Last week, Bill Rabinowitz of The Columbus Dispatch landed an interview with Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s father, Maada Smith-Njigba. It was a legitimately great get and a great story, given the uncertainty of Smith-Njigba’s injury situation and the fact that Ohio State has made it pretty clear we’re not going to get any update from them.
One quote from the story was particularly juicy, given that Buckeye fans have been speculating that JSN might just shut down his season and focus on the NFL Draft, much like Nick Bosa did back in 2018.
“We’re not going to do the (Nick) Bosa thing,” Maada Smith-Njigba said. “I’m not saying anything bad about them, but this is a championship season. He came in with these guys, with C.J. (Stroud) and Julian (Fleming) and (Luke) Wypler and Paris (Johnson Jr.) and all those guys. He’s not going to leave them.
“Those guys are all one. They’re one unit, one heartbeat. For him not to be there in uniform as a soldier to battle with them, it hurts. It really does.”
I shared it in a Breakfast Kegger last week because “We’re not going to do the (Nick) Bosa thing” is an absolutely money quote. But I went back and read that story yesterday, and the first part of that quote is now gone.
Here’s how it now reads, instead:
“This is a championship season,” he said. “He came in with these guys, with C.J. (Stroud) and Julian (Fleming) and (Luke) Wypler and Paris (Johnson Jr.) and all those guys. He’s not going to leave them.
“Those guys are all one. They’re one unit, one heartbeat. For him not to be there in uniform as a soldier to battle with them, it hurts. It really does.”
So they just discretely cut out the juiciest, most controversial part of the article that got the most attention and… made no mention at all of the change. There’s no editor’s note, no explanation, and no real acknowledgment that the story was ever significantly changed.
The closest thing you get is a little note next to the publish date that says “Updated 12:44 p.m. ET Nov. 3, 2022,” two days after the story was initially published. But it doesn’t tell you what was “updated.”
I’m not here to speculate about why this fantastic quote was removed from the story – y’all can do that yourselves. But the larger issue is that they just deleted it stealthily and hoped nobody noticed, and that’s complete bullshit.
You can’t pretend to cover the team in the best and most professional way and then pull this garbage. I can promise you that this wouldn’t even fly at The Lantern, and The Paper of Record is trying to get away with it here.
If you make a mistake or need to retract something, just address it and move on. But you just can’t do shady shit like this and then try to masquerade around as a very serious and ethical outlet providing the leading coverage of the local team.
You’re no better than the blogs and messageboards that you hate.
- QUARTERBACK RUNS ARE COOL AND GOOD
We’ve been talking for like, years about how much it would open up the offense if defenses had to respect C.J. Stroud as a runner even a little bit, and we actually already saw it on Saturday.
Y’all remember that Miyan Williams beast-mode touchdown run that gave the Buckeyes the lead? It probably wouldn’t have happened if C.J. Stroud didn’t have that big quarterback keeper earlier in the game.
@himiamkevin C.J. Stroud’s legs are already doing good things for this Ohio State offense. #ohiostatefootball #ohiostatebuckeyes #gobucks #gobuckeyes #cjstroud #stroudforheisman #cjstroudforheisman #collegefootballplayoff #collegefootball ♬ original sound – kevin
It’s pretty undeniable that the threat of Stroud’s legs is going to pay dividends in the running game, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating that Ohio State hasn’t been able to run the ball without a mobile quarterback since the Tressel era.
- VEGAN GRANDPA AIN’T DONE YET
I’m ready to declare Ohio State’s defense fixed. But the cool thing is, our beloved Vegan Grandpa isn’t stopping there – he’s got plenty more tricks in his bag.
From my pal Dan Hope of Eleven Warriors:
“It’s so hard to say because at the Ohio State, the expectations are so high, right? So I mean, what really is ahead of schedule? I would say for anywhere else in the first-year defense, you’d say you’re way ahead of schedule. For Ohio State, you just say we’re doing our job,” Knowles said Tuesday. “We’re on schedule because we’re doing what we’re supposed to do. This is what we’re supposed to do as a defense at Ohio State, so we’re on schedule.”
While the Buckeyes have introduced new wrinkles and personnel groupings into their defense throughout the season, Knowles says they still have more in their arsenal that they haven’t shown yet, giving them more change-ups to throw at teams as needed in the homestretch of the season.
“We’ve practiced a lot of things that we haven’t used,” Knowles said.
Jim Knowles hasn’t shown anything more than he’s needed to show in any game this season, and I respect the hell out of him for it.
Against Northwestern, while the Wildcats were loading the line of scrimmage with big bodies and running out of 13 personnel, Ohio State basically just said “meh, we’ll just chill in our base look and stop you anyway.” And outside of one drive, they shut them the hell down.
Ohio State has one of the best defenses in the country without really even trying to do anything exotic or crazy. But I fully believe it’s there.
- IT’S A GREAT YEAR FOR GETTING BETTER
I’m not sure y’all need a chart to tell you this, but Ohio State is better this season than they were last season!
If you want to see how this looks split between offense and defense, Ohio State’s offense has actually gotten a little bit worse (which means dipping from the best offense in the country to… still the best offense in the country).
… but God bless our Vegan Grandpa.
Very cool, very good! But the only real “improvement” that matters here is related to that scoreboard on Nov. 26. And if I’m understanding these charts correctly, it appears that Michigan has improved, too.
EAT ARBY’S. Hot female students no longer earned higher grades when classes moved online… A murder roils the cycling world… Airport security, a gun, and a chicken… Turns out, octopuses fight dirty… The curious case of the World Cup catfish…