Our Honor Defend

In the Hive

Good morning Defenders of Honor. Welcome to Tuesday. Also known as “Best Day” here at OHD. Please settle yourself in with your beverage of choice and peruse the journalistic stylings of your favorite West Coast Buckeye.

I’d like to take my lead and congratulate Jake Ballard and Jim Cordle for making it to the Superb Owl. It is quite an accomplishment and I am more than excited to see big Jake do his thing. Even though they beat OSU-West, I’m still rooting for them to demolish that guy who used to play for That Team Up North. I got the G-Men in a 31-8 romp in Eli’s Big Brother’s House.

For now though, let’s dive into the Hive.

Senior Bowl

Practices, weigh-ins and introductions have begun for the Senior Bowl. In case you have forgotten, OL Mikes Adams and Brewster, Boom Herron, and DeVier Posey were invited and all are attending. The general consensus from those covering the event is that Mike Adams might just be a legit top 15 pick in the draft. This would be boffo for Mike after having to sit out the first 5 games of the season for his role in the blockbuster scandal of 2011.

Practice Notes indicate that sitting out 99.999999% of his Senior season has given DeVier a case of the dropsies. SI says that he was catching everything thrown at him, but others say he was dropping a lot of passes. Hands of stone, they say. Looks like Ted Ginn in his Miami days, they mused. I scoff at those characterizations of Posey and point them to the Michigan game in which he hauled in two absolutely uncatchable balls thrown to him by a Quarterback with which he had a grand total of two weeks of practice with. DeVier can catch footballs. Make no mistake about that. His size, on the other hand, may prove to be a liability at the next level unless he can produce some Steve Smith like brilliance in route running.

Shooty Hoops Back Up

After an unthinkable drop to #6, the Manly Shooty Hoops are back up to #3 in the latest Coaches poll and #4 in the AP as they head into a week of contests that include Penn Shtate and some other school in a state that looks like a mitten. Michael will have your preview and recap for chambers Crew and I’ll pick up that other game.

The B1G just isn’t looking the same as they did last year. Some pretty horrid losses by some really good teams combined with the resurgence of TTUN and Indiana combined with the continued dominance of the Buckeyes has relegated teams like the  Badgers and to a certain extent, Sparty, to second tier status again.

TTUN is looking decent. (I actual had to hold down vomit as I typed that) Trey Burke might just be one of the two best scoring PGs in the conference right now. He’ll never be a rosy cheeked court general, but Burke can ball out. It will be interesting to dissect and analyze how Craft defends Burke on Saturday, so be sure to tune in.

This Should Never Happen

I want to close out this Hive with a discussion about the treatment of two athletes by their so called fans over the weekend. Billy Cundiff and Kyle Williams had probably the two worst moments of their careers on Sunday, and it cost them both a Superb Owl berth. But what happened after the game is so reprehensible as to be absolutely evil.

“Fans” took to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, and sent smoke signals to express their displeasure with the two (three) miscues. This is all well and good. Getting that frustration out is healthy. What isn’t is sending death threats to the athletes, their families, their friends, their neighbors, their mailman, their dogcatcher, and their 5^th grade teacher. This displays a complete lack of disconnect from the fans. They simply cannot remove their lives from the outcome of a game played by millionaires run by billionaires.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to publicly berate Kyle Williams for getting anywhere NEAR the ball if he wasn’t going to catch it, but I will yell at my cat instead. I realize that venting TO a player is probably never a good idea. Chances are, they are better at what they do than you are at what you do. Chances are, if given the chance, the average fan would fumble the ball on the sidelines during warm-ups. So to take to the internet and broadcast these types of threats, insults, and diatribes is unfortunate. It is also a little creepy, borderline obsessive, and more than a little juvenile.

These are athletes. They get paid to play a game and entertain you. Try not to put so much personal stock into the outcomes of entertainment. I realize that asking OSU’s particular brand of fans to refrain from this is a bit difficult, but let’s all give it a try. I’ll still watch the Superb Owl, and I’ll enjoy it, if only to see Big Jake haul in a pass meant for Manute Bol.

See you Saturday for the TTUN preview and Sunday for the game. Have a safe week filled with many more Urban commitments (*cough*Kyle Dodson*cough*).