It has to be one of the five most awkward looking trophies ever awarded: The Rimington Trophy. Design aside, Jim Cordle is probably pleased with the nomination he received on May 7, 2008. He was one of 44 nominees, so he is a long way from winning the award but it is another Buckeye nominated for a national award.

By my extremely unofficial count, seven Buckeyes will most likely be considered for twelve awards. Laurinaitis will be nominated for the Nagurski, Bednarik, and award formerly known as Butkus. Jenkins is the front-runner for the Thorpe; Beanie will get serious traction from the folks handing out the Heisman, Doak Walker, Maxwell, and Walter Camp. A.J. Trapasso should get a look for the Ray Guy, while Alex Boone may have a chance at a Lombardi nomination. Of course, the above-mentioned Cordle is already nominated and Robiskie may even make one of the early lists for the Biletnikoff. Read More...

James Laurinaitis walked away with the Butkus Award last night beating out Penn State's Dan Connor and Colorado's Jordan Dizon. Presented annually to the top linebacker in the college game, Laurinaitis is only the second Ohio State player to win the award. The junior linebacker led the team in tackles, second in interceptions and third in sacks. Andy Katzenmoyer was the first Buckeye recipient in 1997.

Winning the award was a surprise to many, including Laurinaitis himself:

I feel like I've stolen it from these two guys and am taking the trophy back to Columbus.

Perhaps. His numbers were the lowest of the finalists and that has perturbed some Penn State fans who think Connor was jobbed. But there's a healthy dose of poetic justice here. Two years ago, AJ Hawk was egregiously passed over in favor of Paul Posluszny for Butkus. Wrong righted.

This has been a relatively quiet week but there are chunks of Buckeye centric items to pass along. I'll yield the podium for your comments:

James Laurinaitis and Kirk Barton were named First Team All-America by the American Football Coaches Association. Brian Robiskie was named to the academic All-America team. Hard to argue with the selections though one could say Laurinaitis was relatively quiet the second half the season. His Washington game, however, was perhaps his finest as a Buckeye.

Miami coach Randy Shannon granted an 'exclusive' interview with the Miami Herald. The topics were wide ranging but when it came to player misconduct at Miami and off campus housing, Shannon somehow drug Ohio State into the conversation. We've apparently had all kinds of recent trouble with our players - like "bar fights" and such. The outburst was bizarre - and wrong - and now the Herald has edited the interview and removed the Ohio State references. Luckily a few good souls saved the passage before being scrubbed away in cyberspace. Here's the excerpt:

Q: Obviously, though, there are kids that live off campus. What do you tell parents about that?
A: We show them the neighborhoods. Everybody else in the country lives off campus and they still have the same problems. But their newspaper don’t beat them up about it. Like our newspaper beats us up about it. I know you guys are doing your job, you got to beat us up about it. But then understand we just want a fair shot. At Ohio State, do you realize you had more things happen at Ohio State more than anything. You think we’ve been bad? Go check out Ohio State, guys who have been arrested, bar fights. Look at everything at Ohio State and you’d think the University of Miami was angels. Florida, the same. There’s going to be two guys let back on that team because of a gun charges and one who unloaded it in a club. What would happen if I do that?

When you get past the awful grammar, one has to decide whether to give the benefit of the doubt to Shannon. Maybe he meant to single out Penn State.

Fat and outshape is no way to play football, at least according to current members of our football team. What has been widely speculated has now been confirmed - some (many?) players didn't take conditioning as serious as they should have last year leading to the BCS Championship game. The long layoff didn't help either but compounding that problem was a logistical error on Ohio State's part leaving too soon for the desert. Apparently provisions have been put in place for it to never happen again.

Who has permission to take the lid of the basket? In Ohio State's two losses this year on the hardwood, they've suffered mind-numbing droughts from the field. Against Texas A&M, a 6 point halftime deficit quickly grew to 30-ish because the Buckeyes missed 17 of their first 18 shots of the second half. An almost identical stretch happened Wednesday night against #2 North Carolina. Leading 35-31 early in the second half, Ohio State went more than 10 minutes without a field goal. During that span, they missed 17 straight. On the bright side, Jon Deibler broke out of his slump hitting five 3s including one at the hash. No, really. The hash. He's a streaky player and more of a scorer than a shooter. Eleven Warriors has some excellent commentary, too.

The regular season is over so the accolades begin to roll in. The all-Big Ten teams were released today and James Laurinaitis has been selected as the conference Defensive Player of the Year by both the coaches and media. The linebacker led the Buckeyes in tackles with 103, collected 5 sacks, 8.5 TFL's and two interceptions. Joining him on the first team were fellow Buckeyes Vernon Gholston and Malcolm Jenkins. Marcus Freeman was a second team selection on the coaches team.

On the offensive side of the ball, Beanie Wells was a first team selection on both ballots. Kirk Barton was the other unanimous choice and a few folks remembered Todd Boeckman led the B10 in passing efficiency by a wide margin as he was a 1st team pick by the media. Alex Boone was second teamer. Brian Hartline was singled out for his sportsmanship.

The nature of all-conference selections usually opens a firestorm of critique. A quick glance with my scarlet color glasses yields no glaring omissions but one could say Anderson Russell deserved more than Honorable mention. On the other hand, Penn State fans will be livid that Dan Conner was not the POY rather than JL. They may have a valid point.

Play of the Week is up: See Beanie Run. Also, should you be so kind, our online store has Big Ten Championship merchandise ready for purchase.

It's that time of year where ESPN puts us to sleep with awful sportscasting and their own award show. On the latter portion, I can honestly say I've never watched more than a half hour of the ESPY Awards. It's bland and artificial, what with categories like Best Driver, Best Jockey and Best Golfer. This is not scintillating stuff.

Nevertheless, there is a Buckeye component that may be of interest. In the category of Best Male College Athlete, both Troy Smith and Greg Oden are nominees. They represent half of the ballot which is either a tip of the cap by ESPN or a ploy to split the OSU vote so Kevin Durant wins. I'm not sure which.

The site is interactive allowing readers and fans to vote for their winner. I went with Troy since he's already won the most prestigious award for male athletes. I don't know, that seems to me like a damn good baseline in determining a winner. But, I also know many will pin the loss of the title game solely on his shoulders. Greg had a great year playing with essentially one arm and being doubled every game. He'll get docked though for looking like he was born in the 60's. Your winner is likely Durant but don't count out the darkhorse wrestler who basically never lost...which is amazing.

Greg Oden was named today as a First Team All-American by the Associated Press. He joins Aaron Afflalo, Acie Law, Alando Tucker and fellow frosh, Kevin Durant. Oden is the first Ohio State player to be named as a true freshman and is the first selection, regardless of class, since Jim Jackson in 1992. The honor came to the surprise of absolutely no one except Greg himself:

"I'm very surprised. Just with how things went, I didn't really play a whole season, and I know there are a lot of other guys with better numbers than me."

Excuse Greg's humility, but he's just being polite. There really aren't many guys with better numbers, at least ones who play the same position. Sure, there will be teams and fans who'll gripe the inclusion of Greg was a result of hype rather than production. A quick glance around at other big men really doesn't validate that theory.

Player	Points	Boards	Blocks	FG %
Greg Oden	15.4	9.5	3.3	61.6
Joakim Noah	12.2	8.5	1.8	61.2
Tyler Hansbrough	18.4	7.9	0.4	52.5
Al Horford	13.2	9.2	1.9	61.8
Nick Fazekas	20.4	11.1	1.1	56.8
Jeff Green	14.4	6.2	1.2	50.9
Roy Hibbert	12.7	6.9	2.5	67.0
Aaron Gray	13.9	9.5	1.7	56.5
Josh McRoberts	13.0	7.9	2.5	50.2

Of this group, only Fazekas at Nevada has better numbers but those were compiled playing largely inferior competition. Although Oden missed 7 games, he still played in a power conference and forced teams to strategize around him at both ends of the court. And, he has posted a dub-dub in nearly 50% of his outings despite working his way back from a major injury. Congrats to the Odenator.

Just moments ago, Troy Smith was officially named the 2006 Heisman Trophy winner. Smith garnered the most percentage of 1st place votes in the history of the award, stamping his legacy as one of the best players ever at Ohio State. The obligatory stats are well known but bear repeating:

• 2507 passing yards
• 30 TDs 5 INTs
• 67% Completions (199-297)
• 233 rushing yards
• 167.9 Passing Efficiency (4th nationally)
• 12-0 season, 19 consecutive wins

It is the seventh Heisman Trophy for Ohio State - the school that also produced the only two-time winner as well. Congrats Troy!

The headline says it all. James is the first sophomore to win the award. I would consider this a mild upset with the likes of Florida DB Reggie Nelson and man child defensive end Gaines Adams from Clemson. But, we'll take it...along with the Heisman in about 5 days.

The future Heisman Trophy winner graces the cover of this month's Sports Illustrated (HT: MofSG). Troy Smith, eyes downfield deciding which open receiver to throw it to, is accompanied by the text: The Best. Period. To which all of Buckeye nation exalts, We Know. Period. SI also includes a fine article on the inside written by Austin Murphy (subscriber only). You may remember Murphy because he's the writer that gushed over our Texas win a few months back and he doesn't disappoint in this most recent one either. While there is some talk in the piece about a rematch, it doesn't go overboard. Any anyone who still thinks Michigan is owed a rematch, ought to spend a few minutes reading this from Yahoo Sports.

Back to the Man of Troy. The Big Ten announced its All-Conference team today and Troy was named offensive Player of the Year. Several other Buckeyes were represented as well, including nine 1st team selections by the coaches. There were 13 selections overall when also counting the 2nd team roster. And perhaps most appropriate, Jim Tressel is one of three finalists of Maxwell Coach of the Year.

There is just too much discussion for me to ignore it. The elephant in the room is acknowledged and it is this: The Heisman is Troy Smith’s to lose. This probably comes as no surprise to most of you whether you are Buckeye fans or not. Troy is the best player on the best team; he’s played incredibly well and has made highlight play after highlight play.

A faction of fans, however, is trying their best to prop other players for the award. To them, Troy has been too benign, too boring and, the best yet; his job is made too easy because he’s surrounded by better players. Harumph! Brady Quinn is the main player who many point to as having better numbers than Troy and, as such, should be the leading Heisman candidate. Curiously, those fans who tout Brady fail to mention his numbers are “better” only because he’s heaved it down field nearly 100 more times than Troy. It’s only natural that Quinn's numbers will be somewhat higher. Give Troy the same number of tosses and the comparative data looks like this instead:

Actual Stats
Smith: 145/214 1898 22 2

Quinn: 193/303 2233 21 4
Amended to Quinn's attempts
Smith: 205/303 2687 31 3

Quinn: 193/303 2233 21 4

No contest. Want more information? See Jeff Amey’s article on the Ozone today which, among other things, shows that Troy’s first half domination leads to a veritable ‘shutting-the-engine-down’ effect. That should be considered a positive not a detriment just because his stats aren’t padded by second half come from behind victories over mediocre foes.

Other blogs list Troy has their current favorite but do so grudgingly. More mainstream outlets like ESPN have Smith decidedly out in front. So does CBS Sportsline. Less mainstream electronic media, have players at the top who have basically no shot ever of winning the award. SMQ actually says Troy only makes the “occasional play” which calls into question not how many Ohio State games he’s watched but how many minutes. Cue the video footage as rebuttal.

Troy is the high-octane fuel that revs this offense. He penalizes opposing defenses for mistakes in the secondary or for a loss of contain at the line of scrimmage. A duel threat that takes chances – smart ones – and delivers. Make no mistake, he’s not a QB throwing 20 screen passes a game. That's not how he builds his numbers. No, it’s an offense that uses the entire field and formations a defense to death. An offense that sees junk defenses weekly, ones that trip up many QBs into making mistakes. Not Troy. Not yet anyway. His QB rating is sky high as are his TD passes. There’s not better choice right now.