bicranium

Here are Bill Greene's thoughts on the hire. He's a king of hyperbole but he does nail it sometimes... If any of that is close to true, he HAS to be in charge of the defense. Fickell keeps his salary and his co-DC title, Ash in charge right away. He was the sole DC at Wiscy and Arky... I don't think he'd come to OSU to work under Fickell... Just saw Ross Fulton shares the same opinion as me... no way he makes a lateral move without having the playcalling ability. I am officially excite.

Arkansas was a mess this year, no doubt. But he was Wisconsin's DC when they went to 3 straight Rose Bowls. Here's his bio from the Arkansas site... http://www.arkansasrazorbacks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=205823880 I like it personally. Had really high ranking defenses at Wisconsin with less talent than OSU. Now it's just a matter of finding out who's going to actually call the defense, Ash or Fickell? Been Fickell the last 2 years. I would have liked Durkin more but his specialty (LB/DL) wasn't what OSU needed.

And just like that, out of nowhere, OSU hires Arkansas DC Chris Ash as co-DC. So looks like LJ Sr. will be strictly DL coach. Could see Ash calling the defense with Luke just having the title. We'll see.

Really, all three (Durkin, Johnson, Joseph) seem like great choices. I would have liked to see Durkin come in and take over the defense with Luke keeping a co-DC title but Durkin being in charge. But since Durkin is just LB/DL that's just not going to happen once this Johnson thing becomes official. At this point, if Johnson is in, it looks like OSU just needs another secondary coach, with Joseph being the only name that's been thrown around with any consistency. On another note, the Maryland attorney general just filed a $157m counter-suit against the ACC alleging that ACC leadership tried to lure unnamed B1G schools to the ACC under the advisement of ESPN. That whole thing is turning into quite a clusterfuck.

According to several sources (most notably SI's Pete Thamel) Johnson is close to finalizing a deal with OSU. Will coach DL (as that's all he's done for ~15 years at PSU) and I'd have to imagine he gets some kind of co-DC title. The Durkin stuff seemed more solid yesterday afternoon/evening and the Johnson stuff was seen as VERY preliminary. Then the Johnson stuff just took off. Apparently he's pretty upset with PSU and how he wasn't considered at all for the HC job and how he wasn't going to be the DC under Franklin so he wants to stay in the area/league and recruit against them now...lol. But yeah, Johnson is a DL coach and Durkin is a DL/LB guy so Durkin doesn't look likely anymore and they need a DB coach so the speculation goes back to former Texans' DB coach Vance Joseph.

lol... I said the Larry Johnson stuff as a joke in here and now it's really happening. Oh boy... Lots of talk earlier today that DJ Durkin from Florida could come in and take the keys from Luke (Luke would retain co-DC title) but people said Johnson AND Durkin was pretty much impossible. So maybe Johnson gets co-DC with Luke now and they bring in Vance Joseph to coach safeties.

That's what I was referencing with his being a real asshole with negative recruiting. I wouldn't say he's racist against whites, he just likes to tell young, black kids he's recruiting that the old, white people at OSU don't care about them. Which is funny since he was doing that under Paterno who was the oldest white dude around. But Paterno did try to compare his Italian heritage to black people coming across on slave ships one time so maybe that worked better than we thought.

Yeah, Herman is the "primary" recruiter on Thomas according to 247 but Vrabel was the "secondary" but of course Vrabel would have been his position coach. Gotta see if an official visit still happens and who Urban hires. Looks like Larry Johnson Sr. is out at PSU. He's a real asshole when it comes to negative recruiting against OSU so maybe it's time to get him on our side...lol.

I don't either.

I remembered lots of talk about him during the last few years of his playing days about how he was going to be a great NFL coach down the line. This year with people talking about Fickell possibly being forced out/encouraged to take any job he could get everyone wondered... would Vrabel follow him as his DC? And the answer always seemed to be "He may very well be a lifer at OSU." Oops. Good news is it creates more flexibility for defensive hires now. They can hire a stud DC above Luke at any of the position groups if they want to as Luke can coach DL or LB and obviously they need a DB guy. There was some concern at first that Jalyn Holmes may decommit due to this but he just tweeted this within the last half hour... QBKILLA!!! #⃣1⃣1⃣ ‏@JayHolmes_ 28m I got a brotherhood with my fellow commits especially with @Kwon_daTRUTH @JDStandAlone &@DameWebb we got a mission together GO BUCKS ! Kwon_daTRUTH is Raekwon, JDStandAlone is Johnnie Dixon and DameWebb is Damon Webb.

Name that started popping up last night was Vance Joseph. Was the DB coach for the Texans since 2011 and was the DB coach for the 49ers for 5 years before that. Only Ohio tie whatsoever is he coached at Bowling Green in 2004 (not when Urban was there).

I really like Sumlin. His system made Manziel more than anything. Kid was offered as a safety by Texas and Sumlin turned him into a Heisman winner and a top 10 NFL draft pick. They will probably be starting either true freshman Kyle Allen (#1 QB recruit in the country - more like Case Keenum than Manziel - we'll see how that works in the SEC) or sophomore Kenny Hill. Hill probably should have redshirted for them this year. Only played in 4 games since A&M's defense made it hard to find garbage time. He's closer to Manziel athletically and but I don't know much about his arm. I only know what I do know about A&M because OSU was recruiting Allen hard and I have a friend who goes to A&M.

CBS top 25 for 2014... http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/24401168/preseason-top-25-a-first-guess A little better than ESPN's for the simple fact that CBS remembered Missouri has a football team and Florida wasn't included or even considered. I think I had a mini-stroke when I got to the end of the ESPN list the other day.

One of the upsides of college basketball. The rankings don't matter and you really can have good losses. The team learned a lot about itself last night. The only way a loss can be "good" in CFB is if every other team has a loss or it saves you from a more embarrassing loss down the road...lol.

Beat the spread! lol Ridiculous comeback and I like that Loving isn't afraid and it actually came damn close considering how it looked but they've gotta get a better shot than that for the tie.

Oh and people are really starting to feel James Franklin will be at PSU. Would be a really nice hire for them and the B1G. Apparently the Vandy assistants have all started following the PSU recruits on twitter over the last day or so.

Baldwin's definitely a possibility. I guess Dodson is too but just haven't heard really a damn thing about him since he's been at OSU aside from being involved with the Sevon Pittman mess. I'm going to go ahead and say the only 2 guaranteed starters on the OL next season are Taylor Decker and Pat Elflein. After those guys here are the others who will be on scholarship for the 2014 season... Tommy Brown Darryl Baldwin Chase Farris Billy Price Jacoby Boren Evan Lisle Kyle Dodson Antonio Underwood Jamarco Jones Demetrius Knox Kyle Trout Marcelys Jones Brown, Underwood and the true freshmen who aren't on campus already (J. Jones, Knox, M. Jones can probably be scratched off the list to start next season. Brown and Underwood because they're just bad (hopefully at least one of them just transfers) and the freshmen because they're freshmen. Baldwin and Boren saw time this year and weren't the worst players ever. Lisle and Price have gotten some buzz from practices and whatnot (Lisle throughout the season on scout team and Price picked up steam later in the season then especially in bowl practice supposedly). Could see Lisle or Price taking the guard spot opposite Elflein allowing Farris to move out to RT. Or those final 3 spots could just be straight up filled by Boren, Price and Lisle. I forgot about Price and Lisle in my first post so that's a little better having them as options.

Bump for huge game tonight.

Starters lost... RB Carlos Hyde LT Jack Mewhort LG Andrew Norwell C Corey Linsley RG Marcus Hall WR Philly Brown LB Ryan Shazier CB Bradley Roby S Christian Bryant S CJ Barnett Their likely replacements... RB Ezekiel Elliott LT Taylor Decker (which means RT opens up) LG Pat Elflein C Jacoby Boren RG Chase Farris RT No freakin' clue WR Dontre Wilson LB Mike Mitchell (all of the starting LB spots will be up for grabs I think so guys like Raekwon McMillan, Trey Johnson, etc. will also be competing) CB Gareon Conley or Eli Apple S Vonn Bell S Cam Burrows The back 7 on defense will be pretty much wide open with Doran Grant being the only real guarantee to start so those defensive guys are pretty much just complete guesses/gut feelings. Should be a bit of an infusion of talent at the WR spot on offense. Guys who redshirted this year like Jalin Marshall, Michael Thomas and Jeff Greene (due to transfer). True freshmen Johnnie Dixon, Noah Brown, Parris Campbell and Curtis Samuel. Then James Clark who broke his leg in the 1st or 2nd game of this season. With how lackluster that position is with Smith and Spencer and losing Philly and Fields there is plenty of opportunity there if a guy shines in spring practice or fall camp.

ESPN's "way too early" pre-season top 25 has Florida at 25. Florida. The team that lost to Georgia Southern. Florida. Florida. Florida. Florida. Florida. http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10246704/florida-state-leads-2014-way-too-early-top-25-rankings Florida. And they left out Mizzou. Florida.

Looks like the cheapest seats at face value were $325. I see some at $230 on Stubhub right now. Pretty crazy since both fanbases are pretty big. FSU is the favorite and hasn't been there in a while so I'd think those folks would be gobbling the tickets up.

Shazier gone, Braxton coming back according to SI's Pete Thamel.

Secondary will be... CB Doran Grant FS Vonn Bell SS Cam Burrows/Tyvis Powell CB Armani Reeves/Cam Burrows/Eli Apple/Gareon Conley/Damon Webb LB's will be some combination of Josh Perry, Curtis Grant, Mike Mitchell, Trey Johnson, Raekwon McMillan, Darron Lee, Sam Hubbard, Dante Booker. DL is all back so that's good.

WOW only has ESPN3, not WatchESPN, so you wouldn't be able to watch the game with a WOW login. Source: I have WOW and ESPN3 is basically obsolete at this point vs. WatchESPN That link airwg2189 gave should do fine tonight. I haven't had to use it but checked it out during some games this bowl season and, just like he says, HD quality for all the big games.

Defense is bad. Has been all season. Losing Roby and Spence doesn't change that. Game is all about the offense showing up. The coaches more so than the players. They could have easily beat MSU if they just kept feeding Hyde. Unfortunately Herman had surrendered to MSU's defense before that game even started. I don't think he'll be doing that with Clemson's defense. And Urban Meyer's record in bowl games is 7-1.