Real Pod Wednesdays
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Dan Hope and Griffin Strom of Eleven Warriors bring you inside the Ohio State football beat every Wednesday with the latest on Ryan Day and his Buckeyes.
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Gene Smith Discusses Ohio State Sports, the State of College Athletics and the Big Ten’s New TV Deal
With Ohio State’s 2022-23 year in sports just about complete and a new year of Buckeye sports just a few months away, we decided it was the perfect time to sit down with Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith to talk about the hottest topics in Ohio State sports, college athletics as a whole and the Big Ten.
In a 30-minute conversation with Gene Smith to begin this week’s Real Pod Wednesdays, we talk to Ohio State’s athletic director about his expectations for the Buckeye football and basketball programs, how Ohio State is adapting to NIL and why he still wants federal legislation, why Ohio State has no plans to switch back to grass in Ohio Stadium, how the Buckeyes are adapting to the Big Ten’s new TV deal and much more.
The full rundown of our conversation with Smith:
* 0:36: Smith’s overall thoughts on the 2022-23 year in Ohio State sports
* 1:42: Why Smith hasn’t talked specifically with Ryan Day about beating Michigan
* 4:08: Why Smith is confident Ohio State’s quarterback success will continue
* 6:00: Why Smith still believes Chris Holtmann is the right coach for Ohio State men’s basketball
* 7:59: Smith expects Ohio State men’s basketball to be “in the hunt”
* 9:52: How Ohio State can capitalize on the increasing popularity of women’s basketball/sports
* 11:09: Why Smith remains hopeful about federal NIL legislation
* 12:30: Why Smith believes Ohio State is in a “much better” position with NIL than it was early
* 15:38: How Ohio State is preparing for possible changes to the college athletics model
* 18:06: Why Ohio State has no plans to change Ohio Stadium’s field back to grass
* 22:04: What the Big Ten’s new TV partners will bring to the conference
* 23:30: Why this will be the only year Ohio State plays a mid-November home night game
* 26:11: The impact of some Big Ten games being only on Peacock
* 27:45: Smith sees new commissioner Tony Pettiti as “outstanding leader” for Big Ten
* 28:32: The Big Ten’s criteria for expansion candidates and why B1G isn’t looking to expand again yet
* 30:29: How Ohio State is preparing for a changing future while staying in the present
* 31:49: Highlighting the academic achievements of Ohio State athletes
In the second half of this week’s show, we react to what we heard from Smith, plus we talk about the game times for Ohio State football that were announced last week and what Ryan Day had to say during his recent appearance on Chris Holtmann’s podcast.
* 33:07: November night game issue could be a moot point once USC and UCLA join the Big Ten
* 36:14: Notre Dame, North Carolina, Virginia are likelier B1G expansion targets than Washington, Oregon
* 40:21: We don’t know how college athletics will change next, but OSU is preparing accordingly
* 44:23: It seems like it’s only a matter of time before college athletes get a direct cut of the revenue
* 48:16: The narrative would be different if Ohio State beat Georgia, but The Game will always matter
* 51:35: The NCAA Tournament sounds like the benchmark for Ohio State basketball this year
* 53:58: Smith’s case for turf in the Shoe makes sense, but the question will be asked again if injuries hit
* 56:30: We‘re very glad the Youngstown State won’t be a night game (or on Peacock)
* 1:00:45: Day recognizes a need to prepare more specifically than philosophically for Michigan
* 1:04:18: It’s not shocking Day sees NIL and the transfer portal as the most difficult parts of his job
* 1:06:52: Day has made Ohio State more player-friendly, but he’ll ultimately be judged on results
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May 31, 2023
Takeaways from Talking to Every Assistant Coach
For the first time since the end of spring practices, we had the opportunity to talk to all of Ohio State’s assistant football coaches on Tuesday.
All 10 of Ohio State’s on-field assistants as well as director of sports performance Mickey Marotti met with the media on Tuesday, giving us the opportunity to get updates on every Ohio State position group and how summer workouts are going for the Buckeyes.
Just a few hours after finishing up those interviews, we sat down to record this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays and talk about what stood out to us, including plenty of praise for C.J. Hicks and Sonny Styles, coaches’ initial thoughts on the newest transfer additions and much more.
The rundown of what we talked about during our hourlong discussion this week:
* 1:24: Jim Knowles sounds ready to find roles for C.J. Hicks and Sonny Styles
* 10:21: Sonny Styles could be in the mix for the starting free safety job this preseason
* 12:48: Knowles is open to rotating more this year, but there has to be a method to the rotation
* 18:32: Ja’Had Carter is another safety to watch in the preseason
* 23:54: The battle to start opposite Denzel Burke at cornerback is ongoing
* 26:30: Lorenzo Styles might not play a big role right away, but Ohio State likes his potential
* 29:15: What Justin Frye likes about Josh Simmons and how the offensive line could shake out
* 36:40: Frye expected some offensive line struggles this spring, but he’s still optimistic
* 39:36: Avery Henry isn’t likely to play this year, but he’s inspiring his Buckeye teammates
* 41:59: Adding Joe Philbin as an analyst is a great hire
* 46:22: Tywone Malone is fully focused on football now, which excites Larry Johnson
* 50:16: Corey Dennis isn’t ready to name a starting quarterback yet
* 56:30: Tony Alford’s running back room is as deep as it’s ever been
* 59:00: Parker Fleming feels Ohio State’s kicker competition is “in a good place”
* 1:00:25: There’s plenty of optimism entering year two for Knowles’ defense
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May 24, 2023
Analyzing Ohio State‘s Early Betting Lines for the 2023 Season
If you’re eager to bet on Ohio State football this season, there’s already plenty of wagers you can make.
Even though the start of the season is still more than three months away, betting lines have been released for half of Ohio State’s 12 regular-season games this year. Sportsbooks have also put out futures odds for which team will win the national championship, who will win the Big Ten, how many games each team will win this season and who will win the Heisman Trophy.
On this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, we take a look at all of the lines released so far by FanDuel and DraftKings for Ohio State’s 2023 games, the national championship, the Big Ten championship, win/loss totals for each Big Ten team and every Buckeye who currently has Heisman odds. Among all of those categories, we analyze why the lines are what they are and make our picks for which bets we’d be most and least inclined to make.
At the end of the show, we also spend a little time talking about this weekend’s report by ESPN’s Pete Thamel that shed light on the Big Ten’s still-incomplete TV deal and why Ohio State will host a night game against Michigan State in November even though it doesn’t want to.
The rundown for this week’s show:
* 2:00: Ohio State is favored by 28 against Indiana, which says as much about the Hoosiers as the Buckeyes
* 4:18: It’s tempting to bet on the Buckeyes vs. Notre Dame with only a seven-point spread
* 6:49: 10.5 is a logical line for Ohio State vs. Penn State, but history suggests it could be closer
* 9:30: Wisconsin could be more dangerous for Ohio State than it’s been in recent matchups
* 11:48: 24.5 seems like a large spread for Michigan State, but it’s really right where it should be
* 14:13: Ohio State is an underdog against Michigan, and it’s hard to argue the Buckeyes shouldn’t be
* 18:18: Picks for the best and worst bets on Ohio State’s preseason game lines
* 20:34: Purdue, Maryland likely to have the closest spreads among Ohio State’s other six games
* 22:54: Ohio State’s upside gives it better national championship odds than Michigan
* 25:01: Our thoughts on Georgia, Alabama and other potential national championship contenders
* 32:35: Ohio State has the best odds to win the Big Ten, but is far from a prohibitive favorite
* 35:12: Wisconsin, Penn State might offer the best value in Big Ten championship futures
* 37:07: 10.5 wins is the right over/under for both Ohio State and Michigan
* 40:01: The overs and unders we like best in the Big Ten
* 42:14: Caleb Williams should have the best Heisman odds, but history says not to bet on him
* 43:51: Michael Penix Jr., Drake Maye among Heisman candidates to watch
* 44:46: Why Marvin Harrison Jr. is the Buckeyes’ best bet to win the Heisman Trophy
* 48:23: Drew Allar a Big Ten Heisman candidate to watch – but he’ll have to beat Ohio State or Michigan
* 50:18: Kevin Warren wants a bonus for a TV deal he didn’t even finish
* 52:57: November night games in the Midwest aren’t ideal, but that’s the cost of doing business
* 57:52: It’s no coincidence that the Big Ten hired a TV executive to clean up the mess
* 59:20: You know the Big Ten’s Week 2 schedule is bad when Youngstown State might be on NBC
* 1:01:14: Shoutouts to Joshua Perry, Ohio State men’s tennis and Ohio State baseball
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May 17, 2023
Ranking Ohio State's Transfer Additions By Potential Impact in 2023
With usual podcaster extraordinaire and general Eleven Warriors superstar Dan Hope on vacation, Chase Brown makes his RPW debut alongside Griffin Strom, who returns from a one-week hiatus to discuss all things Ohio State sports.
Griffin and Chase discuss Ohio State’s latest transfer portal addition, Ole Miss defensive tackle Tywone Malone, who is expected to be the final player added to the Buckeye roster from Transferland this offseason. After that, we rank all eight Ohio State transfer acquisitions in terms of their potential impact on the Buckeyes during the 2023 season.
There was plenty of other football news to break down as well, as Ohio State now has official kickoff times and networks for two big East Division showdowns in November – including The Game itself – in addition to several future schedule adjustments in both the 2024 and 2029 seasons.
On the basketball front, we talk about Brice Sensabaugh’s potential to improve his draft stock at the NBA Combine this week in Chicago, and how Seth Towns surprised us all with his decision to enter the transfer portal two seasons after he last played for the Buckeyes.
Finally, Chase takes us through the most significant developments Around the Oval in the world of Ohio State’s Olympic sports, but not before we share our exuberance for Avery Henry following the news that his cancer has gone into remission.
The full rundown for this week’s episode:
* 0:28: Griffin is back from New Orleans, but with Dan now on vacation, we welcome in Chase Brown for his debut appearance as a co-host on RPW
* 2:52: The Big Ten’s new TV deal will see OSU take on Michigan State on NBC this season, but a night game in mid-November might be a chilly one
* 5:28: No change for The Game as Ohio State and Michigan will still play at noon on FOX in 2023
* 9:20: Another Ohio State-Georgia quarterback storyline emerges as Dylan Raiola commits to the Bulldogs
* 12:58: The commitment of Ole Miss transfer Tywone Malone brings depth to Ohio State’s defensive tackle position
* 19:42: With almost three times as many transfer additions this offseason as the Buckeyes have ever had under Ryan Day, it appears the program’s portal philosophy has shifted
* 25:35: Griffin thinks Davison Igbinosun could be the most impactful transfer for Ohio State in 2023
* 32:09: Should Josh Simmons win a starting tackle job, he may end up the most important piece Ohio State added to its roster from the portal
* 35:30: Ja’Had Carter is still well-positioned for a spot on the two-deep at nickel safety despite seeing his spring cut short with an injury
* 38:45: Long snapper transfer John Ferlmann may be more impactful than some might think after the special teams snafus late last season
* 42:00: Victor Cutler could wind up a non-factor, but there are still questions to be answered at the center position this season
* 43:38: Malone will likely be more impactful at DT beyond 2023, but could still receive reasonable playing time given Larry Johnson’s penchant for rotating linemen
* 45:10: If all goes well for OSU, Tristan Gebbia won’t see the field in 2023 (aside from blowouts), but we’ve seen a third-string QB have to step up for the Buckeyes before
* 51:15: Lorenzo Styles figures to be a prospect for the future at cornerback after transferring in from Notre Dame and converting from wide receiver
* 54:42: Huge shoutout to Avery Henry, whose cancer is in remission after receiving an osteosarcoma diagnosis in December
* 56:36: Seth Towns surprises everybody by entering the transfer portal
* 101:14: Chase runs down the latest happenings in Ohio State’s Olympic sports
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May 10, 2023
Evaluating Ohio State’s 2024 Recruiting Class and Predicting Which Top Targets Are In or Out
This week’s Real Pod Wednesdays is all about recruiting as Garrick Hodge fills in as co-host for this week’s episode.
With Griffin Strom on vacation, Garrick joins Dan Hope for nearly an hour’s worth of conversation about Ohio State’s recruiting efforts in the 2024 and 2025 recruiting classes. It’s an apropos time for Garrick to join the show, as both Dan and Garrick were at the Under Armour Next camp on Sunday and the start of official visit season is just a few weeks away.
A lot has changed since Garrick’s last appearance on RPW in March, when Ohio State had just four commits in the 2024 class. The Buckeyes have 13 commits now and are ranked second in the 2024 rankings, giving Ohio State fans plenty to feel good about on the recruiting front. Michigan is the one team ranked ahead of Ohio State, however, so we spend some time evaluating to what extent the Buckeyes should be worried about the Wolverines’ recruiting momentum.
We also discuss our biggest takeaways from attending Sunday’s camp, including impressive performances by Ohio State commits Garrett Stover, Mylan Graham and Sam Williams-Dixon, how Bryce Underwood and Ryan Montgomery continued to solidify themselves as Ohio State’s top two quarterbacks in the 2025 class and how Ohio State can benefit from a surge in talent in its own backyard.
Then, we play a game of “In or Out” with 16 of the Buckeyes’ top remaining targets in the 2024 class: cornerbacks Bryce West and Aaron Scott, safeties KJ Bolden, Peyton Woodyard and Reggie Powers, linebackers Sammy Brown and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asu, defensive ends Dylan Stewart, Eddrick Houston and Nigel Smith, defensive tackle Justin Scott, offensive tackle Brandon Baker, guard Jordan Seaton, tight end Damarion Witten and wide receivers Jeremiah McClellan and Joshisa Trader.
Finally, we shift gears to a bit of Ohio State basketball talk to discuss the two dominoes that fell last week to likely set the Buckeyes’ 2023-24 roster – the addition of Penn State transfer Evan Mahaffey and Bronny James’ commitment to USC – and share our thoughts on whether that roster is good enough for Chris Holtmann’s squad to make a long-awaited breakthrough.
The full rundown for this week’s episode:
* 1:19: Garrick told us not to panic about only four commits in March, and he was right
* 3:02: But business needs to pick up in defensive recruiting
* 5:10: Michigan’s improved recruiting makes its emergence as a championship contender more sustainable
* 7:19: Jordan Marshall is UM’s only true recruiting win over OSU, but Wolverines remain aggressive in Ohio
* 12:50: Garrett Stover, Mylan Graham and Sam Williams-Dixon stand out at Under Armour Next camp
* 16:08: Xavier Johnson’s role this year could lay blueprint for Williams-Dixon’s role at Ohio State
* 20:43: Deontae and Devontae Armstrong, Marc Nave Jr. are O-line projects with promise
* 24:21: Ryan Montgomery is an OSU-caliber QB, but Bryce Underwood is too talented not to pursue
* 32:11: Jamison Kitna, Tavien St. Clair give Ohio State additional in-state QB options in 2025 class
* 35:51: Bo Jackson shows why he’s a top target for Ohio State in the 2025 class
* 37:41: Sunday’s camp showed there’s no shortage of top talent in the Midwest right now
* 39:28: “In or Out” predictions for 16 of Ohio State’s top remaining targets in the 2024 class
* 54:18: Edwin Spillman, Miles Lockhart, Zabien Brown, Jayden Jackson among other potential commits
* 55:28: Bronny James was probably never coming to Ohio State, but it would have been fun to watch
* 58:35: Which much-hyped prospect will have the better career: Arch Manning or Bronny James?
* 1:00:30: Ohio State basketball should be better than last year, but the Sweet 16 still looks like a stretch
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May 3, 2023
Analyzing Ohio State’s New Transfer Additions, 2023 NFL Draft Class and 2024 NFL Draft Potential
It was a busy week on multiple fronts for the Ohio State football program.
Ohio State brought two new transfers into the program with the additions of former San Diego State offensive tackle Josh Simmons and Notre Dame wide receiver-turned-cornerback Lorenzo Styles. A few other players left the Buckeyes before the post-spring transfer window closed. And six members of last year’s Ohio State football team, headlined by first-round picks C.J. Stroud, Paris Johnson Jr. and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, were selected in the 2023 NFL draft.
We analyze all the comings and going of the transfer portal and where each of the Buckeyes landed in this year’s NFL draft, plus look ahead to what could be one of Ohio State’s deepest NFL draft classes ever in 2024, on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
The full rundown of what we’re talking about this week:
* 1:15: Josh Simmons isn’t a lock to start at right tackle, but Ohio State needed to add competition
* 5:45: Bringing in Lorenzo Styles was an obvious move, but he’s more likely to contribute in 2024-25
* 10:00: Ohio State still pursuing two more transfers in Ole Miss DT Tywone Malone, UAB S Jaylen Key
* 18:44: Ohio State needed to be more aggressive in the transfer portal this year, and it has been
* 20:44: Kaleb Brown’s transfer is more surprising than Caleb Burton’s, but neither is shocking
* 26:48: Ben Christman’s departure could prompt a Vic Cutler or Tegra Tshabola move to guard
* 32:43: Houston Texans remind us not to believe everything you hear before the NFL draft
* 39:33: C.J. Stroud will begin his career with less pressure in Houston than he had at Ohio State
* 41:02: Paris Johnson Jr. has extra motivation playing for the team that drafted his dad
* 43:41: If 2021 was any indication, Jaxon Smith-Njigba won’t be a No. 3 wide receiver for long
* 46:36: Dawand Jones’ slide was surprising, but Luke Wypler’s fall was even more surprising
* 50:36: “Advisors” didn’t make Wypler’s decision, and returning wouldn’t have guaranteed anything
* 56:26: OSU’s UDFAs aren’t shocking, though we expected Taron Vincent to get a contract
* 58:22: Two defensive draft picks in two years is a big reason why the defense has struggled
* 59:50: Ohio State could have one of its best draft classes ever in 2024 (but not eight first-rounders)
* 1:07:07: QB and OL play, defensive cohesion will determine if OSU takes advantage of all that talent
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Apr 26, 2023
Previewing Ohio State’s 2023 NFL Draft
NFL draft week has arrived.
We’re just one day away from finding out which teams will draft C.J. Stroud, Paris Johnson Jr., Jaxon Smith-Njigba and perhaps Dawand Jones. Over the next three days, 259 players will be drafted, and at least seven Buckeyes are likely to be among those who get that call, while numerous others are also likely to sign with teams shortly after the draft as undrafted free agents.
This week’s show is all about the Buckeyes in the draft as we talk about why teams shouldn’t be worried about Stroud’s ability to read defenses and process information, predict where Stroud and the rest of the Buckeyes will end up and discuss some of the draft-related milestones Ohio State could achieve this weekend.
At the end of the show, we also spend a few minutes talking about a quiet start of the post-spring transfer window for Ohio State – both in terms of incoming and outgoing activity – and three players who have emerged as transfer targets for the Buckeyes. (This episode was recorded before Caleb Burton entered the transfer portal.)
The full rundown for this week’s episode:
* 0:42: Ohio State will have at least three first-round NFL draft picks, maybe four with Dawand Jones
* 4:58: It’s looking like C.J. Stroud won’t go second, but someone (Titans?) will likely trade up to take him third
* 7:56: Despite the narratives, Stroud was great at reading defenses and plenty coachable at Ohio State
* 15:35: In one scenario, Paris Johnson Jr. could be the first Buckeye drafted – but he’ll likely be the second
* 17:54: Jaxon Smith-Njigba is WR1 and could go anywhere between 10th and 15th (if not higher)
* 22:46: Luke Wypler looks like a solid third-round pick with the potential to go late in Round 2
* 23:54: Zach Harrison’s upside could get him into Round 2, but questions about fit could push him into Round 3
* 27:45: Ronnie Hickman’s draft projections have run the gamut, but Round 6 feels like his landing spot
* 30:44: Tanner McCalister is Dan’s pick to be Ohio State’s eighth and final draft pick in 2023
* 31:51: Cameron Brown’s injury history, disappointing 40 time could keep him from being drafted
* 33:16: Taron Vincent never quite did enough at Ohio State to become a sure-fire draft pick
* 36:20: Mitch Rossi is a real sleeper to make an NFL roster even though he’ll probably go undrafted
* 41:08: The most ideal team fits for Ohio State draft prospects
* 42:55: C.J. Stroud could be Ohio State’s highest-drafted quarterback ever, or at least tie that mark
* 44:12: Jaxon Smith-Njigba will be OSU’s third Round 1 WR in two years (with more to come next year)
* 45:20: Three offensive line draft picks for the first time since 2004 should help Ohio State’s recruiting
* 46:04: Ohio State will have at least six picks for the eighth straight year – and could have six top-100 picks
* 49:15: It’s more surprising Ohio State has lost almost no transfers than Ohio State adding no transfers yet
* 50:36: Lorenzo Styles seems likely to be a Buckeye, especially since he’s planning to play cornerback
* 54:30: Tywone Malone would be a depth piece at defensive tackle, at least for this season
* 56:20: Ohio State hosting San Diego State’s Josh Simmons in pursuit for a transfer offensive tackle
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Apr 19, 2023
Ohio State Spring Game Recap and Post-Spring Lineup Projection
Spring football is complete at Ohio State, which means it’s time to wrap it all up and project ahead to how it will all translate to the games that count this fall.
We begin this week’s episode by discussing everything that stood out to us in Saturday’s spring game, including a not-great but not-terrible performance by Kyle McCord, the offensive line remaining Ohio State’s biggest problem, the defense continuing to show improvement and impressive performances from young Buckeyes like C.J. Hicks, Sonny Styles, Carnell Tate and Hero Kanu.
Later, we project what Ohio State’s starting lineup would look like right now and which non-starters we also expect to see significant playing time for the Buckeyes this fall.
Finally, we discuss Ohio State men’s basketball’s newest transfer addition and why the Buckeyes could still be in the market for one more transfer.
The rundown for our post-spring episode of Real Pod Wednesdays:
* 0:30: Kyle McCord didn’t win the job on Saturday, but that doesn’t mean you should write him off
* 8:09: The door remains open for Devin Brown, but we still see McCord as the favorite to start
* 11:15: The offensive line remains Ohio State’s biggest area of concern by far
* 15:46: Ohio State must control the line of scrimmage to beat Michigan, and the OL could determine that
* 16:58: The defense outplayed the offense in the spring game more than the scoreboard even showed
* 18:53: Defense did give up three long touchdowns, but those came with almost all backups on field
* 21:05: Why Dan is confident cornerback play will be a strength for Ohio State this season
* 22:50: A slew of second-year defenders had standout spring game performances
* 30:30: Carnell Tate and Jayden Ballard continued to make their push for playing time at WR
* 33:00: Chip Trayanum continued to make his case for playing time at running back
* 35:39: A quiet concern for Ohio State: Will the Buckeyes have a reliable field goal kicker?
* 38:02: Projecting Ohio State’s starting lineup and who else will play regularly at each position on offense
* 48:04: Projecting Ohio State’s starting lineup and who else will play regularly at each position on defense
* 59:15: Why Dale Bonner is a logical addition for the basketball Buckeyes as a backup point guard
* 1:03:26: Why Ohio State remains in the market for one more transfer
* 1:05:00: Ohio State has an NCAA Tournament-caliber roster, but can it be a Sweet 16-caliber roster?
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Apr 12, 2023
A Look at Ohio State’s Newest NIL Collective and Previewing the Spring Game
Ohio State officially has a new NIL collective, and two of its leaders join us on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays to tell us what it’s all about.
Former 97.1 The Fan station manager Todd Markiewicz is the president of The 1870 Society while former Ohio State safety Tyvis Powell is its director of player engagement, and both of them join us for the first part of this week’s show to tell us why they chose to get involved with the new NIL collective and how they believe The 1870 Society can get Ohio State’s NIL efforts where they need to be. (Disclaimer: Eleven Warriors publisher Jason Priestas is a founder and board member of The 1870 Society.)
After that conversation, we turn our focus back to spring football to discuss the latest thing we’ve learned at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center and preview Saturday’s spring game at Ohio Stadium. Later in the show, we discuss Ohio State football’s continuing momentum on the recruiting trail and look at how the Ohio State men’s basketball roster is stacking up with the addition of Minnesota transfer Jamison Battle.
(Note: This episode was recorded on Tuesday afternoon before Payton Pierce’s commitment to the Buckeyes and Ryan Day’s announcement that Devin Brown will not play in the spring game.)
The full rundown for this week’s show:
* 0:20: Introducing Todd, Tyvis and The 1870 Society
* 2:59: What makes The 1870 Society different from Ohio State’s other NIL collectives
* 6:15: How 1870 can help elevate Ohio State’s NIL efforts in recruiting
* 10:25: How 1870 hopes to work in tandem with Ohio State’s other NIL collectives
* 13:28: How Tyvis’ background playing for the Buckeyes can bolster 1870’s efforts
* 14:32: What Tyvis thinks Ohio State’s defense must do to perform at a national championship level again
* 16:16: Jordan Hancock, Denzel Burke, Sonny Styles among DBs catching Tyvis’ eyes this spring
* 17:20: 1870’s message to Ohio State fans
* 19:37: 11W’s relationship with 1870 and why it won’t change how we cover Ohio State
* 22:40: Ohio State is shorthanded at LB right now, but backups are taking advantage of the opportunities
* 27:36: Cameron Martinez is building momentum as Ohio State’s potential starting nickel safety
* 29:32: We’re still waiting to see a quarterback stand out this spring
* 31:34: Good signs for Jelani Thurman, Malik Hartford as they shed their black stripes
* 34:44: Outside of quarterback, right tackle will be the key position to watch Saturday
* 38:09: Cornerback will be another position in the spring game spotlight
* 39:51: Backup linebackers, wide receivers and running backs have chance to make statement
* 41:36: Kenyatta Jackson is a player to watch on the defensive line
* 42:55: Our picks for Spring Game MVP: Carnell Tate and Kyle McCord
* 44:45: Weight of the spring game will factor in the quarterback competition
* 48:10: Air Noland’s commitment gives Ohio State another future quarterback to be excited about
* 50:48: Mylan Graham’s commitment continues Brian Hartline’s unmatched recruiting excellence
* 52:10: The 2024 class is offense-heavy, but more defensive commitments could be coming soon
* 53:25: Jamison Battle is exactly what Ohio State needed in a transfer forward
* 55:46: Buckeyes still need a transfer guard, Javon Small emerging as a potential option
* 57:22: Projecting what Ohio State’s starting five will look like next season with Battle’s addition
* 1:03:26: Taylor Mikesell goes to Indiana and Seini Hicks could be the first of two Buckeyes in her family
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Apr 5, 2023
Carnell Tate, Defensive Line Among Standouts in Ohio State’s Second Scrimmage
College basketball season is over, but spring football season remains in full swing.
The NCAA basketball tournaments came to an end on Sunday and Monday, so we begin this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays with a conversation about how the Final Fours played out and make some early predictions for how Ohio State’s men’s and women’s basketball teams will fare next season.
The rest of the show is focused on Ohio State football, as we share our biggest takeaways from Saturday’s second scrimmage of the spring, including Carnell Tate being one of the best players on the field, the defensive line and cornerbacks continuing to build momentum and the quarterback competition remaining unsettled.
To conclude the show, we talk about Ohio State staying hot on the recruiting trail with the commitment of top-five running back James Peoples (this episode of Real Pod Wednesdays was recorded before five-star wide receiver Mylan Graham’s commitment on Tuesday night) and which commitments could be next to join the fold.
The full rundown for this week’s show:
* 0:16: The women’s national championship game generated more conversation than the men’s
* 8:00: Initial predictions for how far both Ohio State teams will go in next year’s NCAA Tournaments
* 9:45: Carnell Tate continues push for early playing time with standout scrimmage performance
* 14:39: The defensive line is looking great, but questions remain on the offensive line
* 21:34: Neither quarterback has clear separation in the starting competition yet
* 25:30: Cornerback is looking more and more like a position that could go from weakness to strength
* 30:16: Ja’Had Carter’s knee injury doesn’t appear serious, but he needs all the reps he can get
* 31:33: Why Sonny Styles is more likely to be a situational player than a starter this year
* 36:44: Josh Proctor, Cameron Martinez and Lathan Ransom have a lot to prove as projected starters
* 43:40: Good news at safety is Ohio State has a lot of depth and options
* 45:35: Why more snaps in the slot for Marvin Harrison Jr. is something for Ohio State to consider
* 48:46: Chip Traynaum, Dallan Hayden making push for roles in deep running back unit
* 53:06: Freshman tight ends don’t usually play much at Ohio State, but Jelani Thurman is one to watch
* 55:26: James Peoples is exactly what Ohio State needed after losing Jordan Marshall
* 56:43: Ohio State could land its 2024 quarterback when Air Noland commits Saturday
* 59:15: Jeremiah McClellan, Reggie Powers among other recruits on commitment watch
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Mar 29, 2023
What We Saw and Who Stood Out at Ohio State’s First Spring Scrimmage
After attending Ohio State’s first scrimmage of the spring and the Buckeyes’ pro day last week, there was plenty for us to talk about on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
The first half of this week’s episode is focused on the current Ohio State football team, as we talk about who and what stood out to us while watching the Buckeyes’ scrimmage on Saturday, as well as what we learned from last week’s interview sessions with offensive linemen and defensive linemen and Tuesday’s interview sessions with Jim Knowles and Brian Hartline.
In the second half of the show, we talk about what we saw from Ohio State’s NFL draft prospects at last week’s pro day and how Ohio State’s efforts to add future Buckeyes on the recruiting trail are heating up, then conclude the show by wrapping up a great season for Ohio State women’s basketball and looking at some of the top transfer targets for Ohio State men’s basketball.
The full rundown for this week’s show:
* 1:14: The quarterbacks had some struggles on Saturday, but Kyle McCord looked like the frontrunner to start
* 7:23: Jayden Ballard, Kaleb Brown and freshman wideouts show how loaded Ohio State is at receiver
* 14:04: Kenyatta Jackson, Jack Sawyer, Steele Chambers, Gabe Powers among defensive standouts
* 21:58: Carson Hinzman and Josh Fryar look like starters, but right tackle remains a huge question
* 26:39: Cornerbacks keep building momentum, especially Denzel Burke and Davison Igbinosun
* 29:06: Josh Proctor and Lathan Ransom appear positioned to start, but nickel safety not as clear
* 33:58: Jim Knowles and Larry Johnson on the same page about Jack Sawyer, who should play Jack
* 37:09: C.J. Stroud only strengthened his standing as a top-two overall NFL draft pick at pro day
* 42:21: Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s 4.48 40 should cement his standing as the NFL’s draft top wide receiver
* 43:48: Tanner McCalister helped himself the most of any Ohio State draft prospect at pro day
* 45:21: Cam Brown didn’t run as fast as he said he could, and he might have needed to
* 47:40: Zach Harrison left his 40 time a mystery, but that might have been a smart strategic decision
* 49:40: Deontae and Devontae Armstrong’s commitments continue Justin Frye’s strong start in 2024
* 52:11: More Ohio State commitments could be coming soon
* 53:58: Jordan Marshall is a big loss for Ohio State, but Michigan’s other Ohio commitments aren’t
* 58:39: Ohio State women’s basketball lost to Virginia Tech but still had one of its best seasons ever
* 1:00:03: Ohio State’s future looks bright with Cotie McMahon, maybe Jacy Sheldon returning
* 1:02:22: Big Ten women’s teams benefit from conference tournament one week earlier than men’s
* 1:03:40: Brice Sensabaugh leaves the door open for a return, but his departure still seems more likely
* 1:06:04: Nick Timberlake, Jamison Battle, Chris Ledlum among Ohio State transfer targets
* 1:08:27: Our Final Four predictions
* 1:09:57: It was a great year for many Ohio State winter sports teams ... just not men’s basketball
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Mar 22, 2023
A Look at Ohio State Football Recruiting As Visit Season Heats Up
The next three-and-a-half weeks will be some of Ohio State’s busiest weeks of the year from an on-campus recruiting perspective.
Ohio State is set to host a multitude of top targets this weekend, next weekend, during the April 15 spring game and in between, so we brought Eleven Warriors recruiting analyst Garrick Hodge on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays to help us break down which visitors you need to know about and where things stand for the Buckeyes with some of their top targets at key positions of need. (Note: This episode was recorded before Jordan Marshall announced his commitment to Michigan.)
Later in the show, Dan and Griffin talk about Ryan Day’s most notable comments from his most recent press conference, why several assistant coaches received sizable raises, Ohio State women’s basketball’s chances of upsetting UConn and the Big Ten’s continued struggles in the NCAA Tournament.
The full rundown for this week’s show:
* 2:05: Five-stars Dylan St…
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Mar 15, 2023
Ohio State Basketball’s Outlook for Next Season
Ohio State’s men’s basketball season came to an end last week, but not before the Buckeyes offered some hope for the future.
Ohio State’s run to the Big Ten Tournament semifinals couldn’t save the Buckeyes from missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time in six years and finishing with a losing record for the first time in 19 years, but it did give Ohio State some much-needed positive energy entering the offseason and gave Buckeye fans reason to be excited about Bruce Thornton, Roddy Gayle Jr. and Felix Okpara going into their sophomore seasons.
As such, we spend a little bit of time talking about the season that just ended but most of our time looking ahead to next season as we focus primarily on Ohio State men’s basketball on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
With the NCAA Tournament set to begin without Ohio State on Thursday, we also make our predictions for who will make this year’s Final Four and the biggest upsets we expect to see in the first weeke…
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Mar 8, 2023
Recapping Ohio State’s First Day of Spring Practice and the NFL Scouting Combine
We had plenty to discuss on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays after getting our first on-field look at the 2023 Ohio State football team Tuesday.
Between watching the first 30 minutes of Tuesday morning’s opening practice of the spring and talking to Ryan Day, Jim Knowles and Ohio State’s quarterbacks afterward, we learned a lot about how the Buckeyes are stacking up as spring begins.
In the first half of this week’s show, we discuss everything that stood out to us on day one, including Devin Brown’s new number, Marvin Harrison Jr. returning punts and players who appear to be on the rise, such as Tegra Tshabola and Sonny Styles.
Later in the show, Dan talks about what he saw and heard from a week of covering Ohio State’s draft prospects at the NFL Scouting Combine. We wrap up this week’s episode with a look at a few other Ohio State sports as men’s basketball heads to the Big Ten Tournament, women’s basketball prepares for the NCAA Tournament and women’s…
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Mar 1, 2023
2023 Ohio State Spring Practice and NFL Scouting Combine Preview
Current and former Ohio State football players will both be back on the football field over the next seven days.
The 2023 Ohio State football team will take the field for its first practice of the year on Tuesday when the Buckeyes will hold their first of 15 spring practices at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. Before then, eight members of the 2022 Ohio State football team will participate in the NFL Scouting Combine, where workouts will be held Thursday through Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
There’s no shortage of storylines entering this year’s spring practices, and we start this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by previewing the ones that we’ll be most focused on when spring ball opens next week. After that, we discuss our expectations for all eight of Ohio State’s participants in this year’s NFL Combine – C.J. Stroud, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Paris Johnson Jr., Dawand Jones, Luke Wypler, Zach Harrison, Cameron Brown and Ronnie Hickman – and what we t…
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Feb 22, 2023
Drawing Up An Ideal Ohio State Football Schedule
What would an ideal 2024 football schedule for Ohio State look like? We drew up our answers to that question on this week’s Real Pod Wednesdays.
In reality, Ohio State’s non-conference slate for 2024 looks likely to be boring after the Buckeyes canceled their scheduled home-and-home series with Washington last week, leaving them without a marquee non-conference game. The Buckeyes’ conference schedule for a year from now remains undetermined, as this week’s Big Ten meetings concluded without any final decisions on how schedules will be structured when USC and UCLA join the conference.
Ohio State’s non-conference schedule doesn’t have to be boring, though, and its conference schedule remains open to a wide variety of possibilities. Given that, we each mapped out how we would design Ohio State’s 2024 schedule if we were in charge of putting it together.
For ground rules, we stuck with the typical format of nine conference games and three non-conference games, while design…
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Feb 15, 2023
Previewing Ohio State’s Spring Position Battles
There will be no shortage of position battles to watch when Ohio State takes the field for spring practices in just a few weeks.
On this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays – following another brief discussion about the continuing collapse of Ohio State basketball – we look ahead to the 10 biggest position battles that will take place during Ohio State’s 15 practices this spring and project which players could come out of those battles with starting jobs or more playing time.
The full rundown for this week’s show:
* 0:37: Will Ohio State men’s basketball win another game this year? We’re starting to wonder
* 5:12: Handicapping the quarterback competition between Kyle McCord and Devin Brown
* 10:29: Four offensive tackles will vie for starting jobs this spring, but Ohio State could still add transfer help
* 15:11: Victor Cutler is the likely favorite at center, but Carson Hinzman is a challenger to watch
* 18:26: Davison Igbinosun will face real competi…
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Feb 8, 2023
Early Insight on the 2023 Buckeyes from Ohio State’s First Offseason Media Availability
We had our first opportunity of the offseason to talk to all of Ohio State’s football coaches last week, and it gave us plenty of early insight into where things stand with the 2023 Buckeyes.
We didn‘t want to avoid the elephant in the room, so we start this week’s episode with a brief conversation on the continued struggles of Ohio State men’s basketball.
The rest of the episode, however, is devoted to sharing our thoughts on everything that stood out to us from last week’s media availability, including what coaches had to say about Ohio State’s impending position battles, why Brian Hartline will likely be the offensive play caller and why James Laurinaitis will have a bigger role than his title suggests, the uncertain future of the Jack position in Ohio State’s defense and Mark Pantoni’s comments about how NIL is changing OSU’s recruiting strategy.
The full rundown of what we’re talking about this week:
* 0:18: There’s no good way to spin it – things ar…
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Feb 1, 2023
James Laurinaitis Returns, Ohio State Basketball Has A Bad January and the Buckeyes Land Another Big Transfer
Ohio State football got two pieces of exciting news over the past week, but Ohio State’s basketball struggles went from bad to worse.
We talk extensively about both sports on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, starting with Ohio State football. While it’s a quiet National Signing Day for the Buckeyes in that they are not making any additions to their high school recruiting class of 2023, they made news on Friday when they announced the return of former Buckeye linebacker James Laurinaitis to the program as a defensive graduate assistant.
We discuss the impact Laurinaitis could make for the Buckeyes both on the field and on the recruiting trail, then pivot the conversation to discussing the state of Ohio State basketball after a 2-7 month of January. Is this season still salvageable, and will Chris Holtmann be coaching for his job in February and March? We discuss what’s gone wrong for those Buckeyes, what needs to happen if they’re going to earn their way back into…
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Jan 25, 2023
Which Second-Year Buckeyes Have the Best Chance for Breakout Seasons in 2023?
It was a quiet first year for Ohio State’s freshman class of 2022, but many of those Buckeyes are candidates for breakout seasons in 2023.
That’s what we spend most of our time discussing on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
First, we talk about the impact of a couple of Ohio State football news items that dropped over the past week: The addition of transfer offensive lineman Victor Cutler and the return of sixth-year safety Josh Proctor. Then, we talk about all 21 members of Ohio State’s 2022 class and discuss their outlooks going into their second year as Buckeyes.
The full rundown of this week’s show:
* 1:13: Victor Cutler isn’t the transfer addition we expected, but it’s an addition that makes sense once you dig into it
* 6:41: Cutler’s addition could keep Matt Jones at guard, but expect Ohio State to experiment with different combinations during the spring
* 9:37: Ohio State has already added more transfers than ever before, and that total co…
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Jan 18, 2023
Ohio State’s 2023 Draft Class and How This Year’s NFL Decisions Impact Buckeyes
We now know which Ohio State players will be entering the 2023 NFL draft and which draft-eligible Buckeyes will be wearing scarlet and gray for another year.
C.J. Stroud left us in suspense until Monday morning as to which camp he would be a part of, but he ultimately made the decision we expected all along when he opted to go pro. He now headlines a 2023 NFL draft class for Ohio State that includes three sure-fire first-round picks (Stroud, Paris Johnson Jr. and Jaxon Smith-Njigba), three more projected early-round choices (Zach Harrison, Dawand Jones and Luke Wypler) and several others who also have a good chance of hearing their names called.
That said, there were also numerous key Buckeyes who announced over the past week that they will remain at Ohio State for another year including offensive lineman Matt Jones, linebacker Tommy Eichenberg and safety Lathan Ransom, joining a group of returning draft-eligible Buckeyes that also includes Miyan Williams, Cade Stover and Steele Cham…
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Jan 11, 2023
How Ohio State’s 2023 Roster is Stacking Up
The 2023 college football offseason is officially underway, and the outlook for Ohio State’s roster next season is starting to become more clear.
The 2022 college football season officially ended Monday night with Georgia’s 65-7 shellacking of TCU in the national championship game, and we start this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by sharing our reactions to Monday night’s blowout. We can’t help but think Ohio State would be celebrating a national title right now if a couple more plays had gone its way in the Peach Bowl, and the Bulldogs’ performance against the Horned Frogs certainly makes the Buckeyes’ performance against Georgia look more impressive – though we (or at least Dan) don’t disagree with Ohio State being fourth in the final rankings.
With the 2022 season now over, though, it’s time to start looking ahead to 2023, and that’s what we spend most of this week’s show doing. First, we discuss the Buckeyes’ transfer addition of former Syracuse s…
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Jan 4, 2023
Reviewing the Peach Bowl and Ohio State’s 2022 Football Season
Ohio State’s 2022 season came to an end against Georgia, but the Buckeyes weren’t far off from advancing to the national championship game.
That made Saturday’s loss in the Peach Bowl both devastating but also encouraging to a degree, as the fourth-seeded Buckeyes went toe-to-toe with the No. 1 seed and could be playing for a national championship on Monday if even one more play went their way. They proved they belonged in the CFP, leaving a far less negative vibe about the state of the program than after their previous loss against Michigan.
Still, Ohio State isn’t a program that’s going to celebrate moral victories, leaving plenty to digest about why the Buckeyes came up short of their championship goals once again. A second straight poor defensive performance to conclude the season had a lot to do with that, so we spend a good amount of our time on this week’s Real Pod Wednesdays discussing what went wrong defensively and what Jim Knowles and the Buckeyes must do to fi…
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Dec 28, 2022
Keys to the Peach Bowl for Ohio State vs. Georgia
Five weeks after its loss to Michigan, Ohio State will finally return to the field to play for a national championship game berth when it faces Georgia in the Peach Bowl on Saturday.
Having already been in Atlanta for a couple of days for the start of bowl week, Dan and Griffin share their final thoughts entering the game, break down what Ohio State must do well and who must step up on both sides of the ball and make their predictions for whether the Buckeyes actually will beat the Bulldogs on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
A rundown of topics we discuss on our Peach Bowl preview edition of RPW:
* 0:42: Georgia beat writers don’t think a Bulldog win is a sure bet
* 2:46: Beating Georgia will be tough, but we think the Buckeyes will at least be competitive
* 3:51: It feels like the Buckeyes are playing with house money (kinda), which could be a good thing for Ohio State
* 5:37: Vibes from the first two days of interviews (Note: This podcast was recorded b…
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Dec 21, 2022
Initial Thoughts on Ohio State’s 2023 Recruiting Class and the Impact of Dylan Raiola’s Decommitment
It’s National Signing Day, which means we’re focused on recruiting and how Ohio State is building for the future on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
Eleven Warriors recruiting analyst Garrick Hodge for the entirety of this week’s episode as we start out by looking at Ohio State’s new class of signees for the 2023 recruiting class, then take a look ahead to the 2024 class and discuss the impact of Dylan Raiola’s decommitment on the Buckeyes’ future at quarterback. We also talk about the roster additions Ohio State is still trying to make through the transfer portal. (Disclaimer: This podcast was recorded on Tuesday afternoon, so some players referenced may not yet be officially signed.)
Later in the show, we talk about what we learned from talking to 20 different Ohio State players at last week’s on-campus media day as we continue to look ahead to Ohio State’s College Football Playoff matchup with Georgia at the Peach Bowl, which is now only 10 days away.…
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Dec 14, 2022
An Expert Look at Where the Buckeyes Fell Short Against Michigan and How Ohio State Stacks Up with Georgia
At the exact halfway point between Ohio State’s regular-season finale against Michigan and the Buckeyes’ College Football Playoff game against Georgia, we thought today would be the perfect time to have Kyle Jones on Real Pod Wednesdays to break down what happened against the Wolverines and what could happen against the Bulldogs.
Eleven Warriors’ scheme expert joins us right from the jump of this week’s episode to dive into more than 30 minutes of X’s and O’s chatter, and we don’t beat around the bush, starting right off the bat with a conversation about what didn’t work in the loss to Michigan and why Ohio State used the game plan it did against the Wolverines.
We also discuss whether Ryan Day should (and why he probably won’t) give up offensive play calling and evaluate the overall progress of Ohio State’s defense in Jim Knowles’ first year before looking ahead to the impending matchup with Georgia and assessing the Buckeyes’ chances of beating the Bulldogs.…
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Dec 7, 2022
A First Look at Ohio State vs. Georgia with Peach Bowl CEO Gary Stokan
Ohio State will make its first-ever trip to the Peach Bowl when it faces Georgia in the College Football Playoff semifinal.
For a look at what awaits the Buckeyes and everyone else who makes the trip to Atlanta, Peach Bowl CEO Gary Stokan joins the show to talk about what it means for the Peach Bowl to finally host Ohio State, what makes the Peach Bowl unique and where fans need to visit while they’re in town for the game. That interview starts at the 30-minute mark of the show.
Before that, though, we start by digging into the on-field matchup that awaits the Buckeyes with a first look at the tough test they’ll face from the No. 1 seed Bulldogs and what Ohio State will need to do to have a chance to upset Georgia and advance to the national championship game.
This week’s Real Pod Wednesdays also includes discussions on Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s decision not to play in the College Football Playoff and how that impacts Ohio State’s chances of beating Georgia, Kevin Wilson’s de…
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Nov 30, 2022
What Went Wrong Against Michigan and Where Ohio State Goes from Here
For the second year in a row, Ohio State and its fans are left trying to figure out what went wrong against Michigan.
While Michigan didn’t dominate in one phase of the game quite the way it did in the run game in 2021, the Wolverines ended up beating the Buckeyes by an even bigger margin this year as they scored five touchdowns of 45-plus yards while Ohio State mustered only three points of its own in the second half.
Why did Saturday’s game snowball away from the Buckeyes and how do they move forward from another devastating loss to their rivals? And how good of a chance does Ohio State have to still make the College Football Playoff?
We assess all of that on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, plus spend a few minutes reviewing Ohio State basketball’s performance at the Maui Invitational and previewing Wednesday night’s ACC/Big Ten Challenge clash with Duke.
A rundown of topics discussed on this week’s show:
* 1:25: There were excuses for last year’s lo…
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Nov 23, 2022
Previewing Ohio State’s High-Stakes Matchup with Michigan
It’s finally time for The Game we’ve all been waiting for.
Following a full year of buildup for Ohio State’s shot at revenge after last year’s loss in Ann Arbor, the Buckeyes will look to prove they’re a different team than they were a year ago when they host Michigan at Ohio Stadium on Saturday. And the stakes couldn’t be higher, as the second-ranked Buckeyes and third-ranked Wolverines both enter the game with 11-0 records with a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game and a likely College Football Playoff berth on the line.
As we always do, we start this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by looking back at Ohio State’s game from the previous weekend – a game that was more competitive than anticipated at Maryland. All of our analysis regarding the 43-30 win in College Park and the weekend that was in college football, though, ties back into the season-defining game to come Saturday.
In the second half of the podcast, we turn our full attention toward this week…
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Nov 16, 2022
Kamryn Babb’s Emotional Touchdown, Xavier Johnson’s Playmaking Ability Highlight Ohio State’s Blowout Win over Indiana
We had to start by talking about Kamryn Babb’s emotional touchdown, a moment that epitomized the brotherhood Ohio State often talks about. But Babb was far from the only Buckeye who impressed us against the Hoosiers, as we were also struck by Xavier Johnson’s playmaking ability, Marvin Harrison Jr.’s latest spectacular catch and Lathan Ransom’s continued elite play among other standouts.
We also address the one big concern coming out of this past weekend’s game – the health of Ohio State’s running back room – and discuss whether Maryland will present any real threat to the Buckeyes this weekend, who we think we will emerge as the winner of the Big Ten West and why Ohio State women’s basketball and women’s volleyball are two other Buckeye sports teams you should be paying attention to right now.
A rundown of the many topics we’re talking about this week:
* 1:20: Why Kamryn Babb’s touchdown was so special
* 7:44: Running back health is a major concern, th…
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Nov 9, 2022
Keeping Perspective After A Strange Game at Northwestern
That’s the big question we seek to answer on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays. We were in Evanston on Saturday and experienced firsthand just how windy it was, so we know it’s no excuse to say the weather had a major impact on the game. Still, there are some valid concerns to be raised by the Buckeyes’ struggles to pull away from Northwestern – most notably, the run game struggling for the third week in a row and the potential for Ohio State to have to play in more bad weather as November continues.
There were also positives to take away from Saturday’s game, though – namely, C.J. Stroud showing he can be a weapon with his legs if and when Ohio State needs him to be – and we think it’s important to keep a lackluster performance in perspective, as the Buckeyes are still the only team in the country that’s won every game it’s played this season by double digits.
The full rundown of what we’re talking about on this week’s show, in which we also previe…
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Nov 2, 2022
J.T. Tuimoloau and Marvin Harrison Jr. Shine in Ohio State’s Win over Penn State, But Four-Quarter Battle Shows Buckeyes’ Imperfections
Penn State gave Ohio State a little bit more trouble than we expected, which raised some concerns about the Buckeyes’ national championship hopes even though there was still plenty to like.
Most importantly, Ohio State found a way to beat Penn State for the sixth year in a row, earning a 44-31 win in a series that has been decided by 13 points or fewer in seven straight seasons. J.T. Tuimoloau and Marvin Harrison Jr. were both spectacular, and the Buckeyes improved to 8-0 with the win, setting them up to earn the No. 2 spot in the initial College Football Playoff rankings.
The Buckeyes faced more adversity against Penn State than they had all year, though, as they needed a fourth-quarter comeback to beat the Nittany Lions. Against the best competition Ohio State had faced all season, the Buckeyes’ imperfections were on display as both their rushing offense and passing defense struggled.
We discuss all of that on this week’s show along with previewing this week’s game against…
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Oct 26, 2022
Analyzing Ohio State’s Performance Against Iowa, Previewing the Road Trip to Penn State and Drafting the Buckeye Basketball Team
Ohio State wasn’t perfect against Iowa, but its defense sure came close.
Even though the Buckeyes didn’t have their best offensive day against Iowa, they still scored more points than a Kirk Ferentz-led Hawkeye team has ever allowed. Given that, the good certainly far outweighed the bad in Ohio State’s 54-10 win over Iowa, especially on defense – where Dan’s prediction that the defense would outscore Iowa’s offense came true – though there are reasonable questions to be asked about Ohio State’s rushing offense after the Buckeyes struggled in that regard on Saturday.
We spend the first half of this week’s show sharing our thoughts on the Buckeyes’ performance against the Hawkeyes before looking ahead to the biggest game of the season to date this week at Penn State. How much of a threat do the Nittany Lions really pose? We discuss the ways in which Penn State will challenge Ohio State and where the Buckeyes should have the advantage.
Finally, with less than two we…
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Oct 19, 2022
Tennessee and Michigan Look Dangerous and Iowa Should Only Test Ohio State on One Side of the Ball
It was a quiet weekend for Ohio State football, but it certainly wasn’t a quiet weekend across college football.
No Buckeye game gave us the opportunity to watch many of college football’s other top teams play on an eventful Saturday in which Tennessee took down Alabama, Michigan blew out Penn State and Utah upset USC. We spend the first half of this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays talking about our observations from the weekend, including why Tennessee might present the most dangerous hypothetical College Football Playoff matchup for Ohio State and why we think it’s likely both the Buckeyes and Wolverines will bring 11-0 records into The Game.
In the second half of the show, we talk about the Buckeyes’ upcoming game against Iowa and why we’re both putting our money on the under, then project what Ohio State’s men’s basketball starting lineup will look like this season after watching the Buckeyes practice and attending Big Ten Media Days last week.
A rundown of…
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Oct 12, 2022
Ohio State Looks Like College Football’s Best Team at Midseason
Ohio State looked like a national championship-caliber team during the first half of the regular season.
The Buckeyes have been the most dominant team in college football so far this year, winning all six games before their bye week by an average of 33.2 points, the highest in the country. Ohio State currently ranks in the top 15 nationally in scoring offense (1st), total offense (2nd), passing offense (14th), rushing offense (14th), total defense (7th), scoring defense (15th), passing defense (8th) and rushing defense (15th).
As a result, Ohio State has emerged as the betting favorite to win this year’s national championship, and based on what we’ve seen so far this season, we believe there’s a great chance the Buckeyes will be hoisting the national championship trophy at the end of the year.
Only one of us went as far as to predict the Buckeyes will actually win it all, and our one reservation about Ohio State’s early success is the Buckeyes haven’t played anyone that’…
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Oct 5, 2022
Miyan Williams’ Star Grows, Jesse Mirco’s Run Needs No Apology and the Big Ten West is A Mess
It no longer feels like a hot take to say Miyan Williams is Ohio State’s best running back.
Williams hasn’t just been Ohio State’s best running back this season, he’s been one of the best running backs in college football this year. TreVeyon Henderson remains great, too, but after Williams’ 189-yard, five-touchdown performance against Rutgers, we’ve become increasingly convinced that the Cincinnatian is Ohio State’s RB1 right now.
That’s just one of many topics we cover on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays as we also share our thoughts on Jesse Mirco’s run and the subsequent Ryan Day/Greg Schiano confrontation that got everyone talking, standout performances by Steele Chambers and Zach Harrison, Michigan State’s struggles going into this week’s game against Ohio State, the surprising firing of Paul Chryst and the mess that is the Big Ten West.
The rundown of the topics discussed on this week’s show:
* 0:16: Ohio State vs. Rutgers wasn’t the m…
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Sep 28, 2022
Ohio State Makes A Statement Against Wisconsin Even as Questions Linger with Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Cornerbacks
While both of us expected Wisconsin’s defense to make life a little more difficult for Ohio State’s offense than Toledo could, the Buckeyes kept things rolling against the Badgers, scoring touchdowns on their first four possessions to race out to a 28-0 lead before ultimately cruising to a 52-21 victory.
There were no shortage of standout performers for the Buckeyes in Saturday night’s conference opener, from Miyan Williams, Cade Stover and the entire run-blocking unit on offense to Jyaire Brown, JK Johnson, Tanner McCalister and Tommy Eichenberg on defense. Of course, there are still a couple of lingering health-related questions for the Buckeyes after star receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba and starting cornerbacks Denzel Burke and Cameron Brown both missed the game with injuries.
We talk about all of that in the first 40 minutes of this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, then look ahead to this week’s game against Rutgers, make our one-month-in picks for who will make the C…
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Sep 21, 2022
Ohio State’s Offense Shows How Good It Can Be Going Into Big Ten Play
Ohio State’s offense couldn’t have been much more impressive in its win over Toledo.
The Buckeyes dominated by both air and ground against the Rockets, scoring 77 points on 763 yards – the second-highest total in school history. In the process, Ohio State went from being ranked 40th in the country to total offense to leading the entire country in yards per game, while Toledo plummed from fourth to 80th in total defense.
We begin this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by discussing all the ways Ohio State’s offense impressed us against Toledo. Later in the show, we talk about why we aren’t overly concerned with how the Buckeyes performed on defense – even though Jim Knowles wasn’t happy about it – before turning the page to Wisconsin, which we believe will present a similar matchup for the Buckeyes this week as Notre Dame did in the season opener (which could be a good thing).
Finally, we talk about our takeaways from the weekend that was elsewhere in the Big Te…
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Sep 14, 2022
Taking Stock of Ohio State’s Win over Arkansas State and What to Expect from Toledo
On this week’s Real Pod Wednesdays, we give our overall assessment of Ohio State’s 45-12 over the Red Wolves, which Buckeyes stood out in their second game of the season and why a wild second weekend of college football should serve as a reminder to appreciate what was ultimately a convincing win. We also look ahead to Saturday’s game against Toledo, which we think might also be at least a slightly more competitive game than the point spread suggests.
A rundown of some of the many topics we talk about this week:
* 1:45: Grading the win over Arkansas State
* 3:54: Ohio State’s passing offense returns to form, showing how special it could be when Jaxon Smith-Njigba is healthy
* 7:25: Why it’s dumb to be miserable after a 33-point win (even though there are some things to clean up)
* 11:14: The defense hasn’t been fully tested yet, but it’s been excellent so far, especially in the red zone
* 14:03: Mike Hall is a star, but don’t discount the defensive ends…
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Sep 7, 2022
The Biggest Takeaways from Ohio State’s Season-Opening Win over Notre Dame
Although Ohio State’s season opener against Notre Dame didn’t go quite the way we expected, we came away with plenty of positive impressions from the Buckeyes’ performance.
Ohio State’s defense exceeded our expectations while we expected more from the Buckeyes’ offense against Notre Dame, but overall, we think there was more to like than dislike from Ohio State’s season-opening 21-10 win over the Fighting Irish, who entered the season ranked fifth in the country.
In nearly a full hour of discussion on the Buckeyes’ first victory of the year, we talked about just about everything that resonated with us from Saturday night’s season opener in the Shoe, including:
* 0:48: What stood out most to each us: The dominant debut of Jim Knowles’ defense and Xavier Johnson’s moment in the spotlight
* 7:49: Ohio State’s defensive stars against Notre Dame: Mike Hall, Tommy Eichenberg and Lathan Ransom
* 14:02: How Ohio State’s defensive rotations could change in fu…
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Aug 31, 2022
Preview and Predictions for Ohio State’s Big Game Against Notre Dame
After eight months of looking ahead to Ohio State’s 2022 football season, it’s finally game week in Columbus.
Come next week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, we’ll have an actual football game to recap and a much better feel of how good this year’s Ohio State football team actually is and what it still needs to work on. This week, though, it’s all about looking ahead to the first and one of the biggest games of the year as we break down how things could play out when the Buckeyes finally take the field against the Fighting Irish in Ohio Stadium on Saturday.
The first half of this week’s episode is all about previewing what will happen on the field in Saturday’s big game. We break down what we expect to see from Jim Knowles’ defense and what would constitute a good first game in terms of points and yards allowed and how much of a challenge Notre Dame’s defense will present to Ohio State’s offense, then make our score predictions (at the 33:30 mark) for how we th…
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Aug 24, 2022
Ranking Ohio State’s Regular-Season Games by Our Confidence the Buckeyes Will Win
With just one week to go until the first game week, it’s time to look ahead at the season as a whole and make some predictions about how Ohio State’s 2022 season will play out.
To start things off on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, Dan and Griffin each rank Ohio State’s 12 regular-season games from the game we’re most confident the Buckeyes will win to the game we believe is most likely to be an upset. While we agree on which five games we’re most confident Ohio State will win, our lists diverge from there, as Dan is more confident than Griffin about wins over Michigan and Notre Dame while he sees Michigan State and Iowa as bigger threats than Griffin does.
Beginning at the 29:42 mark, we make some additional predictions for Ohio State’s 2022 season, including:
* What Ohio State’s record for the season will be
* Whether C.J. Stroud will win the Heisman Trophy and if Jaxon Smith-Njigba will join him in New York
* Which Buckeyes will earn first-team A…
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Aug 17, 2022
The Impact of Evan Pryor’s Injury and Standouts from Week Two of Preseason Camp
Two weeks into preseason camp, it’s becoming more clear which Ohio State players could be trending toward breakout years and where the Buckeyes still have concerns as the season draws closer.
Running back depth emerged as a concern this week when Evan Pryor suffered a season-ending knee injury in practice, and that’s where we begin this week’s show. Is there reason to worry about Ohio State having only three scholarship running backs, and do the Buckeyes need to move someone else to running back for additional depth?
While Ohio State might still have the nation’s best one-two punch at running back in TreVeyon Henderson and Miyan Williams, Pryor’s injury increases the importance of Dallan Hayden’s readiness, and we believe Kaleb Brown and Xavier Johnson – not Steele Chambers and Chip Trayanum – could be candidates to take snaps at running back if needed.
About 14 minutes into the show, we shift the conversation to everything else we learned from watching a full practi…
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Aug 10, 2022
Takeaways from the First Week of Preseason Camp
Preseason camp is in full swing at Ohio State, and we’ve had plenty of access to the Buckeyes over the past week as a result.
After watching a portion of the first two practices and attending four interview sessions at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center over the past week, we reconvene on this week’s Real Pod Wednesdays to discuss the biggest things we learned from the first six days of camp.
We start by talking about what we heard during Jim Knowles’ interview session on Tuesday, when he made several eyebrow-raising comments. Should Ohio State fans be worried about the Buckeyes’ cornerback depth? Knowles said only 25% of his defense has been installed so far; is that a cause for concern? And is Knowles setting expectations too high by saying the Buckeyes should have a top-five defense?
Following about 25 minutes of conversation about the defense, we shift our attention to the offense and discuss what we heard during offensive line and running back interviews. We also highlight…
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Aug 3, 2022
Preseason Camp Preview, What’s Going On with Recruiting and A Big Week for Ohio State Basketball
We’re officially one month away from Ohio State’s first football game of the 2022 season and one day away from the start of preseason camp.
We’ll have the chance to watch the Buckeyes practice – well, at least a little bit of practice – on both Thursday and Friday as Ohio State holds its first two practices of preseason camp, and we’re excited to see them up close, in person and on the field again. What will we be watching and listening for as camp begins? We start this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by talking about which players and position battles we’ll have our eyes on.
As much excitement as there is surrounding the upcoming Ohio State football season as the Buckeyes’ preparation for the games ahead ramps up, many Buckeye fans are also feeling angst about the recent misses and decommitments Ohio State has suffered on the recruiting trail. In the second segment of this week’s podcast (beginning at the 21-minute mark), Eleven Warriors recruiting analyst…
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Jul 28, 2022
Gene Smith Joins the Show from Big Ten Media Days
This week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays is coming to you one day later than usual, but we hope it will be worth the wait.
We recorded this week’s episode from Indianapolis, where we spent the past two days covering Big Ten Media Days. And we were joined by a special guest while we were there.
Dan talked to Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith on Tuesday about a wide variety of topics including Big Ten expansion, College Football Playoff expansion, NIL, Ryan Day and Chris Holtmann’s contract extensions, how Ohio State is making up for the deficit it incurred in 2020 and more. You can hear the entirety of their conversation in the first half of this week’s episode.
Griffin joins the show at the 24:10 mark for a conversation on everything we learned in Indianapolis including the likelihood of more expansion for the Big Ten, who is and isn’t available for Ohio State going into the start of preseason camp and Day’s confidence that the Buckeyes can have a top-10 defense…
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Jul 20, 2022
Big Ten Media Days Preview and Taking Stock of Ohio State’s 2023 Recruiting Class
Ohio State’s first official media availability of the preseason will be held one week from today when Ryan Day, C.J. Stroud, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Ronnie Hickman will meet with reporters at Big Ten Media Days.
With that in mind, we start today’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays – after Dan gloats for a bit about winning last week’s draft – by looking ahead to next week’s Big Ten Media Days in Indianapolis, where representatives from all 14 Big Ten teams will meet with the media between Tuesday and Wednesday.
We discuss why Stroud, Smith-Njigba and Hickman are the right choices to represent Ohio State at media days (though we would have also loved to see Dawand Jones back in his hometown) and what we could hear from each of them and Day. Expansion will undoubtedly be the dominant storyline next week, particularly during Kevin Warren’s press conference on Tuesday, but we’re also expecting plenty of Ohio State/Michigan talk – with the near-certainty that both fan bases…
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Jul 13, 2022
Drafting Lineups from the 2022 Ohio State Football Team
It’s draft week on Real Pod Wednesdays.
As we’ve done every year since we started this podcast, we held an Ohio State football team draft this week, selecting 44 total players from the current roster – 11 on offense and 11 on defense each – to build lineups for a hypothetical matchup of Buckeyes vs. Buckeyes if they were to play each other this fall.
Through this exercise, we made our picks for who Ohio State’s most valuable players will be this year, based not only on their individual talent but also on the depth at their respective positions, which influenced how highly each player got drafted.
You can hear all of our picks on this week’s podcast, and you can visit Eleven Warriors (https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-football/2022/07/131674/2022-ohio-state-football-team-draft-how-we-picked-head-to-head-lineups-for-a-matchup-of-buckeyes-vs-buckeyes) to read a full list of our selections, see the lineups side-by-side and cast your vote for whose team would win.
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Jul 6, 2022
USC and UCLA Join the Big Ten and Ohio State Lands Three Cornerback Commits in Five Days
Landmark news broke in the world of college sports this past week.
USC and UCLA are coming to the Big Ten in 2024, and the move will have ripple effects for years to come. With Dan Hope on vacation this week, Garrick Hodge joined Griffin Strom to break down how the Big Ten’s latest expansion efforts will impact Ohio State and college athletics as a whole.
We started by stating our initial reactions (2:35) to the news before assessing the pros and cons from several perspectives, and also dug into the potential recruiting impact the addition of USC and UCLA might have on the Buckeye program (8:10).
With Griffin and Garrick both present at this past Friday’s joint press conference between Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith and president Kristina Johnson, we stated our biggest takeaways from the presser (21:45) and look ahead to what might come next as far as conference realignment.
Aside from the biggest news of the week, there was still plenty to discuss in the world of recr…
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Jun 22, 2022
Brian Hartline’s Absurd Recruiting Run and Dylan Raiola Makes A Strong First Impression
It’s been a huge week for Ohio State in recruiting – specifically, for wide receiver recruiting.
Ohio State landed commitments from five-star wide receivers on back-to-back days when Carnell Tate and Brandon Inniss committed to the Buckeyes on Monday and Tuesday. To help us put it all into context and explain how the Buckeyes pulled it off, Eleven Warriors recruiting analyst Garrick Hodge joins us on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
We break down how Ohio State’s success recruiting wide receivers over the past five years is unprecedented and how Brian Hartline made OSU into the place top receiver prospects want to go, and Garrick shares his intel on how OSU ultimately won the battle for Tate after a push from Tennessee.
In other recruiting storylines, this week brought us our first opportunity to see Dylan Raiola in person as he participated in Ohio State’s final camp of the summer on Tuesday, and we share what impressed us (beginning 13 minutes in) while watchi…
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Jun 8, 2022
Takeaways from Ohio State’s First Three Recruiting Camps and Ryan Day’s $13 Million Comment
More than 1,000 high school football players have made their way through the Woody Hayes Athletic Center over the past week for Ohio State’s first three high school football camps of the year, and we’ve been there to watch all the action unfold.
For the first half of this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, we share what we’ve learned from attending those three camps, including a list of the most impressive prospects we’ve seen on the field so far, the most interesting things we’ve heard from talking to recruits and our observations from watching new Ohio State coaches Justin Frye, Jim Knowles and Tim Walton in action.
In the second half of the show, we discuss some of the other headlines of the past week and address some questions from listeners, including:
* 30:30: Why Ryan Day said Ohio State needs $13 million in NIL money and whether that’s a realistic target
* 36:40: How Ohio State is getting more involved in helping its athletes land NIL deals
* 41:56…
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Jun 1, 2022
Previewing A Big Month of Recruiting Camps and Visits
Ohio State’s biggest recruiting month of the summer has begun.
The first of seven camps for high school football players is taking place on Wednesday at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. Over the next 21 days, Ohio State will host thousands of high school football prospects hoping to earn an offer from the Buckeyes or at minimum, get some valuable coaching from members of OSU’s coaching staff.
Ohio State is set to also host more than 30 official visitors over the next four weeks, and those visits will be important to the Buckeyes’ chances of landing commitments from some of their top targets in the 2023 recruiting class.
To preview the entire month to come, Eleven Warriors recruiting analyst Garrick Hodge joins us for the first half of this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays. In more than 30 minutes of recruiting talk, we discuss who we’ll be watching at the camps and his choices for the five most important official visitors of the month. And if you like #BOOMs, you’ll…
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May 25, 2022
Why Ryan Day and Chris Holtmann Received Contract Extensions Now
Day is now one of the five highest-paid coaches in college football after receiving a two-year contract extension through the 2028 season that upped his compensation to $9.5 million per year. Holtmann received a pay bump to $3.5 million while his contract was extended through the 2027-28 season.
Why was now the time to give both of them extensions, considering Ohio State football did not achieve its goals last year and men’s basketball once again fell short of the Sweet 16? We analyze the timing and the impact of their contract extensions on this week’s Real Pod Wednesdays.
Holtmann’s contract extension undoubtedly came with more scrutiny from Ohio State fans, yet it makes clear his job is safe for now – though we‘re not sure it guarantees anything beyond the next couple of seasons. We discuss why he deserves more time to continue building the Ohio State basketball program and what he will need to accomplish over the next couple of years to continue to be the right man for…
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May 18, 2022
Getting Excited for Ohio State vs. Notre Dame at Night
We now know exactly when Ohio State’s 2022 season will kick off, and it's hard not to start getting excited.
Ohio State’s Sept. 3 season opener against Notre Dame is still more than three months away, but the buildup to the Buckeyes’ first game of the year received a big jolt of energy Tuesday when ESPN announced that the highly anticipated non-conference clash at Ohio Stadium will be played under the lights, kicking off at 7:30 p.m. on ABC.
So we begin this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by starting to look ahead to the first game of the year, as we discuss some of the many reasons Ohio State vs. Notre Dame will be the Buckeyes’ most exciting season opener in some time and share our thoughts on the early 13.5-point spread.
In that same spirit, we also share our thoughts (beginning at 14:30) on the other early betting lines for Ohio State’s big games that were recently released by FanDuel, which has the Buckeyes as a 16-point favorite over Wisconsin, 21-point favo…
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May 11, 2022
Dylan Raiola and What’s Next for Ohio State in Recruiting
We couldn’t have picked a better week for Garrick Hodge to co-host Real Pod Wednesdays.
With regular co-host Griffin Strom vacationing in Costa Rica, Eleven Warriors recruiting writer Garrick Hodge took his place on this week’s episode of RPW, and the timing worked out perfectly as it gave us the opportunity to talk about Ohio State’s biggest commitment of the year to date.
Of course, we’re talking about Dylan Raiola – ranked by multiple recruiting services as the No. 1 overall prospect in the 2024 class – who became the first member of Ohio State’s 2024 class when he committed to the Buckeyes on Monday night. We start this week’s show by talking about what makes him such a special prospect and how his commitment sets Ohio State up for continued quarterback greatness for years to come.
While Raiola was Ohio State’s No. 1 target in any recruiting class, the Buckeyes’ priorities now shift back to the recruiting class of 2023, where Ohio State also landed another co…
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May 4, 2022
Ohio State’s 2022 NFL Draft Picks and Potential 2023 Prospects
Ohio State’s 2022 NFL draft class was smaller than usual, but the Buckeyes should have a larger draft class in 2023.
Those two topics get most of our attention on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, just a few days after Ohio State had six players selected in the 2022 NFL draft.
This year’s NFL draft was a mixture of good and bad for the Buckeyes, as there were plenty of moments worth celebrating, like Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave (and Jameson Williams) going back-to-back and Jeremy Ruckert going to his favorite team. We talk about how great a recruiting pitch this year’s draft will be for Brian Hartline, predict which of those receivers will make the bigger immediate impact and analyze why Nicholas Petit-Frere might have landed in the best spot of Ohio State’s non-first-round picks.
There were also some disappointments, like Thayer Munford falling to the seventh round and Haskell Garrett going undrafted, and we talk about what might have precipitated their falls…
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Apr 27, 2022
Predicting Where Buckeyes Will Land in the 2022 NFL Draft
It’s time to make our predictions for where each Buckeye will land in the 2022 NFL draft.
On this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, we preview the NFL draft by making predictions for which teams we think Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson will land with on Thursday night, what rounds we think Nicholas Petit-Frere, Jeremy Ruckert, Thayer Munford, Haskell Garrett and Tyreke Smith will be selected in and whether Master Teague, Antwuan Jackson, Demario McCall or Chris Booker could sneak into the draft.
We also make our personal picks (starting at 27:45) for which Buckeyes we’d be most confident drafting if we were NFL general managers and share some overall thoughts on this year’s Ohio State draft class, including what it says about the talent that will be returning to the Buckeyes in 2022.
As for the 2022 Buckeyes, we also learned this week about some players who won’t be returning to Ohio State this fall – namely Noah Potter, Andre Turrentine and Marcus Hooker – and we…
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Apr 20, 2022
What Stood Out at Ohio State’s Spring Game and Coaches Clinic
The final week of spring football gave us our closest look yet at the 2022 Buckeyes.
Ohio State took the field on Saturday for its annual spring game in Ohio Stadium, and while there wasn’t necessarily any overarching storyline that came out of this year’s scrimmage, there were no shortage of individual players who stood out.
We begin this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by talking about some of the biggest standouts from this year’s spring game, including players who have received plenty of post-spring game publicity like Kye Stokes and Jordan Hancock but also some players who deserve more attention for their spring game performances like Andre Turrentine, Noah Potter and Xavier Johnson.
We also consider how much playing time Evan Pryor could see at running back this year, what we make of Gee Scott Jr. and the tight ends’ performance in the spring game, why the offensive line remains Ryan Day’s biggest concern, what we took away from Kyle McCord and Devin Brown’…
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Apr 13, 2022
Remembering Dwayne Haskins and Previewing the Spring Game
While we’re looking forward to this weekend’s spring game at Ohio Stadium, we had to start this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by looking back.
Following this weekend’s tragic death of Dwayne Haskins, we took some time at the beginning of this week’s show to reflect on the impact Haskins made on Ohio State and remember some of his most memorable performances as a Buckeye, including Ohio State’s comeback wins against Michigan in 2017 and Penn State in 2018.
After paying tribute to Haskins, we turn our attention (beginning at 15:20) to the upcoming scrimmage in the Shoe, where the general public will have the opportunity to watch this year’s Buckeyes in action inside Ohio Stadium for the first time this year on Saturday. We discuss what we’ll be watching most closely on Saturday – spoiler alert: the defense – and which players we believe could benefit most from a big spring game performance, including Julian Fleming and Evan Pryor.
We also talk about everyth…
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Apr 6, 2022
What We Learned from Watching Ohio State Practice Actual Football
You often ask us who’s standing out and making a move up the depth chart at spring practice, and now, we feel equipped to actually answer those questions.
Saturday’s Student Appreciation Day gave us our first opportunity of the spring to watch the Buckeyes practice actual football – as in, we got to watch team drills, 7-on-7 drills and head-to-head competition rather than just warmups and individual drills – and as a result, we got our first real glimpse of who’s where on the depth chart and who’s making plays in competitive action.
We spend the first half of this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays talking all about what we took away from Saturday’s viewing opportunity, including which players and position groups stood out most and which units look like they still have a lot of work to do between now and September.
In the second half of this week’s episode (beginning at 30:28), we talk about the impact of a busy week in the transfer portal for multiple Buckeye t…
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Mar 30, 2022
Nadine Muzerall Joins the Show and Interesting Developments at Spring Practice
A national championship-winning coach joins us on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
Just over one week after she led Ohio State women’s hockey to its first national title in program history, Nadine Muzerall joins us on RPW to talk about the Buckeyes’ journey to making history.
In a 20-minute interview with the Buckeyes’ head coach, Muzerall tells us what makes winning a national championship so special, what former Columbus Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella told her after the win and how she was able to transform a “flawed” program into the top team in the country.
She also tells us how her program has benefitted from the success of Ohio State football, says she is “very confident” that Ohio State women’s hockey will get a new facility in the near future and explains why she was upset that Sophie Jaques did not win the Patty Kazmaier Award.
Following our conversation with Muzerall, we shift our attention to the latest developments at the Woody Hayes Ath…
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Mar 23, 2022
Ohio State Men’s Basketball Season Concludes and A Busy Offseason Looms
While the college basketball season still has two more weeks to go, Ohio State’s men’s basketball season is over.
Ohio State’s 2021-22 season came to an end on Sunday, when the Buckeyes lost to Villanova in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Although the loss to Villanova wasn’t particularly surprising, it still made for an unsatisfying ending to the season as Ohio State has now gone nine years without making the Sweet 16.
The men’s basketball Buckeyes draw the majority of our focus on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, though we start by talking about some good news from the weekend in Ohio State sports, as Ohio State women’s hockey won its first-ever national championship and women’s basketball did what the men couldn’t by upsetting LSU and advancing to the Sweet 16.
Our discussion on the men’s basketball season that was starts about six minutes in, beginning with some conversation about the importance of the first-round win over Loyola but then…
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Mar 16, 2022
Analyzing Ohio State’s Chances of Advancing in the NCAA Tournament and Whether Chris Holtmann Needs To
Ohio State will play its first game of the NCAA Tournament at 12:15 p.m. Friday in Pittsburgh, where the seventh-seeded Buckeyes will face No. 10 seed Loyola in a matchup that has many calling for a first-round upset. Will the Buckeyes’ late-season skid continue with a first-round NCAA Tournament loss for the second straight year, or will they make the most of their talent advantage against the Ramblers? We discuss where Ohio State should have the edge over Loyola and what makes Loyola a dangerous first-round opponent.
As Ohio State’s recent struggles have had many Buckeye fans questioning whether Chris Holtmann is the right man to lead the program, we also discuss (beginning at 11:55) whether Holtmann should be on the hot seat if Ohio State loses to Loyola, even though it doesn’t appear likely that he actually will be regardless of what happens this weekend.
Since our next podcast won’t be until after the first two rounds of the tournament, we take a look at a hypothetical s…
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Mar 9, 2022
Spring Football Begins, NFL Scouting Combine Takeaways and Big Ten Tournament Preview
The Ohio State football team is back on the practice field, the NFL Scouting Combine is complete and the postseason is about to begin for Ohio State men’s basketball.
Tuesday was the first day of spring football at Ohio State, and that’s where we begin on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, on which we share our takeaways from watching the first 30 minutes of the Buckeyes’ opening practice and from talking to Ryan Day, Jim Knowles and Kevin Wilson after practice.
We explain why there’s already a clear group of frontrunners to start on the offensive line, discuss how Kourt Williams and Ronnie Hickman could coexist within Jim Knowles’ defense and talk about some of the players who are clearly already making an impression on Ohio State’s coaches this offseason, including second-year wide receiver Jayden Ballard and second-year cornerbacks Jordan Hancock and Jakailin Johnson.
Dan also learned more about which Ohio State football players could have breakout years an…
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Mar 2, 2022
Previewing Spring Football and the NFL Scouting Combine and Taking Stock of Ohio State Basketball
This is March, which means there’s plenty happening in the world of Ohio State sports.
The Ohio State football team is expected to begin spring practices next week, so we start this week’s episode – after Griffin recounts his near-death experience during his trip to Champaign for last week’s basketball game at Illinois – by looking ahead to the start of spring ball and discussing who and what we’ll be most looking forward to watching and what questions most need to be answered once practices begin.
After 21 minutes of discussion about the current Ohio State football team, we shift gears to be previewing this week’s NFL Scouting Combine, which Dan is in Indianapolis to cover as seven former Buckeyes – Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, Jeremy Ruckert, Nicholas Petit-Frere, Thayer Munford, Haskell Garrett and Tyreke Smith – look to impress scouts this week. Dan makes his picks for which Buckeyes will have the most impressive combine performances and who most needs to have g…
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Feb 23, 2022
Why We Might Not See A Playoff Game at Ohio Stadium
Gene Smith’s press conference at Ohio State last week provided plenty of fodder for this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
Of course, we had to start by talking about the news that got everyone talking: Smith saying he does not think Ohio State should host a College Football Playoff game at Ohio Stadium. Would it really make sense for the Buckeyes to give up home-field advantage in the CFP to play in Indianapolis instead? We can see why Ohio State might prefer to play indoors – and why Ohio State might not have as much of a home-field advantage over warm-weather teams as some people think – but that doesn’t mean it’s not disappointing.
In the end, Smith’s preference may end up being a moot point anyway, as the College Football Playoff announced last week that it will not expand until at least 2026. Griffin’s holding out hope that the CFP might reconsider actually expanding to 12 teams, but Dan thinks the CFP is just delaying the inevitable.
Smith’s press confe…
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Feb 16, 2022
Should Ohio State Really Be A 17-Point Favorite Over Georgia?
Should Ohio State really be a 17-point favorite over Georgia?
That’s a question we ask on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays after early bowl projections released by The Action Network earlier this week listed Ohio State as a 17-point favorite for a hypothetical College Football Playoff semifinal game over Georgia, as well as a 2-point favorite in a hypothetical national championship game against Alabama.
We’re buying that the Buckeyes are one of the top two frontrunners to make the national championship game this year, but we’re not so sure about them being favored by three scores over Georgia or being favored at all against Alabama. We discuss all of that (beginning at 8:54) and make our early predictions for which teams will make the College Football Playoff, including a Pac-12 team that could crash the party for the first time.
Another article that caught our attention this week was a re-ranking of college football’s 2018 recruiting classes by The Athletic, whi…
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Feb 9, 2022
Meeting the Early Enrollees, Drama in Ann Arbor and the Joe Burrow Debate
Ohio State’s early enrollees met the media last week, there’s been lots of coaching staff drama in Ann Arbor and Joe Burrow is about to play in the Super Bowl.
We discuss all of those topics on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays – but first, we share our thoughts on the new turf at Ohio Stadium and our favorite fan-submitted designs.
After projecting which players would be the stars of the 2022 recruiting class on last week’s episode, we got the opportunity to meet more than half of the class when early enrollees met with the media last week, and we share our biggest takeaways (beginning at 4:18) from those conversations, including new insight on which positions Caden Curry and Gabe Powers might play, how Devin Brown already looks like a natural in the spotlight and an interesting comment about how athletic George Fitzpatrick is.
We also discuss (at 18:08) why Sevyn Banks chose to enter the transfer portal rather than enter the 2022 NFL draft and why leaving Ohio S…
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Feb 2, 2022
Projecting the Stars of Ohio State’s 2022 Class and First Impressions of the New Assistant Coaches
Ohio State is wrapping up its recruiting class of 2022 today, and we finally got to meet the Buckeyes’ new assistant coaches this week.
We start this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by sharing our overall thoughts on the Buckeyes’ recruiting class of 2022 and making our picks for which players we expect to make the biggest immediate impact from the class, who we expect to be the biggest stars long-term and who could be the class’ hidden gems.
At the 23:24 mark of the show, we shift the conversations to Ohio State’s new assistant coaches – Jim Knowles, Justin Frye, Tim Walton and Perry Eliano – who we got to meet for the first time on Monday. We share our first impressions of the four new assistants as well as our takeaways from Ryan Day’s first press conference of the offseason, in which we learned that several “super seniors” would be back with the Buckeyes, though cornerback Sevyn Banks will not.
Later in the show, we also answer some listener questions,…
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Jan 26, 2022
An Early Look at Ohio State’s Projected 2022 Depth Chart
This week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays is all about Ohio State’s 2022 depth chart.
After Dan published his initial projection of Ohio State’s 2022 depth chart on Eleven Warriors on Wednesday morning, the guys spend an hour analyzing the potential depth chart position-by-position.
How will this year’s wide receiver rotation look following the departures of Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson? Who will step up at tight end? Where could Harry Miller factor into the offensive line depth chart, and who do we expect to be the next man up at tackle and guard? How might Jim Knowles’ defensive scheme change the defensive end rotation? Who will emerge to play the biggest roles from a crowded group of linebackers? How will Ronnie Hickman and Kourt Williams coexist in this year’s defense? And could we see a new face at punt returner this fall?
We discuss all of those questions and more on this week’s show, which starts with a look through the offensive depth chart for the first hal…
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Jan 19, 2022
Ohio State Overhauls Coaching Staff and Gets Good News from NFL Draft Decisions
Ohio State continued to overhaul its defensive coaching staff, the Buckeyes got good news at the NFL draft entry deadline and Ohio State has a new schedule for the 2022 season.
All of that made for a newsy week since our last episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, and we dive into all three of those topics as Griffin returns to the show this week.
First up, we take a closer look at Ohio State’s new hires on the defensive coaching staff – secondary coaches Tim Walton and Perry Eliano, as well as multiple additional support staff hires – and what we expect them to bring to the Buckeyes. We also reflect back on the tenures of Kerry Coombs and Al Washington and discuss how they should be remembered at Ohio State and why they are now headed elsewhere. In a little over 26 minutes of talk about the coaching staff, we also share our thoughts on yet another offensive coach getting a coordinator title and why we don’t believe there will be any further changes to the full-time coaching staff b…
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Jan 12, 2022
Title Game Takeaways, Ohio State Coaching Changes and A Big Week in Recruiting
You’ll hear two different voices on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
With Griffin Strom feeling under the weather, Kevin Harrish joins Dan Hope for the first half of this week’s episode while Garrick Hodge joins Dan for the second half of the show as we talk about all of the latest developments in Ohio State football.
Kevin and Dan start by sharing some Ohio State-themed takeaways from the national championship game – watching that Georgia defense sure looked different than watching Ohio State this year, didn’t it? – and looking forward to what needs to happen for Ohio State to win it all next season.
The guys also discuss why Ohio State fired Greg Studrawa and replaced him with Justin Frye (beginning at 15:50) and the possibility of further staff changes and take a look at incoming transfers DeaMonte Trayanum and Tanner McCalister, and Dan couldn’t let Kevin go without asking him for his go-to order at Arby’s.
At the 35-minute mark of the show, Garrick j…
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Jan 5, 2022
Wrapping Up A Wild Rose Bowl Win and Ohio State’s 2021 Football Season
Ohio State’s 2021 football season ended in dramatic fashion.
After spending a week in Southern California, where we watched Ohio State beat Utah 48-45 in what we both agreed was one of the wildest games we’ve ever covered, we have plenty to discuss from the Rose Bowl on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
Of course, we had to start by talking about Jaxon Smith-Njigba and C.J. Stroud, as we discuss how both Buckeyes rewrote the record books to cap off spectacular sophomore seasons and potentially set themselves up for even bigger years in 2022. We also talk about the emergence of Marvin Harrison Jr. (10:22), a few encouraging signs from the defense’s second-half performance even though the Buckeyes gave up 45 points and how the events that unfolded during the game were crazy both on and off the field (25:40).
We also discuss the Rose Bowl within the context of the 2021 season and whether it makes a disappointing season more of a success (28:30) and look back at the se…
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Dec 29, 2021
Rose Bowl Preview and Predictions
It’s the final week of the 2021 Ohio State football season, and we’re in Los Angeles to watch it all unfold.
Although we arrived in California one day later than expected thanks to travel issues, both members of the Real Pod Wednesdays crew are in Los Angeles to cover the Rose Bowl, and we spent the entirety of this week’s show previewing Saturday’s clash between Ohio State and Utah.
First up, we talk about the biggest news of the week so far – that Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, Nicholas Petit-Frere and Haskell Garrett are opting out of the Rose Bowl – and debate whether the absences at wide receiver or on the line of scrimmage will affect the Buckeyes more. We also talk about four other potential player absences – Sevyn Banks, Cody Simon, Antwuan Jackson and Marcus Williamson – and who will need to step up for the Buckeyes to replace those who will be unavailable.
Then, we dive deeper into the matchup with Utah, looking at why the Utes will present another massive te…
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Dec 22, 2021
Diving Into Rose Bowl Storylines and the Outlook for Ohio State’s 2022 Roster After Early Signing Day
As the Rose Bowl draws nearer, dominoes are continuing to fall that could shape next year’s Ohio State roster.
There’s still one last order of business for Ohio State to take care of in the 2021 season, and that’s beating Utah in the Rose Bowl. While we’ll dig deeper into the matchup with Utah on next week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays after we arrive in Los Angeles, we begin this week’s episode by talking about some of the biggest storylines that were discussed by more than a dozen players during Ohio State’s on-campus Rose Bowl media day last week.
The matchup with Utah is an intriguing one on paper, as the Utes play a similar brand of football to Michigan, and that gives the Buckeyes all the more reason to be motivated to make a statement in Pasadena. Will be that enough to carry Ohio State to a victory, though, in a game where the Buckeyes could still potentially be without key players due to opt-outs? We start this week’s show by discussing the Rose Bowl match…
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Dec 15, 2021
A First Look at Ohio State’s Signing Class of 2022
It’s early signing day for the class of 2022, so we had to bring in our recruiting analyst to help us break it all down.
With Dan Hope’s voice recovering from a weekend bout with laryngitis, Garrick Hodge fills on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays at the perfect time for him to make his debut on the show, as Garrick and Griffin Strom talk about the players who just signed with Ohio State and who could be the early and long-term stars among the newly inked Buckeyes.
In more than 30 minutes of discussion about the early signing class, Garrick and Griffin discuss what stands out to them about the Buckeyes’ class so far and how Ohio State could round out the class of 2022 between now and the February signing day.
In the second half of the show, the guys share their thoughts on a variety of additional topics including C.J. Stroud finishing fourth in the Heisman race (31:55), the latest developments in the transfer portal (38:51), Ohio State paying Jim Knowles $1.9 millio…
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Dec 8, 2021
Initial Thoughts on the Rose Bowl, Quinn Ewers is Out and Jim Knowles is In
It's been an eventful last few days for the Ohio State football program.
Ohio State learned Sunday that it will be finishing its season by playing Utah in the Rose Bowl, and we spend the first 18:45 of this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays discussing our initial thoughts on the matchup.
We have mixed feelings about the game; it undoubtedly feels like a consolation prize, but we still think it matters for the Buckeyes to get a win. And from a football perspective, we think it will be an interesting matchup, as it will be another big test for the Buckeyes at the line of scrimmage as they look to make immediate improvements in the run game.
After that, we talk about the big news that broke on Friday night, when Quinn Ewers entered the transfer portal. For about 25 minutes, we discuss the impact of his early departure, why Ohio State fans should still feel good about the future at quarterback with C.J. Stroud and Kyle McCord and whether the events of this past year could change h…
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Dec 1, 2021
What Went Wrong Against Michigan and What’s Next for Ohio State
This feels weird.
For the first time in five years, Ohio State isn’t playing in the Big Ten Championship Game. In a week where we thought we’d be going to Indianapolis to watch the Buckeyes play for a fifth consecutive Big Ten title and compete for a berth in the College Football Playoff, we’re instead waiting to find out where the Buckeyes will finish their season in what will almost certainly be a non-playoff bowl game.
That’s because the Buckeyes suffered a 42-27 loss to Michigan in their final game of the regular season, their first loss to the Wolverines in 10 years, leaving them to watch from home this week while their rivals play for a Big Ten championship and a CFP berth.
We spend the first half of this week’s show discussing what went wrong for the Buckeyes against the Wolverines – and what might have contributed to that, including the tough second-half schedule, players being sick and a vanilla game plan on both sides of the ball – in a game where Michigan do…
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Nov 24, 2021
Ohio State Dominates Michigan State, Will Michigan Give the Buckeyes A Tougher Game?
Ohio State’s win over Michigan State couldn’t have been much more impressive, but another huge test looms this week.
The Buckeyes were utterly dominant against the Spartans in their final home game of the season, defeating Michigan State 56-7 in an “ass-whooping” – as Haskell Garrett predicted – that was even more lopsided than the final score reflected.
While C.J. Stroud, Chris Olave and the rest of Ohio State’s offense deservedly got plenty of love for their performances – and do from us on this show, too – we start this week’s episode by talking about how the Buckeyes turned in a lights-out performance on defense, which well exceeded our expectations after an underwhelming showing against Purdue.
We also discuss how Saturday was yet another reflection of how great Ohio State’s trio of wide receivers is and how the Buckeyes made the case that they’re one of college football’s two best teams this season before shifting our attention to this week’s rivalr…
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Nov 17, 2021
Buckeyes Look Like Who We Thought They Were Against Purdue, and Michigan State Awaits
On last week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, we were asked if the defense could become Ohio State’s strength this season. On Saturday against Purdue, it became clear that it isn’t.
The Buckeyes looked like who we thought they were against the Boilermakers, as they re-emerged as an offensive juggernaut by putting up 59 points and 624 yards but looked vulnerable on defense as they gave up 31 points on 481 yards, including 390 yards through the air.
We begin the show by discussing Ohio State’s return to offensive greatness, including C.J. Stroud’s emergence as the potential Heisman frontrunner and Garrett Wilson’s spectacular four-touchdown performance. Coming off of historically great performances by Wilson and Jaxon Smith-Njigba in back-to-back weeks and Chris Olave being named a Biletnikoff Award semifinalist, we also have a discussion about which of Ohio State’s three star receivers is best (4:55).
Of course, we also had to talk about what didn’t go as well for th…
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Nov 10, 2021
Evaluating Ohio State’s Offensive Struggles in Back-to-Back Games
While one bad game can be chalked up as an off day, two games is a trend, and Ohio State’s offense has had some recurring issues in its last two games against Penn State and Nebraska.
The Buckeyes have scored just two offensive touchdowns while settling for four field goals in each of their last two games as they’ve struggled to run the ball effectively and finish off drives in the red zone. Ryan Day’s play calling has also drawn scrutiny from Ohio State fans, as has C.J. Stroud rarely running the ball.
Diagnosing what’s gone wrong with Ohio State’s offense is our main topic of discussion on this week’s Real Pod Wednesdays, as we spend the first half of this week’s show looking back on Saturday’s 26-17 win over Nebraska. While we personally believe the criticism toward Day and Stroud has been overblown, we discuss what the Buckeyes are going to need to do better on that side of the ball in order to win the big games they have coming up on the schedule.
Beginning at t…
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Nov 3, 2021
Penn State Takeaways, Initial CFP Rankings Reaction and the 2021 Ohio State Basketball Draft
The Ohio State football team just won one of its biggest games of the year, the first College Football Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday night and the Buckeye basketball season is about to begin.
That – not to look past another game that could be a test for the football Buckeyes against Nebraska this week – gave us a lot to pack into this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, but we still managed to cover it all in just over 70 minutes.
Our review of Ohio State’s 33-24 win over Penn State leads off the show, as we spend the first 23-plus minutes of this episode discussing the good and the bad from the Buckeyes’ performance against the Nittany Lions. While any win over Penn State should be recognized as a good win for Ohio State, it was an unspectacular performance for the Buckeyes’ offense – specifically in the red zone – and we analyze whether that should simply be a chalked up as a bad game or if there are issues that other top defenses could exploit.
Our…
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Oct 27, 2021
Will Ohio State vs. Penn State Be A Battle or A Blowout?
Ohio State keeps looking better and better each week, but this week's game should – or at least could? – give the Buckeyes a tougher test.
The Buckeyes kept things rolling with another blowout win over Indiana on Saturday, and that's what we spent the first half of this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays discussing. There's plenty of good things to say about both Ohio State’s offense and defense after the Buckeyes scored 54 and allowed just seven against the Hoosiers, and there were no shortage of players who had performances worthy of praise in Bloomington, from C.J. Stroud, TreVeyon Henderson, Evan Pryor, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Jeremy Ruckert on offense to Tommy Eichenberg, Kourt Williams, Zach Harrison and Tyreke Smith on defense.
At the 28-minute mark, we shift our focus ahead to this week's game against Penn State. The Nittany Lions are the first ranked opponent Ohio State has played since its loss to Oregon, but they're also coming off of back-to-back losses, and the…
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Oct 20, 2021
Ohio State Looks Like the Big Ten’s Team to Beat Again, But Must Prove It In The Next Seven Weeks
A week off for the Buckeyes gave us the opportunity to watch more of other teams playing college football this past weekend, and it only gave us more reason to believe Ohio State is still the team to beat in the Big Ten.
Iowa got beaten soundly by Purdue and Michigan State barely beat Indiana, taking some wind out of the sails of two of Ohio State's top competitors in the conference. At the same time, though, it was also a reminder that there are plenty of teams capable of beating just about anybody in the Big Ten – a reminder that comes as the Buckeyes are about to begin a second-half schedule that includes many of the Big Ten's top teams, including Indiana this Saturday.
We begin this week's episode by talking about why we think Ohio State is starting to more clearly look like the best team in the Big Ten, but also why the Buckeyes will have to prove themselves over and over again over the next seven weeks. We also take a look at the national landscape (15:45) and which teams out…
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Oct 13, 2021
Biggest Surprises from the First Half of the Season
We've officially reached the halfway point of the 2021 Ohio State football season.
With no game on the schedule this weekend, that made it a perfect time for a midseason report on this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, on which we discuss what’s impressed us most so far, what concerns we still have and what’s surprised us most from the first half of the year.
We begin that discussion a little over 23 minutes into the program, but first, we discuss our takeaways from Ohio State’s 66-17 win over Maryland, including what’s impressed us most about the Buckeyes’ near-perfect offensive performances in back-to-back games, why we think the defense’s improvement is for real and why Emeka Egbuka looks poised to break Ohio State’s 11-year kickoff return drought. We also discuss Kerry Coombs’ impassioned press conference on Tuesday (beginning at 12:54) and why it seems unlikely Coombs will remain at Ohio State beyond this season.
In our midseason report, we answer what we f…
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Oct 6, 2021
How Ohio State is Improving and An Early Look at the Buckeyes’ Playoff Hopes
Ohio State was impressive in every facet of the game against Rutgers.
C.J. Stroud showed why he's Ohio State's starting quarterback while the defense was dominant for the second game in a row, and we begin this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by discussing the tangible improvement we saw from Stroud and from the defense in Piscataway.
Now that Ohio State is starting to look like the team it's supposed to be, the Buckeyes are beginning to re-emerge as one of this year's frontrunners to make the College Football Playoff, so we also spend a segment (beginning at 16:30) discussing why Ohio State should have a clear path to the CFP if it wins out, and why it's probably the third-most capable team of winning a national championship this year – but also how the rest of the Buckeyes’ Big Ten schedule will provide plenty of potential pitfalls.
At the 32:06 mark, we begin looking ahead to this week's game against Maryland and why it will be the biggest test of the year to date for t…
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Sep 29, 2021
Why C.J. Stroud is Still Ohio State's Starting Quarterback and Rutgers is A Real Opponent This Year
Although Ohio State's 59-7 win over Akron wasn't competitive, the game didn't lack for interesting storylines.
It was our first opportunity to watch Kyle McCord and Jack Miller throw passes for the Buckeyes, and that's where we begin this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, as we discuss what we saw from McCord and Miller and why their performances weren't enough to change Ryan Day's mind on who should start at quarterback.
The other big story from Saturday night's game was K'Vaughan Pope's sideline outburst and subsequent dismissal from the team, and we discuss how we saw that unfold and the impact of Ohio State losing two senior linebackers in one week, beginning at the 21:30 mark.
We also talk about why Ohio State's defensive depth chart still isn't quite settled (37:55), how Ohio State's interior pass rush stepped up but it still needs more from its defensive ends (41:12) and which true freshmen caught our eye against Akron (45:56).
Beginning at 48:22, we look ahead to this…
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Sep 22, 2021
Taking Stock of Ohio State After Tussle with Tulsa
A 41-20 win over Tulsa didn't do much to alleviate the concerns about Ohio State's 2021 football team.
Ohio State's defense gave up 501 yards against the Golden Hurricane while C.J. Stroud had his worst performance so far as Ohio State's starting quarterback. The Buckeyes' rushing offense and rushing defense were both better against Tulsa than against Oregon, but the passing offense and passing defense took steps back.
We start this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by discussing what went better and what didn't go better for the defense against Tulsa, then discuss how Ohio State should handle the quarterback situation this week against Akron as Stroud continues to battle a shoulder injury while backup quarterbacks Kyle McCord and Jack Miller continue to await their first playing time of the season.
We also talk about what to make of Quinn Ewers likely not playing this year (13:38), how injuries are starting to pile up for this year's team (21:25) and answer a wide variety of qu…
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Sep 15, 2021
Can Ohio State’s Defense Be Saved?
Coming off of Saturday's loss to Oregon, there's one question that most Ohio State fans have on their minds: Can the defense be saved?
After sharing our initial reactions to Ohio State’s 35-28 loss to Oregon and Ryan Day’s Tuesday press conference – where he made clear his displeasure with the performance of Kerry Coombs’ unit – we bring on Eleven Warriors film guru Kyle Jones (beginning at 17:00) to discuss what the Buckeyes need to do to try to salvage their defense.
Jones believes we should be realistic with our expectations for the defense for the rest of the year, as the Buckeyes probably won’t be able to completely revamp their scheme now that the season has begun. That said, he believes the defense can improve to some extent with better coaching and execution, and he explains what that might look like while also answering questions from our listeners about whether Coombs really deserves all the blame, whether Coombs should coach from the press box and why we should…
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Sep 8, 2021
Everything We Learned from the Minnesota Game and What We Still Have to Learn Against Oregon
We've had five full days to digest Ohio State's season opener, and there was plenty to take away from the Buckeyes’ first game.
On this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, we spend a full hour discussing the many things we learned from the Buckeyes’ 45-31 win over Minnesota. Among the many topics we dive into:
* 2:50: The good and bad of C.J. Stroud's first start
* 10:00: Assessing the defense's performance in game one
* 14:13: Miyan Williams and TreVeyon Henderson make their case for being Ohio State's top two running backs
* 20:10: How Chris Olave looks better than ever
* 25:44: A great start for Ohio State's offensive line
* 35:54: Why Dan wasn't surprised by Tommy Eichenberg starting against Minnesota, and why he thinks Cody Simon will start against Oregon
* 55:55: Why it's too early to jump to conclusions about Kerry Coombs' defense
At the 1:05:48 mark of the show, we begin previewing this week's game against Oregon, break down what challenges we exp…
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Sep 1, 2021
Ohio State/Minnesota Preview and What It Was Like Covering the Infamous Bishop Sycamore Game
Ohio State's season opener is just one day away.
Of course, that means this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays is dedicated to previewing Thursday night's game at Minnesota. Our topics of discussion ahead of the Buckeyes’ matchup with the Gophers include:
* 2:44: Expectations for C.J. Stroud's first game as Ohio State's starting quarterback
* 8:58: How Ohio State could split carries between Miyan Williams, Master Teague and TreVeyon Henderson on Thursday night
* 16:45: Why Ohio State's defensive front seven is the biggest concern entering this game
* 35:05: Score predictions
Beginning at 41:20, Dan and Griffin also talk about what it was like to witness the now-infamous game between IMG Academy and Bishop Sycamore, as we were both in Canton on Sunday – albeit for the purposes of watching IMG Academy – as Bishop Sycamore started to become the most-talked-about story in sports. We share our firsthand accounts of what we saw from Bishop Sycamore in what could well…
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Aug 25, 2021
An Interview with Ryan Day, Introducing Griffin and Making Sense of the Big Ten/Pac-12/Alliance
This week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays features a brand new co-host and an exclusive interview with Ohio State's head football coach.
As the newest beat writer at Eleven Warriors, Griffin Strom is also the new co-host of Real Pod Wednesdays, so we start the show – the 101st episode ever of Real Pod Wednesdays – by introducing Griffin to our audience.
Dan sat down with Ryan Day for a one-on-one interview in his office on Tuesday morning, and we also play that interview for you in its entirety on this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays. In a 16-minute conversation (beginning at 3:53), Dan talks to Day about the lessons Ohio State has learned from dealing with COVID-19 over the past year, how he's handling the national championship expectations entering his third year as the Buckeyes’ coach, the culture he's tried to build within Ohio State's program, why this year's freshman class could be special and more.
After that interview, Griffin returns to discuss all of the lates…
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Aug 18, 2021
How Ohio State's Offense Will Look with C.J. Stroud at QB
If you want to spend an hour hearing about what Ohio State's offensive and defensive schemes could look like this season, you've come to the right place.
Eleven Warriors scheme analyst Kyle Jones guest hosts this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays. As we look ahead to the start of the 2021 season in just a couple weeks' time, we discuss a wide variety of topics related to what we could see from the Buckeyes on both sides of the ball, including:
* 2:20: How the spring game foretold C.J. Stroud likely becoming Ohio State's starting quarterback
* 8:35: Why Ohio State's offense should look similar with Stroud as it did with Justin Fields
* 13:13: How aggressive Ryan Day will be calling plays for Stroud
* 15:45: How Ohio State could manage playing time for the rest of Ohio State's quarterbacks, including Kyle McCord and Quinn Ewers
* 25:30: Whether Ohio State could change its run-blocking scheme to fit this year's running backs
* 29:55: Why Ohio State's offensive line…
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Aug 11, 2021
Why Ohio State is Considering Major Changes on Its Offensive Line
Preseason camp gave us plenty of talk about, our listeners gave us plenty of questions to answer and we shared some show news on this week's Real Pod Wednesdays.
First up, we react to an interesting day at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center on Tuesday, where we learned that Ohio State is moving toward making some major changes on the offensive line. Does it actually make sense for Thayer Munford and Nicholas Petit-Frere to change positions? Although we were skeptical initially, we're buying that the new-look offensive line can be a dominant unit, and we explain why.
Tuesday's practice also gave us our best look yet at the quarterback competition, as we got to see the quarterbacks throw deep balls and attempt passes with wide receivers going one-on-one against defensive backs, and we explain why (beginning at 17:22) what we saw strengthens our belief that C.J. Stroud will be the starting quarterback – but also that Kyle McCord has separated from Jack Miller in the competition.
We also…
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Aug 4, 2021
How Quinn Ewers‘ Early Arrival Could Impact This Season and Beyond
On a day like today, we'd typically start Real Pod Wednesdays by talking about what we just saw at preseason camp.
After all, we recorded this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays – together in person for the first time in more than a year – just hours after watching some of Ohio State's first practice of preseason camp on Wednesday morning (which is why this week's episode of RPW comes your way a little later than usual).
This, however, has been no ordinary week, as Quinn Ewers announced Monday that he will be reclassifying and joining the Ohio State football team this season. Given the potentially massive ramifications of Ewers' decision on the Buckeyes' quarterback room, we spent the first 43-plus minutes of this week's show discussing how his reclassification could change Ohio State's quarterback both this season and in the future.
We discuss what it would take for Ewers to become the starter this year, why there will be questions about who else stays in the room no matter…
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Jul 28, 2021
Ohio State Still in a Good Spot as SEC Expands
While we were at Big Ten Media Days, the college football landscape began to change again.
We start this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by discussing our biggest takeaways from Big Ten Media Days, including:
* How it could impact Ohio State's linebacker competition if Palaie Gaoteote isn't cleared by the NCAA by next week's start of preseason camp
* Good vibes on Kourt Williams, Harry Miller, Julian Fleming and Lathan Ransom
* Why it's good for the rivalry that Jim Harbaugh and Michigan players are talking more about The Game
* Kevin Warren has no regrets? Really?
Then, we talk about the biggest news of the week in college sports – Oklahoma and Texas joining the SEC – and specifically, whether the Big Ten should counter with expansion of its own and why we believe it would be fine for Ohio State if the Big Ten sticks with the status quo.
We also talk about Felix Okpara's commitment to the Ohio State men's basketball team and how Chris Holtmann is recruiting exact…
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Jul 21, 2021
What We're Looking Forward To Learning at Big Ten Media Days
For the first time in 16 months, we finally get to interview Ryan Day and Ohio State players in person.
Day, Thayer Munford, Zach Harrison and Jeremy Ruckert will all be in Indianapolis on Friday for the second day of Big Ten Media Days, and we'll be there too to talk to them as well as other coaches and players from around the conference.
It'll be the first time Day and Ohio State players have been available for interviews in more than three months, and a lot has changed since then – players are now receiving name, image and likeness benefits, and the College Football Playoff is moving toward expansion to 12 teams – so it'll be our first opportunity to ask them about those changes, as well as how the Buckeyes are preparing for the 2021 season with just a couple of weeks to go until preseason camp.
What Dan's looking forward to most, though, is the opportunity to finally get the opportunity to ask Kevin Warren about everything that happened last year – even though we aren't ex…
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Jul 14, 2021
Drafting Head-to-Head Lineups from the 2021 Ohio State Football Roster
With Big Ten Media Days and preseason camp on the horizon, it's time for our annual Ohio State football team draft for Real Pod Wednesdays.
As we did last year, Colin and Dan went back and forth selecting players from Ohio State's 2021 roster to build dueling 22-man rosters – 11 players on offense and 11 players on defense – with the objective of building a lineup that would beat the co-host's lineup in a head-to-head game right now.
Listen into this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays to hear us make all 44 of our picks, analyze why we made those picks and react to each other's selections as the draft unfolded.
In the final five minutes of this week's episode, we also talk about the Ohio State men's basketball team's addition of Cedric Russell and what his role could be in the Buckeyes' backcourt this year.
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Jul 7, 2021
J.T. Tuimoloau Completes A Championship-Caliber 2021 Class
It certainly hasn't been a quiet two weeks since our last episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
There was no shortage of Ohio State sports news while Dan was on vacation – headlined, of course, by the long-awaited news of J.T. Tuimoloau committing to Ohio State and becoming the highest-rated defensive player to sign with the Buckeyes in the modern recruiting era.
We discuss why landing Tuimoloau is such a big win for Larry Johnson and the Buckeyes, what role we expect to see him play in Ohio State's defensive end rotation as a freshman and at the 15:40 mark, why anything less than winning at least one national championship would be a failure for Ohio State's recruiting class of 2021, which now holds the highest average composite player rating of any Ohio State recruiting class ever.
Beginning at 22:50, we also talk about the three commitments Ohio State landed for the recruiting class of 2022 over the past 15 days: Terrance Brooks, Kojo Antwi and Dallan Hayden, and why each of them can…
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Jun 23, 2021
The Impact of Adding Palaie Gaotoete and the Spectacle of J.T. Tuimoloau's Official Visit
Ohio State has unofficially added a former five-star recruit to its roster for the upcoming season, while it's still trying to woo a current five-star recruit to become a Buckeye this fall.
Although it still hasn't been officially announced by him or the program, all indications are that former USC linebacker Palaie Gaoteote is transferring to Ohio State, so we begin this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by discussing why the Buckeyes are bringing him in, what we think he'll bring to Ohio State's defense and what that could mean for the rest of the linebacker depth chart.
Of course, we couldn't go too long on this week's podcast without talking about J.T. Tuimoloau's official visit to Ohio State; that conversation begins at 22:14. Dan talks about what it was like to cover Tuimoloau's arrival at the airport, then we discuss our level of confidence that he will end up at Ohio State – or whether Nick Saban will be able to close the deal and get him to Alabama – as well as the p…
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Jun 16, 2021
Why A 12-Team Playoff Should Be Good for College Football and Ohio State
The College Football Playoff appears set to expand to 12 teams, and we're here for it.
Even though Colin previously said on Real Pod Wednesdays that he didn't think the playoff should be expanded to more than eight teams, he's changed his mind and now believes 12 teams is the right move for the CFP. Dan agrees, and we discuss why we believe College Football Playoff expansion will be both good for the sport as a whole and a net positive for Ohio State, even though there will be pros and cons for the Buckeyes.
We also discuss our one big gripe with the recommended playoff format – quarterfinals being at bowl sites rather than on-campus home games for the top four seeds – and answer listener questions about the possible impact of playoff expansion on Ohio State recruiting and Notre Dame remaining independent.
After reacting in real time (35:22) to the then-breaking news that Aaron Craft is returning to Carmen's Crew for this year's TBT, we quickly shift our focus back to football t…
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Jun 2, 2021
Previewing A Pivotal Month of Recruiting
With June now underway and the dead period over, all eyes are on the recruiting trail as college football teams throughout the country finally get to host visitors for the first time in over 14 months.
Eleven Warriors' own Andrew Ellis joins us for the first 30 minutes of this week's Real Pod Wednesdays to help us preview the month ahead for Ohio State football recruiting. Who are the most important June visitors for the Buckeyes, who should we have on commitment watch and where do things stand with J.T. Tuimoloau? Our resident recruiting guru joins us to discuss all of that and much more.
We also spend some time talking about Ohio State basketball recruiting and which players Chris Holtmann and his staff could look to add to their 2022 class (30:25) and what we learned about Kristina Johnson, Gene Smith and Kevin Warren from Ohio State's document dump last week (36:54). We wrap up the show by taking your questions (52:25) about C.J. Stroud's potential, how this year's offensive line…
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May 26, 2021
Gene Smith Joins the Show
With an unprecedented year in Ohio State sports nearing its conclusion and significant changes coming soon in college sports, we thought it would be a good time to invite Gene Smith on Real Pod Wednesdays.
In his first-ever appearance on the show, Ohio State's athletic director spent 35 minutes talking to us about a wide variety of topics, including:
* 2:50: Navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, what he has learned from the past year and planning for the post-pandemic future
* 9:45: What needs to happen for Ohio Stadium to be full this fall
* 14:30: Name, image and likeness benefits coming to college sports
* 18:25: What College Football Playoff expansion could look like
* 22:47: Why he chose to sign a contract extension at Ohio State rather than become Pac-12 commissioner
* 26:33: Why the Ohio State athletic department shouldn't have to make further budget cuts
* 28:42: Why he believes Chris Holtmann has “done an excellent job” as Ohio State's men's basketball c…
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May 19, 2021
Dissecting Ohio State's 2021 Schedule and the Pros and Cons of CFP Expansion
With the throes of the offseason upon us, it's time to take a look ahead to Ohio State's 2021 football schedule.
That's our main topic of discussion on this week's Real Pod Wednesdays, in which we dissect Ohio State's 2021 football schedule from start to finish, identify the “most losable” games for the Buckeyes and predict whether Ohio State will have another undefeated regular season or drop a regular-season game for the first time in Ryan Day's tenure.
After our analysis of this fall's regular season slate, we shift gears to another listener-suggested topic and discuss the pros and cons of potential College Football Playoff expansion for both Ohio State and the sport at large. That conversation starts at 37:30.
Finally (55:25), we share our latest thoughts on how we think things could shake out at the running back position between Master Teague, Miyan Williams and TreVeyon Henderson.
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May 12, 2021
The Impact of Henry To'o To'o Choosing Alabama over Ohio State
The biggest news in Ohio State football over the past week wasn't good news for the Buckeyes.
That news came on Saturday, when Tennessee linebacker Henry To'o To'o – Ohio State's top target in the transfer portal this year – announced he was transferring to Alabama, thwarting the Buckeyes' plans to add him to the middle of their defense.
We start this week's episode by discussing the impact of To'o To'o's decision on the Buckeyes' 2021 linebacker corps and who we expect to start at linebacker now.
We also took this week as an opportunity to discuss Ohio State's efforts to compete with Alabama both on the field and on the recruiting trail (starting at 19:13). After Alabama landed transfers from To'o To'o and former Ohio State wide receiver Jameson Williams in the same week, while continuing to battle the Buckeyes for five-star defensive end recruit J.T. Tuimoloau, the Crimson Tide's standing as the team Ohio State is chasing has only increased.
Later in the show (33:54), we talk…
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May 5, 2021
Ohio State's 2021 NFL Draft Picks and Looking Ahead to 2022
Another NFL draft is complete, and people are already looking to ahead what could be another prolific class for Ohio State next year.
Before we look ahead, we start by talking about the 10 Buckeyes who were drafted last year – starting, of course, with Justin Fields, and how we expect things to play out for him as he starts his career with the Chicago Bears.
We also discuss how the Cleveland Browns might have gotten a steal in Tommy Togiai (7:35), why Pete Werner landed in a great spot in New Orleans (12:15) and more on Ohio State's 2021 NFL draft class as a whole, including how it explains what happened in last year's national championship game (24:40).
Our discussion on Ohio State's potential 2022 draft prospects begins at 27:35, including whether Chris Olave or Garrett Wilson will be the Buckeyes' top wide receiver prospect (29:05), why Jeremy Ruckert could be their next-best prospect (30:50), what Zach Harrison (33:45) and Sevyn Banks (34:33) need to do to make good on their e…
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Apr 28, 2021
Guessing Where Every Buckeye Will Go in the NFL Draft
The speculation is almost over.
After months of debate on where Justin Fields could be selected and an exhausting cycle of rumors about why the former Ohio State quarterback might not be a top pick, we'll finally find out on Thursday night where Fields is going. We start this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by discussing where we think Fields will end up when the picks are finally made tomorrow.
While Fields is Ohio State's only projected first-round pick, there's plenty of other Buckeyes who also have a chance to be selected over the draft's three days, so we also make our dueling predictions for what order we believe the rest of the Buckeyes will be selected in and in which round we think each of them will come off the board.
In the final 20 minutes of this week's show (beginning at 41:30), we have a quick-hitting discussion on some of the non-NFL draft storylines from the past week in Ohio State sports, including:
* Ryan Day's timeline for naming a starting quarterback…
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Apr 21, 2021
How the Quarterback Competition Stacks Up and Other Takeaways from the Spring Game
Saturday's Ohio State spring game left us with plenty to analyze and discuss on this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
We finally got to watch Ohio State's quarterbacks throw passes in Ohio Stadium, saw numerous early enrollees impress in their debuts in the Shoe and learned that the bullet is in fact real among other takeaways from Saturday's scrimmage, which concludes Ohio State's spring practice season for 2021.
A rundown of some of what we talked about on this week's show:
* 3:30: 22 minutes of quarterback talk, including why C.J. Stroud looks like the frontrunner but why Kyle McCord should also get a shot to compete for the job in preseason camp
* 25:30: The other freshmen who stood out on Saturday – Jack Sawyer, Emeka Egbuka, Marvin Harrison Jr. and TreVeyon Henderson – and why Ohio State has to find ways to get them all on the field this year
* 37:54: The bullet is real! Why we think that new position can make a positive impact on Ohio State's defense, and w…
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Apr 14, 2021
What to Watch For in Saturday's Spring Game
It's the final week of spring practice at Ohio State, and there's still plenty happening at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
After talking to Ohio State's offensive linemen and defensive linemen last week and then watching another spring practice on Monday, we have new takeaways on how the quarterback competition is going, how things might stack up at wide receiver, why there's a real competition happening on the interior offensive line and why Ohio State should have lots of options on the defensive line. And we're looking forward to learning more about the Buckeyes when we watch them play their spring game in Ohio Stadium on Saturday at noon (Big Ten Network).
A rundown of some of what we talked about on this week's show:
* 6:00: Why Kyle McCord can't be counted out in the quarterback competition
* 9:24: Why Julian Fleming isn't a lock to make the two-deep at wide receiver – and why that says more about Ohio State's receiver depth than Fleming
* 21:14: How Luke Wypler an…
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Apr 7, 2021
Ohio State's Defense Could Have a New Look in 2021, and Other Observations from Spring Football Practice
We're finally about to talk about spring football observations that we've made with our own eyes.
Well, Dan's own two eyes – as only one media member per outlet was able to attend the two practices that were open to the media this past week – but nonetheless, we have plenty to talk about on this week's Real Pod Wednesdays as we've learned more about how the quarterback competition could stack up, what Ohio State's 2021 defense could look, multiple Buckeyes playing new positions and more.
Among the topics discussed in this week's show, which is all about spring football:
* 1:47: C.J. Stroud looks like the frontrunner at quarterback so far
* 12:05: How Ohio State's defense could look different in 2021
* 24:10: Lingering question marks at outside cornerback
* 31:51: What to make of Demario McCall and Gee Scott Jr.'s position changes
* 44:30: Taron Vincent is impressing Ryan Day at defensive tackle
* 50:56: MVP picks for next week's spring game
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Mar 31, 2021
Justin Fields Shines at Pro Day, Basketball Buckeyes Add Jamari Wheeler and Indiana's Pursuit of Chris Holtmann
With everything that happened on both the Ohio State football and basketball fronts over the past two days, we needed a little extra time to digest it all before recording this week's Real Pod Wednesdays.
That's why this week's episode is coming a little later on Wednesday than usual, as we talked about the latest happenings in Ohio State sports (though E.J. Liddell's decision to test the NBA waters came after we recorded) including Ohio State's football pro day and the basketball Buckeyes' addition of Jamari Wheeler.
We start with pro day, which only gave both of us more reason to believe Justin Fields should be a top-three pick in this year's NFL draft. We also talk about some of the other standouts from the event, including Baron Browning, Pete Werner and Tommy Togiai, and what we learned about the injuries Josh Myers and Wyatt Davis played through at the end of last season.
Our weekly look at what's happening in Ohio State spring football (19:47) takes us to the linebackers afte…
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Mar 24, 2021
The State of Ohio State Basketball and Takeaways from Week 1 of Spring Football
Ohio State's basketball season came to an earlier end than expected with a first-round loss in the NCAA Tournament, leaving some questions about the state of the program after Chris Holtmann's fourth year.
That's where we begin this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, as we discuss what happened to Ohio State basketball in Friday's loss to Oral Roberts, what we make of the Buckeyes' 2020-21 basketball season as a whole and why we think next year will be a crucial year for Holtmann and the Buckeyes – who should have their best roster yet of Holtmann's tenure at Ohio State – to take the next step and prove they can win in the postseason.
We also discuss whether the Big Ten was really overrated this year (22:48), whether the Big Ten's 20-game conference schedule and late-finishing tournament hurt the conference in the NCAA Tournament and consider a listener-submitted question: Is there any number of men's basketball wins Ohio State fans would trade a football win for? (Feel free…
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Mar 17, 2021
NCAA Tournament Preview and Defensive Questions Entering Spring Ball
It's a big week for both the Ohio State men's basketball and football teams as the basketball Buckeyes begin NCAA Tournament play while the football Buckeyes begin spring practice.
The men's basketball Buckeyes have momentum back on their side after making a run to the Big Ten Tournament final this past weekend, and we start by reviewing the action from Indianapolis. We liked what we saw from the Buckeyes in three wins against Minnesota, Purdue and Michigan – except for those late-game struggles – and were especially impressed by Duane Washington Jr.'s record-setting performance.
Now the question is, how far can Ohio State go in the NCAA Tournament? We take a look at Ohio State's first-round matchup with Oral Roberts (21:00) and potential second-round matchup with either Florida or Virginia Tech – and why the Buckeyes really should make it to at least the Sweet 16 – and then consider whether Ohio State can make a run all the way to the Final Four. Are the Buckeyes good enough…
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Mar 10, 2021
Spring Football Preview for Ohio State's Offense, Big Ten Basketball Tournament Expectations
Spring football is (hopefully) on the horizon, and the Big Ten Tournament is on tap this week.
Ohio State is scheduled to start spring football practices on March 19, though a bit of doubt was cast over that start date when Ohio State announced Tuesday it had paused football activities for one week due to a rise in COVID-19 cases. We don't believe that pause is anything to panic about, though, and we discuss why for the first 10 minutes of this week's Real Pod Wednesdays.
The plan is still for the Buckeyes to return to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center next week and hold their first practice of the spring two Fridays from now, so we begin our two-part spring football preview this week with conversation on what we'll be watching for from Ohio State's offense this spring.
What will each of the three potential starting quarterbacks bring to that competition, how could a crowded running back competition shake out, is there room for anyone new to break into the wide receiver rotation, who…
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Mar 3, 2021
What's Happened to Ohio State Hoops and The Most Intriguing Buckeyes to Watch in Spring Football
This is March, which means two things are coming soon: The NCAA Tournament and spring football.
Ohio State basketball fans might not be quite as excited for March Madness as they were a couple weeks ago because the Buckeyes have lost their last three games, including losses to Michigan State and Iowa since our last podcast, but we don't think Ohio State fans should give up hope of a deep tournament run yet.
We spend the first half of this week's Real Pod Wednesdays discussing basketball once again, as we analyze why Ohio State's offense struggled in its last couple of games, why the Buckeyes can't afford any bad offensive days in March and which Buckeyes other than E.J. Liddell and Duane Washington Jr. most need to step up in March – but also why Ohio State still isn't out of the conversation for a No. 1 seed, and why the expectation for the Buckeyes should still be to make it to at least the second weekend of the tournament.
In the second half of the show (28:28), we begin lookin…
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Feb 24, 2021
The Outlook for Ohio State Basketball and the Second-Year Football Buckeyes
Ohio State couldn't beat Michigan, but the basketball Buckeyes still look like one of the nation's best teams.
With less than three weeks to go until Selection Sunday, that's where we start on this week's Real Pod Wednesdays, discussing the outlook for Ohio State basketball following Sunday's 92-87 loss to the Wolverines.
Although there's been a lot to like about this year's Buckeyes, particularly how explosive they've been offensively, Sunday's loss exposed some problems – Ohio State's not great defensively, and Hunter Dickinson exploited the Buckeyes' lack of size – and we discuss whether the Buckeyes can fix those issues and how problematic it will be if they can't. We also make our predictions for how the Buckeyes will finish out the regular season, how far they'll go in the Big Ten Tournament, what seed they'll earn in the NCAA Tournament and how deep they'll ultimately go in the Big Dance.
(Note: This podcast was recorded on Tuesday afternoon, prior to Michigan State's win…
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Feb 17, 2021
Retaining Al Washington, A Big Week for Basketball and the Five-Stars Who Must Step Up
The Ohio State football program got some good news last week, and the Ohio State basketball team is entering a huge week.
We start this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by discussing the football news of the week, led by Al Washington's decision to stay at Ohio State rather than become the defensive coordinator at Tennessee. We also discuss the three new hires Ohio State made last week – Todd Fitch and Paul Rhoads as analysts and C.J. Barnett as director of player development – and why each of those hires make sense for the Buckeyes.
In the second segment of this week's show (beginning at 24:45), we shift over to the hardcourt to discuss a massive week ahead for the men's basketball Buckeyes, which starts with a Thursday night game at Penn State but is headlined by a hugely anticipated rivalry game on Sunday afternoon, when Ohio State will host Michigan in a matchup of two teams currently ranked in the top four nationally. What must the Buckeyes do to beat Michigan, and coul…
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Feb 11, 2021
Why Ohio State's 2020 Defensive Scheme Didn't Work and How Kerry Coombs Can Fix It
Ohio State's defensive struggles in 2020 shouldn't be blamed solely on Kerry Coombs, and there's reason to believe he can fix the Buckeyes' defense in 2021.
Eleven Warriors' own Kyle Jones joins us on this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays to explain that, as we spend about 30 minutes talking with our X's and O's expert for a deep dive on what went wrong with Ohio State's defense in 2020 and how Coombs and the Buckeyes could get things back on track.
As Jones also wrote about in his most recent Film Study, the problems with Ohio State's defensive scheme that opponents exposed this past season can be traced back to 2019, when Jeff Hafley was still co-defensive coordinator and Coombs was still with the Tennessee Titans. While Coombs has been in the crosshairs of Ohio State fans since the team's defensive issues culminated with the Buckeyes allowing 52 points to Alabama in the national championship games, Jones discusses why Ohio State's existing defensive structure and an offseason…
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Feb 3, 2021
A Closer Look at Ohio State's Class of 2021
Even though it's been an uneventful National Signing Day, there's still a lot to like about Ohio State's 2021 recruiting class.
While the Buckeyes would have liked to land a commitment from four-star linebacker Raesjon Davis on Wednesday – and they certainly still want to land a commitment from five-star defensive end J.T. Tuimoloau, who isn't making his decision for another two or three months – they already have a loaded class of 21 signees, including 15 who are already on campus as midyear enrollees, that they can feel good about.
In the first half of this week's show, we take a closer look at the new class of freshmen. While we'd already talked some on Real Pod Wednesdays about the five-star trio of Jack Sawyer, TreVeyon Henderson and Kyle McCord, we dive deeper into the class this week to talk about some of the other new Buckeyes you need to about, including Jakailin Johnson, Jordan Hancock and four more defensive backs (10:20), defensive tackles Mike Hall and Tyleik William…
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Jan 27, 2021
How Ohio State's 2021 Depth Chart Could Stack Up
Ohio State has a vacancy to fill on its coaching staff, it just might have a frontrunner at quarterback and we're ready to discuss how the Buckeyes' depth chart could stack up in 2021.
We begin this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by discussing our takeaways from Ryan Day's recent press conference, led by the news that co-defensive coordinator Greg Mattison is retiring at the end of the month. How will the Buckeyes replace Mattison? We discuss why this could be Day's most important hire yet, why you probably shouldn't get your hopes up for a splashy hire and how that could make 2021 a true prove-it year for Kerry Coombs.
Although Day didn't divulge any insight into who might have the upper hand in Ohio State's quarterback competition, we still find ourselves believing that the starting job could be C.J. Stroud's to lose, so we spend some time discussing why we think that beginning at the 22:40 mark.
From there, we continue with a discussion about how the rest of the Buckeyes'…
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Jan 20, 2021
How This Week's NFL Draft Decisions Will Impact Ohio State's 2021 Roster
Now that we know which key players will and won't be back, it's time to start looking ahead to Ohio State's 2021 season.
The Buckeyes' 2021 roster took shape over the last few days as Justin Fields, Tommy Togiai, Josh Myers, Wyatt Davis and Shaun Wade all announced they'd be leaving early for the NFL draft, but Ohio State also got some great news as Chris Olave, Thayer Munford, Jeremy Ruckert and Haskell Garrett – among others – all announced they'd be back for another season in Columbus.
We spend the first 26 minutes of this week's show discussing those developments, including just how loaded Ohio State's receiver room will be with Olave's return, why Munford and Nicholas Petit-Frere could be college football's best offensive tackle pairing and how the Buckeyes can survive the somewhat surprising departure of Togiai. (Note: This podcast was recorded before Garrett announced his decision to return on Tuesday evening.)
Then, we dive into the three-way competition Ohio State will…
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Jan 13, 2021
What Went Wrong Against Alabama, 2020 Season in Review
The national championship game didn't go well for Ohio State, but there are still plenty of positives we can take away from the 2020 season.
Ohio State was blown out by Alabama, 52-24, in Monday night's national title game, and we start by discussing our takeaways from the Buckeyes' disappointing performance against the Crimson Tide. Of course, much of that discussion centers around their struggles on pass defense – naturally leading to additional discussion about what changes Ryan Day and Kerry Coombs might need to make in 2021 to get the defense back on track – though Colin argues that the Buckeyes' subpar performance on offense was actually the biggest reason why they lost to Alabama.
At the 30-minute mark, we pivot to a more positive conversation by talking about the impact Justin Fields made on the program during his two years as Ohio State's starting quarterback. Then, we review the 2020 season as a whole and discuss why we think the season should still be considered a succ…
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Jan 7, 2021
How Ohio State Beat Clemson and Can Beat Alabama
Ohio State proved us wrong.
Yes, we both picked Clemson to beat Ohio State in last week's Sugar Bowl, and we're here to admit we whiffed on our predictions. The Buckeyes didn't just beat the Tigers, they rolled to a 21-point victory, as Justin Fields had the performance of his career, Trey Sermon continued his Ezekiel Elliott-esque postseason run and Ohio State dominated both sides of the line of scrimmage.
We spend the first half of this week's episode going over all the highlights from the Buckeyes' 49-28 win, how Justin Fields furthered his case for being Ohio State's best quarterback ever, how Brent Venables' Clemson defense looked completely overmatched and which other players and units impressed us most in New Orleans.
Then, around the 36:30 mark, we turn our sights ahead to the national championship clash with Alabama, which both of us expect to be a shootout between two great offenses and two suspect defenses. And this time around, we're believes in the Buckeyes' potential t…
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Dec 30, 2020
What Must Happen for Ohio State to Beat Clemson
The game we've been waiting for all year long is finally here.
This week's Real Pod Wednesdays is all about Friday's College Football Playoff semifinal at the Sugar Bowl, starting with an interview with Brad Senkiw, who covers Clemson for 105.5 The Roar and Clemson SI. We get Brad's insight on why Clemson fans are so confident entering this game, where the Tigers are better and worse than last season and what the biggest areas of concern for the Tigers are entering their matchup with Ohio State.
After that, we embark on a wide-ranging discussion about the game from Ohio State's perspective, including:
* How important this game is for the Buckeyes to remain alongside Clemson and Alabama as one of college football's elite teams (22:00)
* How Ohio State has to play its best football in this game, and what that actually means (28:00)
* Why Ohio State could have the edge in passing offense, rushing offense and rushing defense, and why Clemson's passing offense vs. Ohio State's pass…
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Dec 23, 2020
Trey Sermon's Record Game, Justin Fields' Struggles and A First Look at Clemson
Ohio State is the Big Ten champion for the fourth year in a row, and is heading back to the College Football Playoff for the second year in a row, but it might not be if not for Trey Sermon.
We had to start there on this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, as we broke down Sermon's record-breaking performance against Northwestern, how he improved so much after a disappointing start of the season and why we believe his success can continue in the College Football Playoff.
Then, we look at the big reason why Ohio State needed Sermon to step up in its 22-10 win over the Wildcats, in which Justin Fields had his worst game as a Buckeye. Should we be confident Fields will get back on track next week against Clemson, or is there real reason for concern about Ohio State's passing attack? We consider the factors that led to his struggles against Northwestern and what Fields and his coaches will need to do to be better prepared for Brent Venables' defense.
We also question why Ryan Day wai…
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Dec 16, 2020
Big Ten Championship Game Preview and Signing Day Analysis
There's a lot happening in the world of Ohio State football this week.
Today is Signing Day for the recruiting class of 2021, which means the Buckeyes have now officially inked another star-studded crop of players who will join the team next season. Typically, that would take center stage this week, but because of this year's modified college football schedule, Ohio State is set to play in the Big Ten Championship Game on Saturday, with the College Football Playoff set to be chosen on Sunday.
We start this week's episode by previewing the matchup with Northwestern and sharing our thoughts on why we believe the Buckeyes should stack up well in that matchup.
Then, we make our predictions of what we expect the College Football Playoff field to look like on Sunday – and reiterate why we're confident Ohio State will make the CFP just as long as it beats Northwestern, regardless of whether the game's close or a blowout.
In the second half of this week's show (31:20), we bring in Eleven…
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Dec 9, 2020
No Michigan Game, But Ohio State's Playoff Prospects Still Look Good
Although there's reason to be disappointed this week, there's still plenty of feel good about.
The disappointment is obvious – Ohio State won't be playing Michigan this year for the first time in over 100 years – and we couldn't start this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays anywhere but there as we reflect on what we'll miss as we don't get to watch the Buckeyes play the Wolverines this weekend.
The good news for the Buckeyes, though, is they're still sitting a good position to make the College Football Playoff, especially now that they are locked into the Big Ten Championship Game. Ohio State could certainly help its cause by dominating Northwestern, and we discuss why we think that should be the expectation for the Buckeyes next weekend (17:40), but also why we're not sure that will necessarily even matter (23:50), as we think there's only one scenario – Florida beating Alabama in the SEC Championship Game and Clemson beating Notre Dame in the ACC Championship Game – tha…
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Dec 2, 2020
How Cancellations Could Impact Ohio State's CFP Chances
Just a few hours after we published last week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, 2020 struck again.
That's when the news started to leak out that Ohio State was battling positive COVID-19 cases within the program, and by the end of the week, the Buckeyes had to cancel their road trip to Illinois, marking the second time in three weeks that Ohio State has had a game canceled.
So that's what where we start on this week's episode of RPW, as we discuss why Ohio State made the decision to cancel (7:50) – and why that might have, hopefully saved this week's trip to Michigan State – followed by how that could impact Ohio State's chances of making the College Football Playoff (18:00). Is Ohio State a sure bet to make the playoff if it plays the remainder of its three scheduled games and wins out, and do the Buckeyes need to play all three of those games to make the CFP? We discuss the various scenarios that could help or hurt the Buckeyes, whether they need to win impressively or just win…
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Nov 25, 2020
Pass Defense Problems and Playoff Rankings
We had no shortage of ground to cover on this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
The initial College Football Playoff rankings were revealed on Tuesday night, Ohio State just landed a pair of five-star recruits from Texas and the Buckeyes are set for an unconventional Thanksgiving weekend matchup with Illinois. But we had to start this week's episode by talking about the Buckeyes' pass defense, which has been the topic of the week after Ohio State gave up 491 passing yards against Indiana.
What's wrong with Ohio State's pass defense, and can the Buckeyes fix it? We talk about what we believe the issues are, what changes we would make to Ohio State's secondary and why there might not be a sure-fire solution – though we don't believe that's reason to give up your championship hopes and dreams.
After about 25 minutes of discussion on that, we share our other takeaways from the Buckeyes' 42-35 win over Indiana, including why we think Justin Fields suddenly become mistake-prone aga…
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Nov 18, 2020
Best Opponent on a Weak Schedule
Let's hope this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays has a longer shelf life than last week.
Just a few hours after we published last week's episode, aptly titled “What's Actually Worth Worrying About?”, we got a harsh reminder of the threat that everyone has to worry about this season when Ohio State's fourth game of the year was canceled due to a spike in positive COVID-19 tests at Maryland. We begin this week's episode by discussing the fallout of that cancellation and whether it has any effect on the Buckeyes' College Football Playoff hopes.
We don't spend too much dwelling on that, though, since the Buckeyes have what looks to be their biggest game of the regular season against Indiana – currently the only team with a winning record that Ohio State will play in the regular season – on Saturday at noon. What's enabled the Hoosiers to start the season 4-0, and are they actually a threat to Ohio State, or will the Buckeyes' superior talent enable them to win comfortably? W…
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Nov 11, 2020
What's Actually Worth Worrying About?
Even though Ohio State was never in jeopardy of losing against Rutgers, most of the discussion following the Buckeyes' 49-27 win over the Scarlet Knights has been about their imperfections rather than their 3-0 start to the season.
So as we started this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays with our look back at the Buckeyes' 22-point win against Rutgers, we spent much of the first 35 minutes of the show talking about how much Ohio State fans should actually be worried about some of the areas that have been raised as concerns, including the running game, the interior offensive line and the defense as a whole, particularly the secondary.
Dan explains why he thinks the panic over the Buckeyes' subpar second-half play against Rutgers is mostly unnecessary overreaction after a game Ohio State still largely dominated, while Colin explains why he's actually more confident in Ohio State's chances of winning a national championship now than he was three weeks ago.
After sharing our takeaway…
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Nov 4, 2020
Championship Potential, Secondary Concerns
For the most part, Ohio State looked like a team capable of contending for a national championship on Saturday night at Penn State.
Justin Fields, Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson continued to shine, the running game took a step forward and the defensive front seven broke through in a big way to lead the Buckeyes to a 38-25 win in what might be their toughest test of the regular season. So there were plenty of positives from the trip to Happy Valley for us to discuss on this week's Real Pod Wednesdays, and that's how we started the show.
The one major area of concern still lingering for the Buckeyes after that game is their secondary, as Penn State passed for more than 250 yards in Saturday night's second half and cornerback Cameron Brown is now out for the remainder of the season. So at the 22:30 mark, we pivot to talking about the defensive backs and what needs to happen there for Ohio State's secondary to be good enough to win a national title.
We don't spend a lot of time breaking…
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Oct 28, 2020
A Good First Game and A Big Test Ahead
“Some guys are walking around the locker room like, man, what happened? 52-17, that's a pretty good day, boys.”
That's what Ryan Day said Tuesday regarding the expectations surrounding his Ohio State team right now – which caused some Buckeyes to be displeased by their performance despite a 35-point win over Nebraska in Saturday's season opener – and we're sharing a similar message on this week's Real Pod Wednesdays.
While much of the narrative following Ohio State's first game has been about its shaky defensive start and its underwhelming running game, some growing pains in the Buckeyes' first game shouldn't have been unexpected – especially considering the unusual offseason and the fact they were opening the year against a conference opponent – and there were plenty of positives to take away from the game, like Justin Fields' almost perfect performance and Ohio State scoring 38 of the final 41 points.
So we spend the first 30 minutes of this week's show by talking abou…
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Oct 21, 2020
It's Finally Game Week
We made it.
Ohio State will finally play its season opener on Saturday at noon against Nebraska, so we spend this week's show talking about our expectations for the first game and what we're most intrigued to see the Buckeyes as they play an actual football game for the first time in 10 months.
In the first 30 minutes of this week's show, we hit on why a mostly-empty Ohio Stadium shouldn't have much impact on the actual game but will make for a weird environment, the top matchups to watch in Saturday's game (10:30) and what could actually allow Nebraska to keep this game close (17:00). We also discuss how we'd bet on the game (25:30 – take our advice at your own risk) and come to the conclusion that the current spread is right where it should be but the over could be in play – both because of Ohio State's offense and because of Ohio State's defense.
In Three Things We Think (31:30), Dan discusses how much Georgia would benefit from having Justin Fields right now, why Ohio State'…
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Oct 14, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 58: 2020 Season Preview
We discuss why this season is national championship or bust for Ohio State, who the Buckeyes' most indispensable players are and more in our Season Preview episode of Real Pod Wednesdays. We also discuss our takeaways from Ohio State's most recent press conferences and turn on the "BS Meter" for some of the coachspeak we're just not buying.
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Oct 7, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 57: Takeaways from Finally Watching an Actual Ohio State Football Practice
After we finally got to watch the Buckeyes practice in person for the first time in seven months, we share our takeaways from a brief glimpse into the team's preparation for the 2020 season as well as what we've learned from the team's most recent press conferences, including why we're increasingly excited about Ohio State's offense, why we're concerned about the Buckeyes' defensive tackle depth and how Pete Werner's move to Will linebacker could impact the defense.
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Sep 30, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 56: Drafting Lineups from Ohio State's 2020 Football Roster
Dan and Colin draft players from Ohio State's 2020 football roster with the objective of building the best lineup to beat the other host's team in a hypothetical game. They also discuss their takeaways from Ohio State's most recent press conference, including how the running back rotation could shake out, why there could be as many as three freshmen in the receiver rotation and what Justin Fields' decision to become a vegan says about his commitment to getting even better.
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Sep 23, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 55: New Schedule, Shaun Wade's Back and This Time It's For Real
We break down Ohio State's new(est) schedule for the 2020 season and discuss the impact of Shaun Wade announcing he'll return to Ohio State (again) and how the rest of the Buckeyes' secondary could stack up around him.
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Sep 16, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 54: Big Ten Football is Back!
Big Ten football is returning in October, and Ohio State will have the chance to compete for a national championship after all. We discuss how we got here and what our expectations for the Buckeyes are now that we know we'll actually get to watch them play football this fall.
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Sep 9, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 53: Missing Ohio Stadium, NFL Buckeyes and What's the Big Ten Doing?
Ohio State's season opener should have been last Saturday, so we begin this week's episode by reflecting on what we miss about covering games at Ohio Stadium. Then, we look ahead to which new NFL Buckeyes we're most excited to watch this weekend and which current Ohio State draft prospects could be hurt the most if there's no fall season. Finally, Colin gets some frustration off his chest and rants about the Big Ten's continued indecisiveness.
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Sep 2, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 52: New Life for Big Ten Football in 2020?
After another week full of twists and turns, we discuss whether we should actually expect the Big Ten to play at some point this fall and whether that will come with a chance for Ohio State to make the College Football Playoff. We also share our thoughts from attending our first high school games of the year, why the Big Ten is still failing to be transparent and why watching other teams play college football right now just feels weird.
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Aug 26, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 51: Continued Unrest, Winter Football and Extra Eligibility
We talk about the continued unrest surrounding the Big Ten's decision to postpone fall sports, what the conference's plans for winter football are looking like and the ramifications of the NCAA giving everyone an extra year of eligibility. We also bring in Eleven Warriors recruiting analyst Zack Carpenter to discuss how recruiting has been impacted by the season postponement and who he expects to be the next Buckeye commits.
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Aug 12, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 50: Big Ten Pulls the Plug, Can Spring Football Work?
We assess the Big Ten's decision to shut down fall sports, consider how that affects Ohio State in the short and long terms and discuss what needs to happen for spring football to work.
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Aug 5, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 49: Breaking Down Ohio State's New 2020 Schedule
After a busy 24 hours for Ohio State football and college sports, we break down the Buckeyes' new schedule for 2020, preview Thursday's start of fall camp, take a look at Ohio State's captains for the 2020 season and weigh in on the NCAA's decision to deny C.J. Saunders a sixth year of eligibility.
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Jul 29, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 48: Back for Some Big Commitments
After a week off, we're back to talk about the commitments of Jordan Hancock and Malaki Branham to the Ohio State football and basketball teams and to discuss where things stand for the 2020 football season as we still have more questions than answers entering the last week of July.
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Jul 15, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 47: Can the Season Be Saved?
After the Big Ten canceled non-conference games and Ohio State temporarily shut down workouts, we discuss what must happen if college football is going to be played this fall. We also wrap up our State of the Position series with a look at Ohio State's present and future at safety.
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Jul 8, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 46: What We Expect from the Cornerbacks in 2020
We discuss our expectations for Shaun Wade and the rest of Ohio State's cornerbacks in 2020, consider which Buckeyes we overvalued and undervalued a year ago and answer your questions about the basketball team's potential, which other Big Ten coaches we think would do best at Ohio State and more.
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Jul 1, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 45: Which Third-Year Buckeyes Must Step Up in 2020?
We take a look at which members of Ohio State's recruiting class of 2018 the Buckeyes will be counting on breaking through in 2020, weigh how the Buckeyes can best utilize their seven upperclassman linebackers this season and debut Three Things We Think, a new segment in which we banter about some of our Ohio State football thoughts from the past week.
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Jun 24, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 44: COVID-19 Concerns and Future Opponents
After a week in which several college football teams reported COVID-19 outbreaks, we discuss whether things are moving in the wrong direction and what needs to happen for the 2020 season to start on time. We also discuss last week's news that Ohio State has scheduled a home-and-home series with Alabama and look through the Buckeyes' strong slate of non-conference opponents for the next 12 years. We also continue our State of the Position series with a look at the Buckeyes' defensive ends entering 2020.
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Jun 17, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 43: Which Freshmen Will Play in 2020?
We discuss which Ohio State freshmen will play in 2020 and who should redshirt this year, how the Buckeyes' defensive tackle room could stack up this season, what to make of the "Buckeye Pledge" Ohio State athletes signed and what needs to happen for Ohio State to sign the highest-rated recruiting class ever.
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Jun 10, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 42: The Buckeyes are Back and Cie Grant Joins the Show
We discuss Ohio State's return to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center for voluntary workouts and continue our State of the Position series with a look at the Buckeyes' present and future on the offensive line. Then, we bring on former Ohio State linebacker Cie Grant for a conversation about the 2002 national championship, current events and more.
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Jun 3, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 41: Buckeyes Join the National Conversation About Racism
We reflect on what we've learned over the past week as Ohio State student-athletes have been among those speaking up about racism in the aftermath of George Floyd's death. We also discuss who Ohio State's captains for the 2020 season could be and continue our State of the Position series with the tight ends.
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May 27, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 40: Talent Gap in the Big Ten
We discuss how Ohio State continues to pull away from the rest of the Big Ten with its work on the recruiting trail, continue our State of the Position series with a look at the Buckeyes' wide receivers and highlight some under-the-radar Buckeyes who could emerge as impact players in 2020. Plus, Dan attempts to sing.
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May 20, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 39: Looking Forward to a Return to Football
Former Ohio State linebacker Joshua Perry joins us to discuss the challenges players could face in returning to football after months away from campus and with the ongoing risk of COVID-19, and we continue our State of the Position series by discussing the present and future of the Buckeyes' running back room.
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May 13, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 38: A Draft of Ohio State's Recruits
Zack Carpenter joins us to draft teams from Ohio State's 2020, 2021 and 2022 recruits and we begin our State of the Position series with a discussion on the Buckeyes' present and future at quarterback.
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May 6, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 37: Chris Holtmann Joins the Show
Ohio State men's basketball coach Chris Holtmann joins us to discuss everything from next year's team to Tiger King, and we break down the potential impact name, image and likeness benefits could have on college sports and specifically the Buckeyes.
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Apr 29, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 36: Reviewing the 2020 NFL Draft and Looking Ahead to 2021
We discuss our takeaways from a prolific 2020 NFL draft for Ohio State, who could be the Buckeyes' top prospects for 2021, what we learned from recent teleconferences with Ohio State's assistant coaches and how the recruiting class of 2022 is off to a strong start with two commitments.
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Apr 22, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 35: NFL Draft Preview, More Commitments for the Buckeyes
We discuss Ryan Day's most recent comments on the possibility of an altered college football season, the commitments of recruits Tunmise Adelye and Jantzen Dunn to Ohio State and where each of the Buckeyes in this year's NFL draft could end up.
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Apr 15, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 34: Will We Have College Football This Fall?
We discuss the current outlook for whether there will be a college football season this fall, what Chris Holtmann had to say about all the transfers from the Ohio State basketball team and who's most likely to be the Buckeyes' third wide receiver behind Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson in 2020.
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Apr 8, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 33: What's The Deal With All These Transfers?
Following Luther Muhammad's surprising decision to enter the transfer portal, we begin this week's episode by discussing the heavy roster movement that has taken place for the Ohio State basketball team since the end of the season. Then, we discuss how Ohio State's recruiting operation has been affected by the coronavirus outbreak and consider whether the remaining members of the Buckeyes' recruiting class of 2017 can lead Ohio State to a national title in 2020.
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Apr 1, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 32: Ohio State's Recruiting Class of 2021 Just Keeps Getting Better
Coming off the commitment of five-star running back TreVeyon Henderson, we talk about Ohio State's No. 1-ranked recruiting class and how each assistant coach is performing on the trail. We also discuss our takeaways from Ryan Day's recent teleconference, analyze the NCAA's decision to give spring sports athletes another year of eligibility and look back at some of the best moments in Ohio State's year in sports.
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Mar 25, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 31: Trey Sermon and Seth Towns In, DJ Carton and Alonzo Gaffney Out
Ohio State's football and basketball roster movement gives us something to talk about on this week's episode as we discuss the incoming transfers of Trey Sermon and Seth Towns and the departures of DJ Carton and Alonzo Gaffney. We also discuss how the lack of spring practices and uncertain months ahead could affect the football team's preparation for the 2020 season, what the basketball team's lineup will look like for 2020-21 and how each football position group could compare between 2019 and 2020.
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Mar 18, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 30: Coronavirus Shuts Down the Sports World, Except for Ohio State Recruiting
We talk about the impact the coronavirus outbreak has had on Ohio State sports, including the cancellation of the NCAA Tournament and the stoppage of spring football practices. Then, we bring in Eleven Warriors recruiting analyst Zack Carpenter to help us break down a huge week on the recruiting trail for the Buckeyes, who landed four commitments in the past three days.
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Mar 11, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 29: Assistant Coach Contracts, Linebacker Depth and Big Ten Tournament
We interpret what we can take away from the Ohio State assistant coaches' new contracts, discuss how Ohio State's seven-upperclassman linebacker depth chart could shake out, analyze Cade Stover's move to tight end and preview the basketball Buckeyes' trip to the Big Ten Tournament.
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Mar 4, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 28: Impact of Teague's Injury and Takeaways from Spring Practice
We discuss the impact of Master Teague's injury and our takeaways from Ohio State's opening day of spring practice. We also discuss college football's new proposed rule changes and Ryan Day's contract extension, recap how the Buckeyes performed at the NFL Scouting Combine and look at the Ohio State basketball team's late-season surge.
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Feb 26, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 27: Spring Practice and NFL Combine Preview
Ohio State's current football team will begin spring practice on Monday and 11 former Ohio State football players are participating in this week's NFL Scouting Combine, so we preview both – plus give our latest thoughts on Ohio State men's basketball after its top-10 win against Maryland – on this week's episode.
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Feb 19, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 26: Previewing Ohio State's 2020 Defense at Every Position
We begin this week's episode with a brief discussion on Amir Riep and Jahsen Wint's arrest and subsequent dismissal from the Ohio State football team, then take a position-by-position look at the Buckeyes' 2020 defense heading into spring practices.
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Feb 12, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 25: National Signing Day Takeaways and Offensive Position Previews
We discuss our takeaways from last week's National Signing Day, including the potential for Cameron Martinez to play on both sides of the ball and Kerry Coombs' introductory press conference, and continue our pre-spring position-by-position breakdowns with the wide receivers, tight ends and offensive line.
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Feb 5, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 24: A Look at the Class of 2020
As Ohio State officially wraps up its recruiting class of 2020, we take a look at each of the Buckeyes' 25 new freshmen.
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Jan 29, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 23: Kerry Coombs' Scheme Fit and Quarterback, Running Back Previews
Eleven Warriors film guru joins us to discuss how Kerry Coombs will fit Ohio State's new defensive scheme and how the Buckeyes' running game could change with Master Teague, and we begin our pre-spring position previews with a look at Ohio State's quarterbacks and running backs. We also discuss our takeaways from last week's Mickey Marotti press conference, wrap up the Decade in Review series and considering what Ohio State men's basketball must do to secure an NCAA Tournament berth.
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Jan 22, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 22: Kerry Coombs is Back, and What's Wrong with Ohio State Basketball?
We discuss Kerry Coombs' return to Ohio State as defensive coordinator, our takeaways from last week's Ryan Day press conference and the best games and most dominant seasons of the 2010s. Also, what's wrong with the Ohio State men's basketball team, and should we be concerned about the Buckeyes being over the 85-man scholarship limit?
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Jan 15, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 21: Joe Burrow, Recruiting Updates and Ohio State's All-Decade Team
We reflect on Joe Burrow's journey from Ohio State to LSU, discuss how the Buckeyes would have fared in a hypothetical national championship game at LSU, take a look at the early odds for next season's national title and Heisman winner, check in with Zack Carpenter for an update on Ohio State recruiting and discuss which Buckeyes made – or should have made – the All-Decade team for the 2010s.
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Jan 8, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 20: Shaun Wade Returns, Coaching Changes and Looking Ahead to Next Season
We discuss the impact of Shaun Wade's decision to stay at Ohio State, weigh the pros and cons of promoting Corey Dennis and potentially rehiring Kerry Coombs and discuss some of the biggest questions looking ahead to the 2020 season.
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Jan 1, 2020
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 19: Reviewing the Fiesta Bowl and 2019 Season
We discuss the missed opportunities and questionable calls that cost Ohio State in its season-ending Fiesta Bowl loss to Clemson and put the Buckeyes' 13-1 season in perspective as we turn the calendar from 2019 to 2020.
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Dec 25, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 18: Looking for an Edge in the Fiesta Bowl
We break down Ohio State's matchup with Clemson from all angles and make our predictions for who will win ahead of Saturday's College Football Playoff semifinal at the Fiesta Bowl.
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Dec 18, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 17: Jeff Hafley to BC and Ohio State-Clemson Breakdown
We discuss the impact of Jeff Hafley's departure and how Ohio State will move forward without him, Kyle Jones joins us to talk X's and O's and break down the Buckeyes' matchup with Clemson and Brad Senkiw also joins us for insight on the Tigers.
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Dec 11, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 16: Big Ten Champs and Fiesta Bowl Bound
We take a first look at Ohio State's College Football Playoff matchup with Clemson, review the Buckeyes' closer-than-expected Big Ten Championship Game against Wisconsin and predict which Buckeyes will win national awards. Additionally, we bring in Eleven Warriors recruiting analyst Zack Carpenter to preview early signing day, discuss Ohio State basketball's continued rise in the rankings and answer your listener questions.
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Dec 4, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 15: The Gap Widens
We review Ohio State's 56-27 win over Michigan, discuss why we don't expect the Big Ten Championship Game rematch against Wisconsin to be very different from the first game, consider potential College Football Playoff scenarios and preview Ohio State basketball's road test at North Carolina.
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Nov 27, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 14: Rivalry Week
We discuss our takeaways from Ohio State's first close game of the year against Penn State, what it means for the Buckeyes to be back at No. 1 in the College Football Playoff rankings and preview Saturday's rivalry game in Ann Arbor.
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Nov 20, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 13: Penn State Comes to Town
We break down this week's big game against Penn State, discuss why the Buckeyes' 56-21 win over Rutgers isn't worth overanalyzing, take a look at the race for the College Football Playoff's No. 1 seed, considering how good Ohio State basketball could be this season and answer all your questions about Ohio State football ahead of Saturday's showdown with the Nittany Lions.
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Nov 13, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 12: Maryland, CFP Rankings, Chase Young and Rutgers
Ohio State is now No. 2 in the College Football Playoff rankings despite obliterating Maryland without Chase Young. We discuss the Buckeyes' beatdown of the Terrapins, their chances of still getting the No. 1 seed in the playoff, Young's suspension and what should be another blowout win over Rutgers on Saturday. (Disclaimer: This episode was recorded before the news that Young's suspension would last two games was released.)
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Nov 6, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 11: Buckeyes are No. 1 and Basketball Begins
Ohio State is No. 1 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings, the Buckeyes are 44-point favorites against Maryland and Ohio State basketball season begins tonight against Cincinnati. We discuss it all on this week's Real Pod Wednesdays.
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Oct 30, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 10: Ohio State is 8-0 and Chase Young is a Heisman Candidate
We discuss Ohio State's most impressive win yet against Wisconsin, Chase Young's chances of winning the Heisman Trophy and the upcoming College Football Playoff rankings and answer a large batch of reader questions about the Buckeyes.
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Oct 23, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 9: Will Wisconsin Be The First Real Test?
We break down Ohio State's 52-3 win over Northwestern, discuss just how impressive the Buckeyes' consistent dominance has been and look ahead to whether Wisconsin can finally be the team that gives Ohio State a real test this week.
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Oct 16, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 8: Second Half of the Season Begins
As the second half of Ohio State's regular season begins, we preview this week's Friday night game at Northwestern, take a look at the national big picture and discuss which Buckeyes will be in the spotlight as players who could play bigger roles as the season progresses.
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Oct 9, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 7: No Bye Weeks for Us
Eleven Warriors' Dan Hope and Colin Hass-Hill review Ohio State's latest impressive win over Michigan State and how the Buckeyes stack up through the first six games of the season, and take some bye-week time to answer your questions, including who could leave early for the NFL draft after this season.
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Oct 2, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 6: Still No Weaknesses In Sight
After yet another dominant win by Ohio State at Nebraska, Dan Hope and Colin Hass-Hill discuss whether the Buckeyes are the best team in the country, struggle to find any weaknesses, look ahead to this week's game against Michigan State and answer another batch of questions from Eleven Warriors readers.
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Sep 25, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 5: Chasing Greatness
Eleven Warriors' Dan Hope and Colin Hass-Hill review Ohio State's latest display of dominance against Miami (Ohio), discuss how Chase Young stacks up against the Bosas and look ahead to what should be the Buckeyes' toughest test of the season to date against Nebraska. They also answer the latest batch of questions from Eleven Warriors readers, including whether the bullet position really exists and whether there's anyone on the regular-season schedule who can actually beat the Buckeyes.
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Sep 18, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 4: No Signs of Slowing Down
Dan Hope and Colin Hass-Hill discuss how Ohio State has looked like a complete team so far and its big-picture potential after the Buckeyes' 51-10 win over Indiana. Additionally, Dan and Colin answer questions from Eleven Warriors readers, including a look at which freshmen will redshirt and who won't, how the backup quarterback situation currently stacks up and more.
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Sep 11, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 3: Off to a Strong Start
Eleven Warriors beat writers Dan Hope and Colin Hass-Hill review the Buckeyes' 42-0 win over Cincinnati, including another strong start for Justin Fields and a shutout by the defense, look ahead to this week's game at Indiana and answer readers' questions on the third episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
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Sep 4, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 2: On to Cincinnati
Eleven Warriors beat writers Dan Hope and Colin Hass-Hill review Ohio State's season-opening 45-21 win over FAU, break down Justin Fields' first start, look ahead to the Buckeyes' second game against Cincinnati and answer questions from 11W readers in the second episode of Real Pod Wednesdays.
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Aug 28, 2019
Real Pod Wednesdays, Ep. 1: Game On
Eleven Warriors' Dan Hope and Colin Hass-Hill hit the ground running with the first of a weekly podcast on Ohio State sports.
In the premiere episode, Dan and Colin preview the 2019 Ohio State football season and make their predictions ahead of Saturday's season opener against FAU.
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