
I do, however, love that we can officially start hyping Notre Dame vs. Ohio State as a top-five preseason matchup. I haven’t been this excited for an out-of-conference game since Texas in 2005. Let’s hope this year’s game ends better than that snafu, which was me puking out of my third-story dorm window in Missoula, Montana, while listening to the Yahoo! radio broadcast of the aftermath.
I’m also jazzed that Clemson is getting a mulligan on being cheeks last year. I wish the Tigers were ranked No. 1. That would make Dabo’s fall from grace even more hilarious.
HIT THE BRICKS, ESPiN! My mother indoctrinated me into Ohio State football from a young age. Watching “Holy Buckeye!” on her 36″ tube television was probably the moment I crossed the rubicon into Buckeye militancy.
I’ve watched over two decades of Buckeye football now, which makes me an infant compared to some. But still, every season has been at least partially broadcasted by ESPN and ABC. Brent Musberger was probably the first football announcer I ever loved. I consider Lee Corso a grandfather. Personally I could live without Kirk Herbstreit but hey… at least that little freak is one of the tribe.
But it looks like ESPN’s 40-year relationship with the Big Ten is on its deathbed, with sports reporters reading the last rites.
From John Ourand of sportsbusinessjournal.com:
Barring a last-minute change of direction in the Big Ten’s media rights negotiations, ESPN will be without the conference’s football and basketball games for the first time in 40 years. With Big Ten negotiations nearing an end — I’m told agreements could be reached by the end of this week or push into next — CBS and NBC have emerged as the clear front runners to pick up Big Ten rights alongside Fox Sports.
ESPN still is negotiating with the conference, and as long as they’re talking there remains the possibility ESPN could wind up with a package.
It seems sacrilegious to think about Verne Lundquist calling a Buckeye game, or Ohio State on the same network as Notre Dame.
But that’s how deep these networks have worked to plant their diseased seeds into my brain. Nobody at ESPN was broadcasting those famous Buckeye games because they were my friend. They were there for the money like every other viper that orbits this sport.
The biggest loser out of this deal will be the fans, as broadcasts will become even more bloated with corporations trying to hoodwink you into spending your disposable income on their worthless junk. This might be controversial, but I don’t believe it should take four hours to broadcast a college football game.
That will become an inevitability considering CBS is reportedly paying $350 million for its Big Ten package.
And no, I don’t give a damn about ESPN GameDay potentially boycotting future Ohio State games. That would be cutting off their nose to spite their face since the Bucks are ratings gold.
I love Corso, but just give me the 30-second clip of his prediction and ensuing crowd reaction on Twitter. I do not need special interest tear-jerkers or guys like Desmond Howard bloviating for three hours when the Premiere League is the perfect filler for the dreaded window of 10 a.m. to noon.
DON’T SLEEP ON JULIAN FLEMING. Woody Hayes would probably have a stroke watching the 2022 Ohio State Battlin’ Buckeyes. Do I enjoy the accusations of being a finesse team? No, I don’t.
But I do enjoy the local team being loaded at wide receiver to the point that the No. 1 wide receiver of the 2020 class can be considered a dark horse entering the season.
From Dan Hope of elevenwarriors.com:
There remain plenty of believers inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center who think Fleming will soon show why he was such a highly touted talent when he arrived at Ohio State. Starting quarterback C.J. Stroud, who will play a large role in determining how targets Fleming sees this season, is among those believers.
“Y’all will see. Trust me. Y’all gonna see it,” Stroud said when asked about Fleming at Big Ten Media Days. “At the end of the day, everybody got their own path. Julian will tell you that too. I know it’s probably not what he wanted, but at the end of the day, that’s what God called his path to be. And he has probably learned more. I feel like anything in life that you want or that you have a goal of, if you’re just handed it, then you won’t be appreciative of it. You gotta go through things. So Julian definitely has been through it, like with injuries and different things sitting behind Chris (Olave), but he’s learned so much and this is the most motivated and the most mature I’ve ever seen Julian in my life.
“Y’all haven’t really seen the real Julian yet just because he’s been injured and whatnot. So it’s exciting to see him just work so hard and become a better person on top of that.”
It’s not a revolutionary tactic but I always look for players that the quarterback goes out of their way to mention. Stroud could have thrown some cliché out there, but he made sure to drive home the point that he expects us to get the best version of Fleming.
That praise, coupled with Fleming bouncing back from injury to win the Iron Buckeye award, seems about as good as any indication that Fleming is poised for a breakout year—even if there will still only be one ball for Stroud throw at a time.
I don’t think any Ohio State fan doubts Fleming’s talent. It’s understandable, however, to question if he can stay healthy throughout an entire season.
Kamryn Babb is another guy I’d put into that category, too.
MAY OUR ENEMIES’ LAMENTATIONS GO UNANSWERED. Oklahoma has moved up my shit list the more familiar I got with Baker Mayfield’s talents as the latest stiff off the street to play quarterback for the Browns. Mayfield carving Ohio State’s defense and trying to plant a flag into a turf field has somehow only gotten more embarrassing with time.
Every time you would cuss at him on Twitter, there would be an Oklahoma Sooners and Dallas Cowboys fan in your mentions caping for a future backup quarterback.
Which means I take great pleasure in Oklahoma, now coached by Dabo Swinney’s former sign-stealing defensive coordinator, having to fire a longtime assistant coach in Cade Gundy three weeks before the season starts.
From Cliff Brunt of nbcdfw.com:
Gundy apologized in his post and explained why he resigned. He said he noticed a player was distracted while he was supposed to be taking notes, so he picked up the athlete’s iPad and read the words on the screen aloud. He acknowledged that he said a word that he “should never — under any circumstance — have uttered,” and said he was “horrified” when he realized what he had done.
“What I said was not malicious; it wasn’t even intentional,” Gundy said. “Still, I am mature enough to know that the word I said was shameful and hurtful, no matter what my intentions.”
Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said in a statement that those associated with the program are “all accountable for our actions and the resulting outcomes.”
It’s a bizarre story. But if it went down like they said it went down, well, not sure I would want a man to professionally associate with a man that easily bamboozled into “unintentionally” using the one word white people can’t use under any circumstance.
According to Gundy’s daughter, that’s not how it went down. She tweeted and quickly deleted a spicy allegation.
Preserved by Twitter user @AtlantaLonghorn:
I love when family members of millionaires tweet vague, mafioso sounding threats. “The truth will always come to fruition!” Let’s hope! The sooner I no longer have to use mental bandwidth to process Oklahoma football as a concept, the better.
THOSE WMDs. Why putting solar canopies on parking lots is a smart move… The pandemic purchases we grew to hate… There’s no such thing as a dangerous neighborhood… A thousand pounds of dynamite… What are you supposed to do with old clothes?