Ohio State dispatches Akron 52-6

    Will Howard threw three touchdowns in his Buckeye debut, two of those to freshman Jeremiah Smith as the Ohio State Buckeyes survived early season jitters to cruise past the Akron Zips 52-6 in Columbus.

The Buckeye defense scored two touchdowns and sacked Akron quarterbacks five times.

Ohio State (1-0) will host Western Michigan, who gave Wisconsin a tough tussle in week one next Saturday night.

Olentangy Offerings

1) Freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith has a chance to be the best receiver Ohio State has ever seen.

That's a lot from a program that recently had the likes of Marvin Harrison Jr and Chris Olave in their lineup.

2) Smith is starting as a freshman, which is nearly unheard of at a school with the talent that is consistently recruited to Columbus and the history of the program.

This guy will be here for three seasons and gone, enjoy him while you can.

3) And for the great performance, it could have been better on the second play, Will Howard hit Smith with a short pass that was open for a sixty-yard scoring play and Smith dropped the ball.

Bet that doesn't happen often over the next three years.

4) I know it's Akron but I see signs of a defense that could be dominant by the end of the season.

This team looks strong at every defensive position and it just might be the best in the nation as the season goes on.

5) Defensive player that I'm really going to like? Linebacker Arvell Reese.

Reese seems to be everywhere and I really was impressed with him in the win.

6) Will Howard started okay but picked up the pace in the second half.

I liked what I saw from the Kansas State transfer and I think OSU is going to be just fine.

These blowouts are harder to write when I didn't have the time to watch them in detail (watched at work), please remember that when they are shorter in brevity.

Road Trip: Akron

Before we begin, because of this trip and yesterday's IFL Draft, I have yet to watch the weekend's DAZN or FS1 boxing cards. I have watched the Sergey Kovalev fight from Russia and I'll be doing a post on the weekend boxing when I have a chance.

A day/night trip to Akron with Mike Oravec was different than planned, but different isn't always bad and this day was a great time!

The Akron Rubber Ducks had originally scheduled Brian Baumgartner "Kevin Malone" from "The Office" fame for a bobblehead/meet and greet event back in the off-season.
As a huge "Office" fan, I immediately wanted to do it and Mike, who never watched the show, was happy getting to graph, travel and look around for items in his collection and we scheduled this and the event ASAP.
The problem arrived a few days before the event when Baumgartner was forced to cancel due to an acting role.
This is not uncommon in these situations and in contracts for appearances, there almost always is a clause that allows the actor to back out of the obligation if they are offered an acting role.
Akron kept hustling and landed what would have been a more than acceptable replacement in Leslie David Baker "Stanley Hudson" from the Office.
However, Baker had just appeared in Frederick two weeks before and Baker had already signed the picture that we (Cherie and Rachel's) are working on (sometime I'll write about that) and I didn't need him.
I try to think ahead though and asked the Ducks, if we could work on the visiting Richmond Flying Squirrels and the Giants top two prospects in Joey Bart and Heliot Ramos.
The team was very gracious in allowing us to do that and Mike and I had over an hour of being alone in the ballpark to get whatever we could get signed.

Mike and I were able to knock a sizable amount of the Squirrels team out (I think I now have gotten every team set card signed that I actually saw the player at) before the crowd even stepped into the place.
However, the crowd did enter eventually and neither Bart or Ramos had hit the field as it was mostly pitchers that were out earlier.
That changed our plans on the fly as we had originally planned to end our graphing day when people arrived and instead decided to stick it out.
I didn't get Heliot Ramos, who was the last player out to the field and the last to the dugout and said after the game ( with a five-hour drive ahead, that wasn't happening ).
That's too bad because I have three really cool cards of Ramos to have signed, but I'll have other chances I hope.
I was able to add Joey Bart on his Top 100, so that was a great grab for my set with the highlight being Bart telling a kid "why do you have three of these? Are you selling them?"
Bart said it with a smile and in a teasing manner, so it wasn't being nasty at all, but it shows you how the players of today have people selling their autographs on their mind.
It doesn't happen nearly as much as they think it does, but I can't blame them for thinking that way.
The general rule of thumb, if a person has five cards and four of the five are different, it's a collector.

Mike and I then ate at the paid-for buffet before we left, which was quite good and then a stop at the team store as we wound our way through the tight concourse, which is always tight at Canal Park.
Akron is a single deck downtown stadium and those stadiums have usually one concourse for the entire crowd, which makes it very tight and with no room for expansion or renovation, it will just have to be something that you deal with when you go to Akron.
I know many folks like the urban ballparks, but give me the wide-open suburban stadiums anytime.

The game and autographs were nice, but the highlight was the stop on the trip to Akron.
There is a massive antique market that would take hours to get through to do it right, but Mike and I try to stop whenever we are in the area to look around and see what we find.

On this day, we would both get lucky and find some things for our respective collections.
Mike ran through one end of the football field-sized store, while I did the other.
As I moved through, I was taking pictures of anything that I thought Mike would be interested in, mainly because doing this in the past I could not remember all of the locations that items were located in and we would waste time finding them.
I found it to be very helpful and I'll be doing it again in future visits.

I took a picture of one booth in particular with old collectibles and figured Mike would be interested in at least taking a look.
Mike was thrilled to find something that he had never seen before and bought a program from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which of course was made famous from the film "A League Of Their Own".
It wasn't cheap, but Mike did take advantage of it being reduced from its starting point and you could see how happy it made him as he found this rare program.

I did pretty well with a bobblehead and two programs as well.
I'm not sure if I had ever written about the 1970's era Cavaliers bobbleheads (Austin Carr, Bingo Smith, and Campy Russell) that were only given to season ticket holders for the Cavaliers, but I always wanted to add the next generation of the series as well.
I didn't find all of them, but I did find the Larry Nance third for twenty bucks, which was rare enough, but an equal find was two wrestling programs from Canton from 1960 at twelve dollars apiece.
I'm not a huge wrestling collector, but at this stage and similar to Mike, when you see something that you've never seen before and have the money to buy it- you should!
As for Nance, he was a player that I watched in college (Clemson), spent his entire career playing for the two teams that I rooted for (Cavaliers and Suns) during his era and if I had to pick one of the three pieces of the set (also Mark Price and Brad Daugherty) to find, I'd select Larry Nance.

All and all, a very successful trip and a fun one as well.
I always enjoy graphing trips and I love hitting places in Ohio, where I have a better chance of finding things that I really want for my collection.
Mike and I have a great time together and the time truly does fly by when we go on these ventures.
The season is nearing its end, but the fun of hanging out with your friends never goes away.

I haven't forgotten about the longest trip yet, but that might wait until September with the frenetic pace of the final week of the season!

Road Trip:Akron

The second day added a special spin for Derreck and I as we picked up my cousin Missy for the first portion of the day.

Missy is my favorite cousin in a field that ranges from family that I don't know very well to family that I don't care for and we were bringing her along to a local stop that she had never been to before.
It's funny how that seems to work out- we seem to never get around to visiting the places that others want to see in our backyards.

We were on our way to nearby Mansfield and the Ohio State Reformatory.
The OSR has been closed to prisoners for quite a while but has drawn visitors for several different reasons.
Many come because they believe in ghosts and want to hunt for them.
Others are there for the experience of seeing how the prisons of the past were run and others even come for the gothic architecture, but we were there to take one of the various tours entitled "History and Hollywood" to see the many parts of the prison that featured filming of the Shawshank Redemption- which is not only a classic but a favorite of mine as well.

The tour was interesting and I even learned a few things about the movie (Tom Cruise was the original choice for Andy Dufresne and then Tom Hanks was taking the role but had to give it up for Forrest Gump and that left the role to Tim Robbins) along seeing so many of the locations.
The tour was an hour and a half long and really was way too much to recount, but if you are in the area and have any of the interests that I mentioned above- you really do need to check the OSR out.
A few notes though if you are considering it.
There is a lot of walking and many steps as well.
It is far from handicap friendly and with all the walking, I would say not an easy navigation for children under 12.
Also if you have a fear of heights, you may have a problem because you are often four floors in the air looking down.
It's not unsafe, but it could bother the acrophobic and if you are bothered by closed in places, there are a few of those as well.

We then had a quick lunch at the A&W root beer stand.
I wanted Derreck to try the coney's and the shredded chicken sandwich, but only eat those because we still had another stop before hitting Akron.
We ate at a local park and had a great time chatting before taking Missy back to her home.
Because we ate just a little, we had space enough after the hour drive to eat at my favorite chicken place in Belgrade Gardens.
I've raved about Belgrade in the past and once again, it lived up to the billing.
I had chicken of course and two slaws (dinner comes with THREE sides) and fries that I ate only a few of.
I do love their very vinegary slaw though and missing out on Belgrade Gardens is about the only thing that I miss about not taking the Pennsylvania Turnpike anymore (Belgrade is in the opposite direction of the "Back Way" that I often use.

Derreck and I were off to Akron for the Clu Haywood bobblehead as Akron does a Major League bobblehead every year.
I wasn't really interested in the Hayward (I will be very interested when the Rubber Ducks do the heel of the sequel Jack Parkman), but part of bobbles, especially popular ones is getting there and yes- standing in line.
This wasn't an all-time bobble wait and paled in comparison to the one time at State College, but still, I get so bored in these situations, it's usually hot (although this was far hotter than even a usual summer day and rarely is the item something I care about.
Upon arrival at Canal Park, I was surprised to see the team store open.
I've always wondered why more teams didn't open their store on these nights with a captive and hot crowd looking for something to do and occasionally get cool.
I went inside the store (and as soon as I left, the store closed) and bought a few things, but as I checked out, I saw two hats of the old Akron Aeros.
Longtime readers might remember my first visit to Akron after their name change to Rubber Ducks, where it looked like it had been a government coup with nothing at all even in the clearance area that said Aeros and I was more than surprised to see these two hats.
I asked the fellow behind the counter if those were for sale and he said he didn't think so, but he'd check.
He came back with the manager and a story, that if true, was pretty cool.
Supposedly, in a stadium cart in a storeroom that was cleaned out over the winter held a case of Akron Aeros hats-one in each size.
Normally, I would wear a size 8, but with these the size 8 was way too large and the 7 7/8 was still a little big, but the 7 3/4 was somewhat small, so I wondered if I should buy one or not.
New Era's hats simply have no consistency in how they made- I have tried size eight's that was like wearing a trash can and eight's that were insanely tight- Their game needs to be stepped up.
Of course, I bought one, I mean really- you should have known the story was headed in that direction!

After waiting for the gates next to a person that bore a stunningly resemblance to a grapher that currently resides in the Midwest, the gates finally opened and Derreck got his wonderful bobblehead.
I moved to the Ducks side to graph some and hopefully add some really Tristan McKenzie cards to my collection.
I never saw McKenzie and the area was really crowded, even with being able to position in a good spot beside the field.
With a sellout crowd and a Boy Scout promotion on the field, I was stuck in a position with a heat index of over 100 degrees pouring over me, it wasn't worth the problems to have Derreck come down and help.
He waved at me from the concourse and would wait until the end of pregame for me.
Or so I would assume as you will shortly see.
I did manage to get five cards signed, most notably Bobby Bradley before finally breaching the wall of people that had me wedged in and Derreck on the outside and walking up to the concourse before the game started.

It was the concourse that I expected to find Derreck at, thereafter we would watch the game etc,
But I walked up, No Derreck.
I would bet cash money that I walked that busy ( the concourse at Akron is very crowded) concourse more times than I could count and still No Derreck.
But I walked it from far left field to the team shop which is on the right field side but ends in short right field because I figured Derreck would be on the left field side and I just couldn't see him.
After three innings of this, the ridiculously high heat index began to work on me and I really started to be affected by the elements.
I didn't feel like I was going to have heat stroke, but it started to mess with me mentally and my thinking became a little muddy.
For the first time, now in hindsight, I can see how elderly people's thoughts can get disoriented in particular situations and frankly I have so much empathy for that now than I did in the past.

Finally, after more fruitless searching, I asked guest services to page Derreck and have him meet me at the team store.
I waited for a few minutes and again-No Derreck (It turned out when I asked him later- He never heard the page-so much for paying attention), so now I'm pondering just what the hell I'm going to do next and I looked to the fellow next to me.
I did a double take as I thought "Boy, this fellow looks familiar" and then he spoke to me "Are you, Shawn"?
Turns out that someone had been trying to contact me all day to ask if I was going to Akron, but Gayle doesn't have Wi-Fi, so I had been at the mercy of the free providers during much of the trip.
I was stunned to meet Vince Samano- As in Vince Samano. my friend that I had never met in person and helps with the TRS Boxing Rankings!
What this means is that Vince Samano, who had never met me in his life had walked into a sold out  7,600 seat stadium and had instantly found me, where Derreck Chupak, who had come with me to Canal Park had not been able to in four innings!
I talked boxing to Vince for a few minutes and then with my head clearing a bit, I asked if he would mind if I could use his phone as I thought of an idea.
I called the lovely Cherie at home and asked her to please find me Derreck's phone number, so I could call him and see where he was.
She said to call back in a minute and she'd have it, but needed to find it.
Cherie instead called Derreck and explained that I could use his help.

I talked to Vince some more before he had to return to the event that he came for (a nearby barbeque event) and I only wish I would have been a better conversationalist.
Vince loves the boxing game and the history of the sport as much as I do and I'd love to have a better shot at a good discussion with him.
I'm hoping that I can have that chance in the future when I am in the area.
And as Vince Samano walked east, a grinning face moved closer from the west.
Derreck Chupak seemed no worse for wear, compared to me and why should he have been so?
After all, he had been sitting under a tiki hut in RIGHT FIELD!
Now, normally I'd give myself some grief here for not looking there, but not this time!
Our seats were on the left field side, I had been graphing on the left field side and we had seen each other on the left field side, so it is easy to think- that Derreck is somewhere on the LEFT FIELD SIDE!
This was followed by the kicker- "you should have figured out that beer was cheaper on the right field side".
This was a mistake on my part, I don't drink, so I didn't even consider beer as a possible reason on where to look or even consider that beer in a ballpark might be more or less expensive from one place to another.
These are major things to think about if this situation ever happens in the future because if you knew Derreck Chupak, you would know the importance of beer.
Had I thought like him, none of this would have happened.
Still, suffering through this enabled me to meet Vince, so things worked out for the good.

We watched a little more of the game before driving back to Ashland, where Derreck wanted another pizza from Donna D's for dinner.
After pizza and watching the constant updates on NBA free agency, I went to bed for more podcast listening and to drift off..

One day to go as we wrap up the trip in Lake County...

15 College Football Games that should be happening! 11-15

Today on conference championship
Saturday, I wanted to start our three-part series on games in college football that should be happening, but are not on a consistent basis.

A few parameters:
First, some of these games are actually scheduled or even have happened in the last year or so.
However, our argument is that they should be on schedules every year or at least every other year and either home and home or at a neutral site that would make sense.

Second, there are some schools that either are playing would be rivals already or simply don't have a suitable school in line to play, but some have multiples that would make sense.
For the purposes of this series, a school can be only used twice on the list.

11) Arkansas vs Arkansas State
A rivalry that has the potential to be a great one, but has never happened because of a long-standing policy by the Razorbacks to refuse to play in-state opponents in any sport.
The Red Wolves have become a perennial powerhouse in the Sun Belt with a parade of coaches that move up to the next level with success such as Gus Malzahn, Bryan Harsin, Hugh Freeze, and their current coach Blake Anderson is likely to join that list soon.
Arkansas is a small state that could gain by these two teams playing each other and I get the Razorbacks would have more to lose in the short term, but in the long run, this game could be a huge help to both schools.
Added bonus points, if they play the game in the above pictured (somewhat ) neutral field in Little Rock!

12) Cincinnati vs Louisville
These two schools have played each other often through the years, 53 times in fact, and played for a trophy as well- the Keg of Nails.
These teams moved together through four conferences through the years, building a great rivalry with the cities connected by I-71 and it ended by one thing-conference realignment.
Both the Bearcats and Cardinals tried to get into the ACC after the Big East breakup (the football schools formed the American Athletic with the basketball schools staying in the Big East), but only Louisville managed to get there and the series was last played in 2013 in the last season before the Cardinals joined the ACC.
I know Louisville has one rivalry in non-conference play (Kentucky), but Cincinnati doesn't- this one really needs to return...

13) Akron-Youngstown State
The only all smaller school game on the list, these teams used to be heated rivals from nearby cities and also played for a trophy- the Steel Tire incorporating the two manufacturing items that the cities were known for.
There is, even more reason for heat between the schools dating back to the late '90s (the last game between the two was 1995) when Youngstown State applied for MAC membership and was denied in favor of Marshall ( who left after a few years) and Buffalo.
Perception is that Akron and Kent State were involved to keep 1-AA Youngstown State from moving to D-I for recruiting reasons adds to the discontent and the resulting decision by the MAC to refuse to have their schools play road games at 1-AA schools to keep 1-AA schools from appearing to be at the same level killed the series.
Either with YSU in Division One or not (and there really isn't a lot of difference between the MAC and the better 1-AA schools other than depth), these teams should be playing each other.

14) Arizona-New Mexico
The neighboring Wildcats and the Lobos hooked it up every year for the Kit Carson Rifle from 1920-77 until Arizona joined the then Pac 10.
The two have played just six times (two of the six were bowl games) since then, most recently a 45-37 Arizona win in the 2015 New Mexico Bowl, haven't played in the regular season since 2008 and neither appear on each other's schedule in the future.
This article tells more about the history of the rivalry that was and should be again.
Each though has options for a cool non-conference rivalry if they REALLY don't want to play each other.
Arizona could establish a series against San Diego State (recruiting hotbed) or UNLV (neighboring state), while New Mexico could try Arizona State or go to their state to the east and try Texas Tech or even better- former WAC rival UTEP in what could be a fun series of games.

15) Tennessee-Virginia Tech
The Vols and the Hokies played just last year inside the Bristol Motor Speedway and it was a huge success.
I'm not sure if the speedway would want to make this an annual thing, but it would be a great thing to have these two play a schedule where every three years, each team gets a home game and Bristol gets the third game.
Bristol is halfway between both schools, neither has a non-conference rival (VT had rivals become conference games when they joined the ACC and they do have a game with West Virginia, but I have other plans for the Mountaineers later), it boosts the power rating with a Power five team every year.
This works all the way around...

These games just missed, so here are some honorable mention games in no particular order
Miami vs Florida- They do play each other every few years and it seems possible they could play even more in the future.

Nebraska-Colorado- Former Big 8/12 rivals renew a rivalry that was quite torrid in the Bill McCartney years in Boulder.

Notre Dame-Purdue- The battle for the Shillelagh Trophy was a casualty of the Irish's deal with the ACC to play five ACC opponents a year.

California-San Jose State or Fresno State-  Cal played San Jose all the time from 1962-1996, but the northern California schools haven't played since despite being just 45 minutes away from each other.
Fresno State is under three hours away, but yet have only played the Golden Bears three times and if they played now, it would be quite interesting with former Cal coach Jeff Tedford turning the Bulldog program around.

Houston-TCU- Former SWC rivals and former group of five bullies (TCU formerly, Houston currently) from the two biggest cities in Texas (TCU is in Fort Worth, but I'll still count it!) would make an interesting series and could incorporate their games against SMU into some type of three-game series for a trophy...

I'll have the Big Ten title game coverage later and look for part two of this later this week!