It’s been awhile, but this is the 10th installment of our 20 part Better Know A Buckeye series. Yep: 10. That’s the halfway mark, homeslice. That said, these are probably still as rambling as ever, but we continue. In this feature, I take a look at the recruitment of athlete Lamaar Thomas, beginning with his recruitment to his commitment to the University of Ohio State. The 2008 class is full of neat stories and little surprises here and there. Yet, when recruiting is understood as a function of probability theory, the commitment of Lamaar Thomas was probably the biggest surprise in all of the 2008 class.

Height: 5′11
Weight: 171lbs
Forty: 4.4
GPA: 2.8

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From the “hmm… well that sucks” department of recruiting affairs, Darrell Givens just decommitted from the Buckeyes. Worse yet, he’s now given his verbal to Penn State. To be honest, I had no idea this was coming, though apparently some Buckeye recruitniks had feared something like this was developing. No word yet on what the exact reason is for the decision, but in terms of coincidence/association, his high school teammate Malcolm Willis had committed to the Lions a while ago.

Of course, citing that as a factor — albeit prematurely — misses the point that Givens was a former high school teammate of Lamaar Thomas. Givens transferred from Ft Washington Friendly to Indian Head Lackey after his sophomore year, I believe.

Either way, the Givens decision does underscore why Tressel’s staff is uneasy about on-the-spot commitments, though the Buckeyes have definitely picked up a few of them in the past. At least in Givens’ case, he almost committed to Rutgers on the spot in an unofficial in February before committing, on the spot, to the Buckeyes just after the Spring Game. Tressel’s staff apparently encourages kids to take their time and call them back in a week or two after they have had time to think things over. After all: there’ no utility in getting a commitment just to lose it later. It’s a bummer too; Darrell Givens was the cornerback in this class that I coveted the most. Further, I was hoping Givens, plus Thomas, could lay down a pipeline into a pretty talent-rich part of the high school football landscape that’s heretofore closed to the Buckeyes.

That said, the decision for Penn State is a curious one for me. I could envision Va Tech, Maryland or Miami, but even though Penn State fares very well in Maryland, it didn’t occur to me they were on the radar. I don’t think they were ever on the radar leading up to his April commitment to the Buckeyes.

Enh, oh well. God knows there’s plenty of other quality corners out there to be taken. And if he wants to be guarding Stoneburner in the future, then more power to him.

(HT: Jason)

I got a request for this one, so I took some time and put it together since I don’t think this appears anywhere else in the YouTubes universe. Nevertheless, here is the entire drive that was kicked off by Eddie’s famous 61 yard run that catapulted his Heisman campaign, including the actual run itself. Usually Wednesdays and Thursdays are the BKAB feature days, but this will have to suffice in the interim. I hope to be back churning those things out over the weekend.

Nevertheless, my discussion for this play: is it overrated? We know what it resulted in, in that it resulted in an iconic image that kicked off Eddie’s eventually successful Heisman trophy campaign. That much kicks ass, don’t get me wrong. My bigger curiosity is divorcing the play itself from what it resulted in; in other words, not judging the play on ex post outcomes. I think the bigger story on this play was how good the strong side of the O-line was in 1995. Seriously, look what Dudley and Pace set up for Eddie George. God those guys were good. If I were Cooper, I think I would’ve had every running play — and I do mean every — go off left tackle with Dudley lining up next to Pace. The bigger plays from this game, in my opinion, were, in order, Terry Glenn’s 82yd dash and Shawn Springs pick on the botched fade route.

Please discuss, by all means, since I was some 11yr old kid growing up in California by this time and wasn’t really around for this. Let me know what you think. The Bruce and Cooper eras (at least the good parts of it) intrigue me since I don’t think they’re discussed enough. Or at least: the good parts of Cooper aren’t discussed enough. I think we all know about 2-10-1.

Again, Vic and I are busy at work on a work project and should be wrapped up with that by the end of the week, and Max is making the transition towards a new, exciting job, so you’re not going to hear a lot from us for a few days. In the event we do post something, it won’t be that big or grandiose.

But we just came across this and don’t know what to think of it. Pay attention to the first few words, and then hit mute when everyone starts singing that most wretched tune. That said, did Rodriguez just call his shot? A victory in Columbus? What’s missing here is context, so I won’t conjecture too much on it. Moreover, the video itself was added two weeks ago, so it’s not entirely that recent.  Nevertheless, take a gander for yourself:

Again, the context is missing here ¹, but at least on its face, it sounds like Rodriguez is predicting something. If nothing else, this is also a flimsy pretext to post something to keep our blog’s URL in the b10b feed.

Oh, and if we’re really really busy with work projects that take us away from active posting, we usually try to compensate with YouTubes. Vic just uploaded two of Terry Glenn’s TDs from his record game against Pitt in 1995. Enjoy.

1. if anyone was there or knows what this is from, do share [↩]

I was lucky to find this from my YouTubes subscriptions, though Dotting the I already noted it.  Nevertheless, it’s something to put up as an excuse for the fact that we will all be swamped for the next week and a half or so¹.  Afterwards, we should come back better than ever, complete with, well, all sorts of stuff that we have on the docket.

In the meantime, enjoy.

1. fulltime day jobs… they’ll do that to you… [↩]