Midweek Mierda: Home Field Advantage Edition

You watch a lot of college football and you never miss an Ohio State game. In fact, you have been to a game or two in your life. You understand the complexities of the sport, and know what separates a great player from the good ones. You are confident that you can talk the college game with the best of them.

So, it has probably been obvious to you that Ohio State’s official statistician has been generously padding the stats of the Buckeyes. In case you did not notice, Black Shoe Diaries is happy to point it out for you. In fact, the stat padding has gotten so out of control that Laurinaitis finished 44th in the country tackles! If that is not evidence, I am not sure what is. Interestingly, both Ohio State and the NCAA credit Laurinaitis with the same number of tackles (121). But you know what they say: never let the truth get in the way of a good accusation.

I am sure the conspiracy runs very deep. Here is how it works: The statistician bumps up player stats in an effort to fool those clueless NFL scouts whose teams proceed to use top draft picks and overpay for players not worth their weight in shoulder pads. Then, those players turn around and give a little kickback to the stat guy. With all the OSU players getting drafted these days, he is bound to be one of the richest guys in Columbus. In fact, I would not be surprised if this is his house.

It is unclear if BSD is making an argument that Laurinaitis is more or less overrated than Dan Connor, who had more severely padded stats with 145 tackles. If BSD is betting that Laurinaitis will fall to the third round, that is wager the Buckeye Commentary newsroom would be happy to oblige.

[Editor’s notes: Forgive me for this rant, but it is May and there is nothing going on.]

I missed Matt Hayes breakdown of the Big Ten position by position last week. The list is fine, but I would like to nominate Cameron Heyward as the top defensive lineman in the conference. There is no way those five players are better than No. 97.

Doug Lesmerises of the Cleveland Plain Dealer answered some questions recently about Terrelle Pryor’s acceptance by the Buckeyes, the new Ohio State ticket policy, and the Big Ten Conference attempting to ruin college football.

Derek Jeter was inducted into the Hall of Fame last week. The Kalamazoo Central High School Hall of Fame, that is. Naturally, he took that occasion to talk Michigan football. Jeter said he wants to regain bragging rights against his (former?) boss George Steinbrenner, who generously donated money to renovate the Ohio State Marching Band’s practice rooms, and is an Ohio State fan. Of course, the way things are going for the Yankees these days, he may want to stay on the Boss’ good side.

The Dispatch has an article on the Ohio State baseball team’s familiar long odds of winning the Big Ten Tournament. As pointed out in the article, Ohio State has won two of the past three conference tournaments as a fifth and sixth seed and has four tournament championships since 2002.