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10-24-03 (6:10am) friday is a travel day for the vg and the cbg usually for high school football but not this friday. instead of heading up to akron to see tony pittman versus the wells brothers at garfield we are heading to columbus to watch the game on tv with some friends. should be a snoozer for a change. indiana has something stupid like only 65 or 70 scholarship players this season and they just aren't very deep let alone good. the bucks are giving 20 and a half this week on the road and the vg couldn't see taking that as one of his four teamers. i passed on the bucks. i have been getting my nuts beat in trying to predict 4 damn college football games against the spread for my amusement only. the best i have done is 3 winners which equals one big loser. this week i decided to go into all four games with the lead and pick all underdogs. there weren't a ton of attractive dogs out there this week but i liked four of em enough to circle. first game i picked was the michigan and purdue game. the game is at michigan and they are giving purdue 5 and a half. i honestly think purdue has the better defense and the more diversified and explosive offense. this spread looks like a misprint to me and i took the boilermakers plus the 5 and a half with some confidence. game number two i took would be great for the bucks bcs chances if they could win outright. i honestly don't expect wake forest to outright beat the florida state criminoles but i don't ecpect the jim grobe demon deacons to lose by 19 and a half either. wake forest should be able to eat up some clock if nothing else and perhaps score once or twice. you know chris rix is going to have his momentary lapse of vision and keep this game close. game number three was a tough call but an attractive dog. former top10 team arkansas is getting a point and a half on the road at ole miss. arkansas is a solid team but so are the rebels. ole miss features eli manning at qb and a better than usual defense. i don't have much confidence here but i liked the hogs as a dog and took the point and a half with them. the fourth and final game is another game that would be a huge help for the buckeyes. washington is getting 10 and a half points at home against the trojans of usc. usc like florida state is ranked ahead of the buckeyes and a loss for them would be huge for us. also here we get the bonus points for having beat the washington huskies earlier in the season for strength of schedule and perhaps even quality win points, who knows. this is another game that scared me but i liked it with the points. you gotta figure that reggie williams will lose a trojan db or two for a few points at least. anyways those were my picks for the week. i picked games that interest me and could help the buckeyes out in the bcs, it should make saturday all that more interesting. speaking of interesting you gotta think our bcs chances are interesting if we can at least do a weak impression of a credible offense any time soon. if the bucks could just put up 20 or 25 points a game this defense would make sure we win out and get a chance to defend the title. right now oklahoma and miami are both undefeated and we need at least one of them to lose at least once for sure, we might even need them both to lose at least once. other teams that are potentially in our way are one loss usc, one loss florida state, and one loss georgia. all three of those teams are ranked in the bcs highly enough to possibly bump the buckeyes from their opportunity to defend the title if they win out. a loss by them may or may not be necessary but it sure would help. after the loss to wisconsin you gotta think the bucks odds of getting back to the championship game are probably slim but we aren't eliminated yet if we can just keep winning, how pretty it is doesn't really matter. sure the offense sucks but the defense and special teams are lights out and could just carry us back. just win baby. anyways, i need to head into work and then get on the highway tonight. should be a fun weekend assuming the buckeyes win which i say is probably a 17 - 0 game. who knows, maybe 17 - 2 if we take a safety on purpose late in the game to avoid the risk of getting a punt from our endzone blocked for a score. more this weekend 10-22-03 (6pm) another long day of work wednesday is finally over for the vg and i honestly have nothing to say that i can think of. we'll see what i can come up with on the fly. from the jim tressel press conference yesterday there was some news. first off it looks like mike jenkins will be back returning punts from now on. on a related note chris gamble will now be the punt sniper killer. he will be responsible for stopping the gunners from getting down field and making the play. in other news from the presser, it looks like bryce bishop will not be starting this week at guard. stepanovich will be at guard again with mangold still at center. not that the offensive line played any better at all last week but at least the coaches are open to trying new combinations. this saturday we get a piece of indiana. indiana is poor to say the least. nobody is expecting much of a game but to make it interesting we have a pretty poor offense so this one should be a low scoring snoozer, right now i am thinking buckeyes 17 - 0. basically i am just hoping for a win but i do have some secondary goals against indiana too. with all the close games this season we haven't had the opportunity to get much mage action for the backups and the young guys. the only reason indiana still plays football is to give buckeye fans a short 'road' trip where we will outnumber their fans 2 to 1 and to give teams a good opportunity to develop the youth. simply put indiana sucks like lloyd carr on a speaking engagement for the UM alumni at the local prison. i definitely want to see troy smith finally throw a ball in a live game situation. i also need to see justin zwick get some more action. another group i am anxious to see get some game action is the offensive line. i know we don't have much depth but i would like to get them some seasoning if at all possible. another player i am excited to see get some substantial minutes is true freshman defensive tackle david patterson. with young guys like him, quinn pitcock, and marcus green in the trenches you gotta like the future at defensive tackle. anyways i am excited to see some of the new blood get a chance to hit somebody finally. anyways i am going to get with the cbg and play a little xbox tonight. think positive thoughts for west virginia against virginia tech tonight (8pm). more thursday. 10-20-03 (5:40pm) monday is over with finally and i am anxious to read up on the buckeyes. there were some links out there today but you know what i don't feel much like linking them at this late point in the day. i would much rather just start making up some crap on the fly and see if any of it is any good. i had a good football weekend this weekend. friday night me and the cbg saw dover in action. dover features notre dame verbal chauncey incarnado as well as top shelf freshman wideout (but will probably be a qb for the next three years) dan ifft jr. dover rolled to an easy victory and was impressive in doing so. chauncey has very legit size and mobility. he didn't dominate the game as you would expect an ND verbal to do against a team like indian valley but he didn't get pushed around either and made some really nice plays to boot. right now i tend to think of him as an offensive tackle but i believe ND is thinking more of using him as a defensive tackle. either way he looks like a solid prospect that will be a much better player in 4 or 5 years as a senior for sure. he should be able to add even more size to his 6'5" to 6'7" ish frame (he is widely reported as being 6'7" but i wasn't able to get a good read from my crappy seats honestly; i did think he was at least a little taller than me though so he is 6'5" minimum). as for ifft jr, he looked as good as advertised. he wasn't blazing fast (he is only a freshman afterall) but he was definitely very quick and has the potential to run some really good times for a guy his size when he is a senior. i would say ifft looked to be somewhere in the 6'3" range. when you see him on the field it is honestly hard to believe he is only a freshman. being a coaches son you gotta think he knows what he is doing out on the field and that is the impression we got, especially from his blocking at the wide out position. his hands were adequate as a receiver and he looked like he could be a really good possession receiver in college but it seems his future is at qb at least for the next three years. anyways he is one to keep an eye on for the next 3 years in high school ball. saturday was all football all day. i actually did go to work again this saturday and didn't get home until about 3pm (coincidence that the bucks kicked off at 3:30 you think). anyways i watched the buckeyes prove yet again that you only need to dominate two out of three phases of the game (defense, special teams, and offense) and not make mistakes in the third phase to win consistently. the game was closer than i like but i am starting to get used to the style of play and didn't even chew on an aspirin just in case this weekend. after the buckeye victory me and the cbg were in the car within minutes of the game ending gamble pick and on the way to massillon for an 8pm kickoff against warren harding. harding rolled massillon pretty easily. osu offer mario manningham (junior) played pretty good despite not getting the ball often. i got a few useable film clips for the site for sure. fellow junior rocco cironi looked like he is filling out his 6'6" frame nicely in his second year at starting tackle. cironi isn't getting a bunch of publicity but he has the nice frame and the good coaching and could develop into a top offensive line prospect by the time his senior year is over. as for the senior prospects at warren harding i thought their big three were all impressive. richard davis looks bigger this year than the two times i saw him play last year. he still seems to be really explosive and is going to make some college very happy before it is all done. quarterback alex engram looked great. he is elusive in the pocket and out of the pocket and has a nice arm and put the ball on target all night long. i don't think he is quite the athlete that troy smith is but that is exactly who engram reminded me of saturday. last but not least is senior tailback prospect delbert ferguson. ferguson lined up as both fullback and tailback. he didn't seem comfortable as a fullback yet (due to it being his first year there) but looked at home at tailback. he busted off a couple of really nice runs in the first half and in the third quarter before being injured. i had all 40x optical zoom on delbert when it went down and it wasn't pretty. delbert ran into some defenders and broke his leg (at least that is what i heard and it looks like on my film). he did have his only fumble of the game on that particular play but if you were to see the hit and the punishment that his leg took you would probably understand the fumble (you won't see that film on this site ever by the way, it is pretty gross). i hope the colleges that made a scholarship offer to delbert live up to their 'promise' and come through with the scholarship. as for the buckeyes you have to be disappointed in the offensive production but you have to like the efforts of the coaches to mix it up a little more with the play calling. we threw more often and from more formations and even tried a flea flicker and an end around. we even ran ira guilford decent amount until he came down with the dreaded shoulder stinger. it almost seems as if the offensive coaching staff has been reading the fans bitching on the message boards. sure none of the new stuff led to any points or increased production but you have to give the coaches credit trying to mix things up and even more credit to the iowa defense and kirk ferenz for being able to stop it. anyways i really don't have anything else to add to the mix tonight. i need to feed the belly and help the cbg make up a 50 - 50 football pool (for charity for real). we are going to go with a mix of local high school football, college, and NFL football with made up point spreads. anyways more tuesday, ideally in the morning but if not.... 10-18-03 (halftime) flea flicker, when the hell did we come up with that. nice play call too bad the official didn't see it that way. oh well. anyways the buckeyes lead the hawkeyes 10 - 3 and all is good. i just got home from work at 3pm so screw the links and on to some first half notes. start off with the special teams for obvious reasons today. mike jenkins had the huge punt return for a touchdown. i haven't seen the bucks return a kick for a score in something like four years. great job by MJ. mike nugent also hit a fairly long field goal and drilled the kickoffs deep every time. excellent job by the nuge. unsung special teams heroes are tyler everett, jason bond and ashton youboty. all three have been doing an excellent job on the kick returns containing the dangerous ochoa. nobody should be suprised by jason bond dominating on kick coverage if they have been watching carefully the past few years. losing jason bond to graduation will be a bigger loss than most casual fans will ever understand. final note on special teams is bj sander. bj has been getting some really good air under his punts today and limiting what ochoa can do. way to live up to the potential bj. offensively you have a mixed bag again. drew carter is still playing like a senior and you gotta like that. otherwise there weren't many offensive fireworks. on the negative side, shane olivea looked like either he weighed about 150 pounds or he forgot the snap count because he just got totally pancaked one play. linemen are supposed to be the pancaker not the pancakee. defensively you have to give the unit lots of credit. iowa had the one really good drive at the end of the first quarter but came up short of the end zone thanks to everyone's favorite aj hawk and had to settle for three. other guys standing out include safeties nate salley and will allen. both guys have had a crushing hit so far and i expect many more in the second half. i saw freddie pagac make a nice tackle in the first quarter. middle linebacker has not been as stong as it was in the matt wilhelm era. nice to see some production from the position. bobby carpenter has played well in replacing the suspended one. then of course there is aj hawk. he may have had the lowest expectations of most fans when he was recruited but now no linebacker has higher expectations on his shoulder pads than aj. so far aj is living up to what us fans expect from him. last but not least is the defensive line deserving some credit. especially the defensive tackles. they have done a good job of pushing the iowa line back in the qb's face and making chandler hurry up and get rid of the ball or pull it down. anyways that is all i have for now. i am going to massillon washington versus warren harding tonight at 8pm so no more updates until sunday. enjoy. 10-16-03 (6:10am) lately the snooze bar has been just kicking my ass every morning. that extra 20 - 40 minutes of sleep is very hard to turn down at 5:30am. not today though. the snooze bar has nothing on me, i am up and ready to try and come up with something before the sun begins to sizzle. here we go with some random nonsense. the big topic is iowa of course (i am done with the robert reynolds topic for now unless i find something funny about it), but you know what i don't know jack about iowa. we haven't played them in some time now and i am unfamiliar with their program as a result so screw that and on to some recruiting stuff. it has been a rough year for me seeing high school football. i went to two friday night games (out of 8 weeks so far) where the only player i went to see did not play (osu verbals miles williams and alex boone). oh well. i also missed another game while travelling for nc state. that leaves me with five games i hit in the regular season (as well as two scrimmages i saw in the preseason). so far the biggest names i have seen are erik haw, sirjo welch, antonio pittman, mike massey, brian hoyer, jim ramella, ryan brinson, javon ringer, anthony turner, brandon harrison, nick smith, ted ginn jr, curtis smith, freddie lennix, chad hoobler, and fred davis. i know i am way behind on posting film and pics of most of these guys and honestly that isn't going to change tonight but i will get out some more comments. recently i was talking high school football with some dude and he was asking me who all i saw so far and who was the most dominant high school player i saw out of those guys. that was a no brainer i thought. ted ginn jr played lights out the game i saw. not only did he dominate a fairly good massillon perry team (thereby killing the very valid weak senate league competition argument) but he did it in style. nobody was even close to ginn's speed and his moves in the open field were outstanding. it is kind of funny but the glenville program keeps having all these great nationally ranked corners year after year (donte whitner and dareus hiley last year, ted ginn this year and osu verbal jamario o'neal next year) but you know what i can see a realisitic possibility that none of them ever play corner. whitner is starting out at safety for the bucks (though the injury to ej underwood may force a position change here). dareus hiley has always looked like a slot receiver to me (funny thing here is i just typed slut receiver instead of slot, wonder where my mind is...). ted ginn is so damn electric with the ball in his hands it is eerily reminiscent of lloyd carr with balls in his mouth. i can definitely see ginn at least getting a shot at receiver and being a terry glenn or joey galloway type of talent out there. jamario o'neal on the other hand has that good hitting mentality that you want for a defensive player (think donte) but he is equally electric. i could see o'neal playing safety, corner, linebacker, receiver, or running back in college. hell i wouldn't put it past him playing quarterback if we were an option style team. the guy is just money with the ball in his hands. anyways ted ginn jr is by far and away the most dominant high school player i have seen so far this season. close runners up would be javon ringer the tailback from dayton c-j, the ignatius duo of qb brian hoyer and te-de mike massey, glenville linebacker freddie lennix and toledo rogers athlete fred davis. this week is week nine of the high school season and i already have tickets for a saturday night game for massillon washington versus warren harding. harding has tons of talent on the roster (delbert ferguson, richard davis, alex engram, anthony hoke, mario manningham, rocco cironi, and tony reed for starters). manningham has the scholarship offer and man is he fun to watch play ball for a junior. i saw him twice last season as a soph and he just exploded on the scene inbetween those two games i saw. i am highly pumped to see super mario in action saturday night. i am equally pumped to see what is up with delbert ferguson. delbert was dominant both times i saw him last year (for youngstown ursuline) and he isn't getting the love from the colleges or the so called recruiting experts (whose credentials are highly questionable for the most part). i am thinking delbert is still bothered by the hamstring injury (at least i think it was a hamstring injury i heard) and that is why he isn't having the year many of us expected. you know what though, injuries heal and i can see delbert turning it on in the playoffs this year and if not for some very lucky college for the next four or five years after that. for those that are giving up on delbert or bad mouthing him, i would watch what you say, he is still the only true big10 power back out there and i personally would love to get him in the program some how some way. anyways that is saturday night the warren harding game. i still don't have plans for friday night yet. i am going to try and stay local again and there aren't any marquee matchups in my area of interest for buckeye fans but i will see a verbal or top uncerclassman i am sure. carrollton versus canal fulton northwest features chad hoobler and should be an interesting game that is within an hour drive and is under consideration right now. another team i am thinking about seeing is dover which features ND verbal chauncey incarnado. i know for a fact that an osu coach was at at least two dover games this season and they are still in contact with the dover program. i tend to think chauncey is a done deal to ND but you never know if we offer him late. anyways i was talking to a former dover player at work this week about their team and he mentioned that an osu coach was there recently to check out some of the action. i figured that they were there to see chauncey in person and check out freshman phenom dan ifft jr (the coaches son who is playing wide out now but will probably throw for around 3000 minimum next year as the sophomore starting qb in the kenton style offense). the guy who played for dover and is still actively involved with the team said ifft is the real deal and a very solid 6'3" or so with a great arm. i haven't seen him play but i have heard some very interesting stories about him from too many people to not want to see him in action. an interesting thing the dover guy told me was that osu was also checking out dover two way lineman phillipi (sp?; he could have said phillips too; not sure exactly). with the total lack of hype about phillipi i imagine it was more likely about walking on in some sort of manner (either straight up walk on, gray shirt, preferred walk on or whatever). i have no idea if any of that is true but the coaches are definitely sniffing around in tuscarawus county for some talent. anyways, dover is another possibility for friday night for sure. after this week there is only one more week left in the regular season for high school football before the five week playoff season begins and i get a last chance to see some of the top players that i missed during the regular season (though i will probably see them all in the ohio north south game held in that commie sport soccer stadium in columbus). the high school playoffs are usually a bunch of fun with the weather getting uglier than michigan bitches (though michigan did represent rather well in the playboy girls of the big10 last month). unfortunately i don't like to travel too far with the poor weather so i will probably stay local for the most part. anyways that is all the recruiting nonsense i feel i am qualified to talk about. sure it would probably be more interesting if i talked about colorado offensive lineman jeff byers and his decision to make an announcement in about a month out of the 5 schools he visited (of which we were one of the five which sounds like a 20 percent chance of landing the nations top high school lineman to me). but you know what other than that sentence i really don't know much about jeff byers or his deal so why just make up crap. i leave that to other sites with their fake verbals and what not. as for me, it is time to go get the earn on. more later if i can think of something funny while at work that doesn't involve random bitches or whatnot. enjoy. 10-14-03 (6pm) another way too long of day is finally over for the vg. i got to make up my own plastic formula at work today, coming from a quality control and product development lab before this it wasn't hard or anything but it was a little odd to run the formula without testing it in a lab first. we just ran with it and saw what happened and reacted from there. i kind of played it cautious and conservative (the tressel style of compounding plastics i guess) but it all worked out well in the end. not much going on in the buckeye nation today other than the weekly tuesday press conference. check out that link for the full transcript. no big news out of the presser honestly but on a slow day it is well worth the read. the bucks play this saturday at 3:30pm in the shoe against iowa. the game is on abc (depending where you live of course) and being done by brent musberger. some buckeye fans hate brent and some love him, honestly i am indifferent to most announcers. it isn't them that i am there for so as long as they don't detract from my viewing experience i am cool with just about anybody announcing our game. for those looking to spice up the game there is always the unofficial brent musberger drinking game. it is a pretty serious drink fest honestly and i would highly recommending dropping some of the multiple drinks down to a single drink at least the first time you play there pardner. anyways i just wanted to pass along those two links for now. i have some crap to do tonight (good type of crap) and then i plan on doing some more work on pics for the site. i found a bunch of decent pics of prospects for the past several high school games i went to and the next step is to finally start capping off some of the video i have shot the past month. anyways fun crap here i come. 10-13-03 (6:45pm) the big news other than the loss to wisconsin is the slight choking of jim sorgi by robert reynolds. reynolds issued an apology and i expect we will hear if there is a suspension (thinking one game here) during the tuesday press conference. while it may or may not be a one game suspension it could be a bunch more if bobby carpenter gets the chance to shine. bobby has been looking good this year for a young guy. sure there are tons of links out there but it is dinner time and we all have had our fill of links today so on to some random thoughts instead. before going there though i need to clarify something for CYA purposes. the term fag in great brittain is slang for cigarette and that is the only way i intend to use the term for the rest of this update. i was watching the movie 'goodfellas' recently. i love the movie and have seen it several times. anyways despite having seen this movie a billion times i just recently picked up on a line that just cracked me up and became the catch phrase of the past few weeks for me and some friends. the scene is where the restaurant owner is pleading for help from pauly (paul sorvino) and henry hill (ray liotta) with tommy (joe pesci). tommy had been running up a huge tab and basically is running the place into the ground and the owner was tired of it. anyways the restaurant owner says 'he's treating me like i'm half a fag or something'. the line just cracked me up and i had to add it to the mix. i busted out 'half a fag' on the crazy bearded guy and the irish patent attorney originally. they both liked it from the get go and the catch phrase was born. i kept threatening to bust it out that college football weekend when we went out for some fast food dinner or to get more beer. i was going to get screwed by not getting ketchup or enough pepper or something stupid like that and i was going to over react big time and just bust it out. then i realized that there are just way too many good comebacks for that such as being a complete fag. i then knew that we couldn't bust out the phrase too much in public. it was do or die for the catch phrase and it evolved to live another week. we started rating the fag level of anything and everything that crossed our paths. if someone pulled out in front of me in traffic they were a quarter a fag. if they had michigan plates on the car they were 100% usda certified fag. stuff like that. anyways after living for about two weeks the catch phrase was getting worn out but it was still in use. me and the cbg were on our way to a high school football game friday night and due to heavy traffic everyone was registering rather high on the fag scale. i guess i must have used it one too many times that night because the cbg tried to pull some psychiatric shit out on me with 'your using the term fag so much i think you might secretly be a fag'. i know the homophobia argument but i wasn't buying it (though i did find it funny since i was and am using the term fag british style as in short for cigarettes just to cover my ass from those camel wide styles that may be offended by this). that got me thinking. just becuase you use a term or whatever and that is socially unacceptable does it mean you actually want to be or are in fact one. for example do you honestly think that howard stern show whack pack member daniel carver of the kkk secretly is or desires to be a black man (or jewish dude, asian guy, or a gay man)? hell no. that doesn't make him right either but it is still america and he is still entitled to his opinion. i know the term half a fag probably isn't politically correct but you know what i am not a politician so don't hold me to that silly standard. i only use the catch phrase around friends and family and not in my professional life, so what if it isn't socially acceptable we think it is funny and that is all that matters. what the hell does any of this have to do with the buckeyes and football, i certainly hope nothing. i just thought it was funny and would share it with everyone out there. maybe it will get me in a good mood after that crushing loss saturday night and back in ation. this week is iowa. i honestly didn't think much of iowa in the preseason. i think i remember saying they might even lose 6 or 7 games in conference play. in hindsight that was a pretty stupid opinion of mine. iowa still looks relatively strong despite the turnover on the offensive line and at quarterback. i am hoping that the home field advantage is strong saturday and iowa faces some of the same difficulties that we saw against wisconsin but i doubt it. i am expecting a rather lame and tame crowd coming off the first loss in years. i hope i am wrong but i don't see it. sadly i won't be there for the game. i will be working saturday morning again before watching the bucks on the tube at 3:30pm. i have tickets for massillon vs warren harding saturday night at 7:30pm so i may need to head up to a bar in massillon to watch the bucks before the big high school game. anyways back to iowa. the bucks really need a break out offensive game sooner than later. i don't think what we are doing right now is going to suddenly click so maybe it is time for something else. since i have such extensive football expertise in ea sports college football i am obviously quite qualified to comment on how my dumb ass would fix the offense so here we go. i have heard lot of fans rant on and on about us running more outside the tackles and even throwing a screen pass or two but i don't know if that is the answer. mobility isn't exactly a strength of our offensive line. i honestly would like to see a screen pass but i would stick with running between the tackles perhaps with no fullback and two tight ends a little more often. the fullbacks have underperformed when healthy and the tight ends are a strength of the team. maybe mix up the running plays a little bit more and perhaps even throw on first down and stop play action passing in obvious passing downs. i really liked the option style shovel pass the buckeyes ran to the tight end. i can see that being a nice weapon along with straight up old school option some point in the season (say november 22nd perhaps). as for the passing game we seemed really effective out of the shotgun against wisconsin. i don't want to see us go to this every down but a little more often and perhaps even on first down would be nice to see. another thing i would like to see is a little bit more motion presnap. i love to send the receivers and tight ends in motion to see how the defense reacts presnap and get an idea of the coverage scheme they are running. this of course means that we need to get the play into krenzel quicker than we have been (which has been really slow for the past two years it seems). if we can get the play into the offense a little quicker we should be able to get krenzel a little extra information for that big brain of his to process and make good decisions off of. another thing i would like to see in the offense is a little hurry up or even no huddle. we have some nice versatility on offense. maurice hall has the ability to spread out wide and be an effective receiver or at least a good decoy. if we were to line up with split backs (mo hall and lydell ross) and then split out hall wide we should be able to get him in a match up on a safety at worse. the no huddle would eliminate the opportunity for the defense to adjust personnel and the safety on hall should free up jenkins or even gamble in one on one coverage. anyways that is all i have for now. i hope to not snooze it up in the morning and post some linkage for a change but i don't know about that. it is way too easy to slap down on that snooze bar and get that extra 20 minutes or so in the morning. i will set the alarm for 5:30 like usual though so you never know. enjoy. 10-12-03 (12:40pm) obviously all bucks fans are down today but nobody is more down than the team and honestly the sky hasn't quite hit the ground yet. we are still a top 10 team in the nation and if we continue to win out we will be in a BCS type bowl or perhaps even in new orleans still with a little luck. we all new the streak had to come to an end and i think lots of us thought last night was going to be the type of game and team that would end the streak. oh well. shit happens. there are tons of links today being the day after the game but i don't feel like going there today. instead just some quick comments on the game and other things. the buckeye offensive line could only hold that number 77 for wisconsin. if they didn't hold him, he beat our line plain and simple. getting beat by a better man is one thing but i would like to see the holding calls go both ways. i can't remember seeing a blatant hold on the osu defensive line but i can't remember one holding penalty on wisconsin either. you can't tell me they didn't hold our line at least once, it isn't like they are the michigan line which never gets called for holding. craig krenzel was not sharp at all last night and probably should have made way for scott mcmullen (or even a trick play by troy smith, think pass) for at least a series or two. there was a point in the game where krenzel got clocked and got up limping. right then i would have brought him to the sideline and inserted mcmullen. on the next play krenzel seemed hobbled to the point where it made the handoff not smooth and gave our back even less of a chance of getting back to the line of scrimmage. speaking of the line of scrimmage, man did our line suck ass last night. i don't recall mike kne getting a chance to help out but in hindsight he couldn't have done any worse. the right guard position and center position in particular seemed out of synch to me. they made the badger defensive tackles look like NFL hall of famers. speaking of the NFL hall of fame, chris spielman is on the early list of NFL hall of fame nominees. they cut that list down again one or two more times and then they vote. tough competition for spiels on the ballot with names like barry sanders and john elway but is there a tougher guy out there than spielman. the pride of massillon should be a first ballot inductee in my opinion and if he isn't i encourage all those who can to attend the induction ceremony this year and protest the lack of spielman in the HOF. speaking of massillon, i was at the massillon - dayton chaminade-julienne game friday night. javon ringer only looked slightly larger (5'9"ish and maybe up to 200 pounds) but he did look tough as nails. ringer ran over, around, and through the tiger defense and made them look quite pathetic while doing it. i had a pretty good day with the digital camcorder too and got some really good highlights to post if i ever get into the studio again. i would have to say that javon ringer was by far the best back i have seen this year (the only real competition being mckinley's ryan brinson who had a tough day against ignatius). ringer's speed isn't blazing but his toughness is amazing. he seems to have the potential to grow another inch and maybe another 10 or 20 pounds and keep that low center of gravity (which i love in tailbacks and hate in chicks) and be a big ten type of back that can run between the tackles (as opposed to running into the back of an offensive lineman). back to the buckeyes and the story of the day the robert reynolds choking of jim sorgi. while obviously it isn't the nice guy thing to do football isn't a nice guy game and that is why we all love it and you know it. football is a tough sport and an emotional game and reynolds emotions got the better of him for about 2 seconds. unfortunately it was caught on camera. this type of thing happens in every pile up in every football game at every level, not many of them are on in prime time tv with the good camera angle though. i have heard some guys say that they know this type of thing happens all the time but they have never seen a guy sit out the rest of the game after being choked and i got to agree i haven't seen it either, but who knows maybe sorgi is just a big pussy and that is why he couldn't return. anyways the bucks lost and we all knew it was going to happen eventually. obviously we still have serious issues on offense but i think we should have confidence in the coaches to get it fixed by november 22nd. tressel's teams seem to get better as the year goes on and we all, including the coaches, know where that improvement needs to come. i would honestly stop dreaming of the sugar bowl and start thinking it is time to make another run for the roses. as for me it is time to start thinking about lunch before the 1pm kickoffs. enjoy if at all possible. 10-08-03 (6:55pm) after another long tuesday and equally excrutiating wednesday (notice the tuesday and wednesday pattern for me unfortunately) i am back in the friendly confines and ready to read up on the bucks. there were a bunch of links out there this morning (not that my snooze bar hitting ass read any of them in the morning) but i imagine most fans have already checked out the links so why waste valuable update time on them i figure. instead on to some random thoughts. i am really pumped to see javon ringer friday night. i saw ringer and fellow super junior tailback ryan brinson each last year and while they were both highly impressive i thought brinson was the better player (even against much much much better competition [warren harding vs a canadian team]). this year i saw brinson against another supremely talented team (cleveland st ignatius) and he was contained rather nicely. not that brinson didn't still look as athletic as hell, he just didn't look any bigger one year later. javon ringer, like ryan brinson, has issues with size (as a sophomore i must stress). now he is a junior and i can't wait to see how he has developed and stacks up against massillon washington. while massillon is still one of the best (if not the best) team in stark county they aren't exactly ignatius or warren harding on defense either. massillon looks kind of small i thought in the trenches (better there than in the pants) so dayton c-j should be able to blow open a hole or twenty. anyways, that is where me and the cbg will be friday night (8pm kick if you are interested). we got seats on the home side on about the 45 yard line and are pumped up big time. i haven't been into the studio to do any highlights in a long time honestly. time has been a scarce commodity lately for the vg as i have been working long hours and almost every saturday this season as well a little bit. the crazy thing is that all this extra work probably isn't going to die down until we are finally settled in at our new facility which is ironically january. basically we got busy as hell just for football season. some luck huh. at least the money is good (and the bucks are undefeated). on the recruiting front the buckeyes seem to have another verbal in the name of dionte johnson out of eastmoor. dionte of course is pepper johnson's boy. johnson will come in as a fullback at a time when the program could use another good fullback. i gotta admit i have never seen dionte play so i really won't go into 'expert' mode and pretend to know anything about him other than his dad. i gotta wonder about the nickname though. you know how those witty sportswriters can't just use his name. my money is on some sort of play off of pepper, they will probably call him cayenne pepper. otherwise there isn't much going on in the buckeye nation today. we all know that krenzel and stepanovich are supposed to be back and 100%, the big question is where does step play. i kind of think nick mangold gets the nod at center and step slides over to guard. i guess that makes bryce bishop the sixth man along with former walkon mike kne. you know what though, i don't really care who the hell we got on the line i just want to see some hole like any man. anyways i got very little in the tank tonight so i am logging off the net and going to jump on the xbox and kick a little wisconsin ass tonight. enjoy, i sure plan to. 10-06-03 (7:11pm) just checking in with nothing really to say honestly. i took the past few days off the site as i relaxed and man did it feel good. i went up to massillon friday night to watch the lakewood st eds - massillon game. massillon looks a little small to me and eds looked quite large. unfortunately the largest player for eds didn't suit up. osu verbal and eds junior tackle alex boone was not in uniform and me and the cbg couldn't spot him on the sideline either from across the field. i have no idea if he was hurt or had a grades thing or a discipline thing or what. needless to say we weren't happy about it. that is two games we hit this year without the one verbal we went to see not playing for whatever reason (austintown fitch wide out miles williams was the other). this is putting a serious cramp in my filming habits and i hope this trend comes to an end here pretty soon. this friday me and the cbg will be at massillon again for the game against dayton chaminade-julienne. hopefully junior tailback javon ringer plays and plays well. i can't wait to see how he developed physically from last year. the bucks didn't play last weekend and the rest should do the team well if we avoid the rust. this coming weekend the bucks finally hit the road and travel to wisconsin to take on the physical badgers. this game scares me from a football philosophy standpoint but i think we have the better athletes and will pull out a close one (shocker huh). what wisconsin does with the beefy line and running right at the defense should negate our speed on D and test the highly touted (and deservedly so) buckeye defensive line. i still think we will win though. the wisky D hasn't impressed me or the CBG as being sound tacklers and that should lead to a big play or two for the good guys offense and that should be enough. i played a parlay sheet last week (for amusement only of course). i went with a four teamer. i had minnesota giving northwestern a paltry 10 and a half points and michigan state giving indiana only 15 and a half. the way i looked at it, you could combine the talent of both northwestern and indiana into one team and they still couldn't beat any other big10 team so i thought those were slam dunks and i won both of those games. the third game on my parlay sheet was michigan giving three to iowa. i don't think much of iowa honestly so i gladly gave up the three and took an ass beating on this game as a result. sure i didn't win any amusement but michigan lost and i saw lloyd carr whine like the little bitch he is and that was quite amusing. not that it made a difference but the fourth and final game on my parlay was tennesse getting two points against auburn. preseason i figured that auburn would lose maybe 5 or 6 games despite being ranked fifth or sixth in the nation and they are well on the way to making me look smart. anyways auburn won the game outright saturday and knocked off top10 tennecheats. i went 2-2 against the spread this week and that doesn't add any amusement to the old wallet, oh well. like i said at least i hedged my bet with the satisfaction of seeing michigan choke. if you couldn't tell i am way behind on site administration things. email hasn't even been checked in a month. the database is really really out of date. the upcoming events is months outdated and i still haven't filed off august or september updates to make the page load faster. i hope to catch up on some of this this offweek but i am going to just get rid of some of it too. the new job is going great and i am loving the extra cash for sure but it is cutting into my free time big time and it has forced me to rethink what i am capable of keeping up to date. i am going to gradually scale back the site to synch it up with my schedule here and try not to cover as much half assed and cover a small portion or two with my full ass instead. anyways that is what has been going on lately. i have been sleeping in lately but i am going to try and start getting up again at either 5 or 5:30am and getting back into the habit of the morning update and the after work update. it is football season afterall and i should be stepping up right about now instead of backing off. anyways more in the morning with any luck (and a good nights sleep). enjoy fear factor tonight as well as the colts (mike doss) vs tampa bay. 10-02-03 (5:15pm) back to my normal work schedule finally and it is good to be back on the routine. i did take advantage of some time off yesterday to take care of something big for me and the website. yesterday afternoon i ventured over to the massillon ticket office and snagged some sweet seats for their next three games. this friday me and the cbg will see massillon host lakewood st eds, next friday dayton chaminade-julienne rolls into town, and the saturday after that warren harding is coming in and ready for war. it should be three fun night games for sure. lakewood st eds features osu verbal junior offensive lineman alex boone. it will be my first extended look at boone so that should be cool. dayton chaminade julienne features junior tailback javon ringer. i saw ringer in person once last year (and even hit the 50-50 that game) and i saw him another time on the tube. ringer was impressive both games and it will be interesting to see how he has developed since thenn. warren harding features almost too much talent to list (guys like delbert ferguson, alex engram, anthony hoke,mario manningham, rocco cironi, and so on and so forth). anyways i will be sitting between the forties on the visitors side and filming all the action for the site. as for today i honestly have nothing in my tank. i am a little wiped out from working nights monday thru wednesday (we have a new midnights pvc compounder at work and since that is my specialty i trained him personally [instead of having to deal with his errors in the morning]). anyways before i grab some grub and fill my belly i wanted to pass along one link worth the read. 1460 the fan had a decent article this morning all about marcus green. enjoy. 10-01-03 (9:15am) just some linkage for the morning. suprisingly there are tons of links this wednesday morning for a bye week. anyways here we go. the dayton daily news has a notebook on osu football with info on the status of angelo chattams. the akron beacon journal has a link on the osu offense and a notebook on the buckeyes. in further linkage the canton repository has a link on deja vu all over again as well as a piece on maurice clarett and the NFL. the cleveland plain dealer has articles also on the osu offense and the NFL status of maurice clarett. last link for the morning is from 1460 the fan on student tickets for the buckeye games. no real news out there today but at least there are lots of articles out there to keep us regular. more later as i enjoy having off all day wednesday. |