Starting A Weekly Beat Writer Chat/Q&A Monday Afternoon

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iowabuckeyes's picture

Great idea. Problem for some of us is we work and job responsibilities will make it hard to participate. Good luck!

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

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Dan Hope's picture

Will try to post threads the night before so people can submit questions in advance if they won’t be around the day of. Am also open to suggestions on timing for future chats – doing them in the evening would also be an option, so we’ll probably experiment with different times and see what works best.

BuckeyeChief's picture

This is awesome. I will try to drop a question or two.

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Hovenaut's picture

Dan Hope and crew fear no offseason.

Looking forward to the reads, gents.

"Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness." - Yousuf Karsh

Enough talk.

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Chase Brown's picture

Dan – Can I take Monday off work?

Dan Hope's picture

Am going to have to deny this request due to a lack of advance notice and it being NFL draft declaration deadline day.

CandygramForMongo's picture

Chase Brown declared for the NFL. The other Chase Brown has milked that titty dry via references to him sharing the same name. Also quoting one’s own Twitter is too self-referential and is janky at best. It’s more “look at me” rather than thinking about what you have to say. Just being honest here. Nevertheless, I am thankful for everything 11W!

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MountainsAwait's picture

Candy, you must have to work today with a grumpy attitude like that

"Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity..." -John Muir

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osu992's picture

If you don't report about CJ, it didn't happen

New Day for OSU. Same noon for TTUN.

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osu992's picture

Probably just going to jump in every now and then to ask "What are you hiding" or "Are the rumors true?"

New Day for OSU. Same noon for TTUN.

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Brah Zhole's picture

Why don’t you make down/up votes Public? Like when you hover over the vote it shows who voted? Would certainly limit alot of the nonsense no?

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CandygramForMongo's picture

Me?

Because, I’m nobody, irrelevant, immaterial and inconsequential.

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gobucks1966's picture

Why can't we just post questions and you cats answer however many you wish to answer. That way people who work can still join the party when they can as we said in the military no one gets left behind?? Just a thought. Even if you don't which is fine I still have a question that I wanted to ask long ago and may have been mentioned long ago. Someone help me with paying players. I thought the idea of that was to pay every player how did it get off track to an auction and others left out tia

Denny

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Dan Hope's picture

As mentioned below, you all are absolutely free to post questions before we start answering them, and we will come back and answer them later.

Regarding your question about NIL, I think it all goes back to something Gene Smith talked about before NIL ever became legal: A lack of guardrails. Because the NCAA still hasn’t clearly defined what’s allowed and what isn’t – and because there’s been no enforcement when clear violations are occurring – it’s effectively turned into free agency. Therefore, much like in professional sports free agency, some players have more value than others. Without any guardrails to stop collectives from throwing substantial sums of money at highly coveted players, it turns into a situation where there are now bidding wars for recruits/transfers – which certainly was not what all of this was supposed to be.

In regards to paying all players, IMO the most obvious and logical way to do that is that every player should get a cut of the TV and ticket revenue. Ohio State may not want that, because it would make it harder to sponsor 36 sports since football money currently subsidizes the rest of the athletic department. But when the Big Ten is signing a TV deal that’s worth more than $8 million, it’s only fair that the football and basketball players who make that deal possible should be getting some of the money. But the NCAA still has to change its rules to allow that.

'57Champs's picture

How did you carve out the role of being the most diligent and descriptive press conference twitter stenographer on the beat?

Because I couldn't go for 3.

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Dan Hope's picture

That's kind of you to say, but I wouldn't say I'm doing anything special. It's really just a matter of paying attention, being able to identify in the moment what's being said that's interesting and providing additional context as needed. I try to be quick with providing updates in real time, but I also try to make sure I'm being accurate and not taking quotes out of context. I'm far from perfect – and Twitter usually lets you know pretty quickly when you do make a mistake – but I try to provide the best updates I can and it’s always good to know they’re appreciated.

TheShookster's picture

Looking forward to this gentlemen....I have all of the basketball questions lol

"We didn't play with enough force tonight"

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Griffin Strom's picture

Dan, you are notorious for not being an avid moviegoer. BUT, if you had to rank a top five or so of movies that you have actually seen, what would the list be? 

Dan Hope's picture

I don’t know if I’ve even watched five new movies in the past five years, but on the rare occasion that I do watch a movie, I’m typically watching a comedy. Some of my favorite comedy movies that I have seen are The Hangover, Borat, Talladega Nights, Caddyshack and any of the Austin Powers movies.

Dan Hope's picture

Just want to clarify that this is the thread I’ll be answering questions in this week and that everyone is free to submit questions in advance if they won’t be around during the chat time. Certainly understand that people have work and other responsibilities that may keep them from jumping on at a specific time, so don’t want to exclude anyone.

Griffin Strom's picture

Top five football games you've covered over the years?

Dan Hope's picture

Good question. Among the Ohio State football games that I have actually covered in person, the five that stand out the most off the top of my head:

1. 2017 Penn State – Was my first year here at Eleven Warriors and an unforgettable game between Ohio State’s comeback, J.T. Barrett’s spectacular fourth quarter and what was the best play of Sam Hubbard’s football career until last night.

2. 2021 Rose Bowl vs. Utah – I know the Rose Bowl doesn’t mean as much to many Ohio State fans as it once did, but this was still a heck of a game to cover, especially with how ridiculous Jaxon Smith-Njigba was. It’s hard to beat the Rose Bowl from a setting standpoint, too.

3. 2018 Michigan – Admittedly, I didn’t think Ohio State would win this game, so seeing the Buckeyes put up 62 on Michigan was pretty stunning. In what was undoubtedly one of the weirdest football seasons I’ve ever covered, that game in Ann Arbor was certainly the on-field highlight.

4. 2020 CFP semifinal vs. Clemson – Most of what I just wrote above applies here too. Ohio State dominated a game I didn’t think it would even win (Confession: I actually picked OSU to lose all of the top four games on this list, which may be why they’re the wins I remember the most), and it was certainly the on-field highlight of a weird season. This one may be higher on the list if we had actually gotten to talk to players face-to-face after the game rather than over Zoom.

5. 2013 Michigan – Thinking back to my days covering the team as a student, this is the one I remember most. I’ll always remember Tyvis Powell saying “Coach Coombs is a genius” after he made the game-sealing interception in Ohio State’s 42-41 win. (If you find the video of his postgame interview, you might even notice a much younger version of me standing behind him.)

bull1214's picture

Dan, can you go into detail how the staff decides on offers to recruits? Is it individually as position coaches, collaborative offensively/defensively, etc? Day obviously has final say but how much does he defer to the staff? 

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gobucks1966's picture

I thought you knew that answer yesterday.

Denny

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bull1214's picture

I have an opinion. You have an opinion. Let’s find the answer or we could just start peeing and see who wins. Btw, my junk is a 5 star. 

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gobucks1966's picture

 I know your full of shit there unless you mean the junk cars in your yard. Now I know why you stick up for the lesser talents or 3 stars. With some development you may become a 4 or 5 star according to Frank Thomas. You also proved you guessed how they go about that without knowing for sure.

Denny

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bull1214's picture

Of course it’s a guess. I’m using the same info everybody else on here is using since we aren’t in the WHAC. Sounds like I’m guessing pretty well tho

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Dan Hope's picture

I won’t pretend to know every detail of how those conversations happen behind the scenes, but it’s definitely a collaborative effort. Typically, that process starts with Mark Pantoni and his recruiting staff, who watch film on thousands of different prospects and then make recommendations to the coaching staff on which players they should evaluate themselves. The position coaches watch the recommended prospects at their respective position groups and then decide whether they should offer that player immediately, continue to evaluate that player for a potential future offer or focus on other players. The coordinators on each side of the ball are of course involved in those decisions as well and evaluating whether or not prospects are fits for what Ohio State does offensively and defensively.

Ryan Day certainly has the final say on any offer that is made, but one thing you’ll hear from any Ohio State assistant coach about Day is that he values his assistants' opinions and fosters a collaborative environment within the staff. So I’ve certainly gotten the impression that he trusts his assistants’ judgment and allows them to make decisions on which recruits Ohio State should prioritize at each position. But it's definitely a collaborative effort with both the coaching staff and player personnel staff in terms of identifying targets and setting the board.

bull1214's picture

Thank you for the input! 

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USArmyBuckeye's picture

How to you expect the offensive play calls to be handled next season?

  • Hartline is da man 100%
  • Hartline is responsible for game planning, recruiting and development while Day calls the plays
  • Hartline as primary play caller with help/oversight from Day
  • an entirely different dynamic?

For the defensive calls do you anticipate day having more oversight than we presume he had (or used) this past season? I mean this mostly in terms of Day dictating the aggressiveness of the D based on game situation more than actually calling or vetoing specific defenses on a down to down basis. 

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Dan Hope's picture

Option No. 3 would be my guess. I think Day will delegate the duty of actually calling the plays to Hartline, but I’d still expect Day to be very involved in offensive game planning and making in-game decisions in tandem with Hartline.

Giving up offensive play calling certainly could allow Day to spend more time with the defense than he has in the past – and I’ll be interested to hear what he has to say about all of this the next time he holds a press conference – but I still expect Day to spend more time with the offense than he does with the defense. Jim Knowles was hired to be “the head coach of the defense,” and I think he’s still viewed that way inside the WHAC even after a disappointing end to the season. But I do think freeing himself up to have more input on what the defense is doing is one of several reasons for Day to delegate the offensive play calling duties to Hartline.

Lighteyes's picture

It seems like some fans have lost faith on Jim Knowles with how the season ended - or at the very least aren't quite as all-in as they were last year. Fans being fans, they often go way overboard with these things, so wondering your take on two questions:

1.) Do you think anybody within the building has been shaken as well? Or is everybody still firmly in belief and just accepting that hey defenses get beat sometimes?

2.) Where are you at with this? Did the end of the year gives you some pause on Knowles-as-DC?

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Dan Hope's picture

1. I can’t speak for everyone, but my impression has been that there’s still a lot of belief in Jim Knowles within the program. There was always an expectation that it would take multiple years for Knowles to fully implement his defensive scheme, so turning on him now would be overreactionary. I’m sure there have been some hard questions asked over the last few weeks as everyone tries to diagnose why the defense failed to perform up to expectations at the end of the season, and I think Knowles realizes as much as anyone that they can’t do all the same things they did this past year and expect different results. But I think there's still a lot of belief within the program that he’s the right man for the job.

2. It does give me a little bit of pause – particularly in the sense that the defense had many of the same issues against Georgia that it did against Michigan even with five weeks between games to make fixes – but I think Knowles is a smart guy who is more than capable of learning from what went wrong in year one and making changes accordingly in year two. If Ohio State’s still getting gashed by repeated big plays in big games next year, I think there will be more reason to question Knowles. But I think having a second full offseason with a defense full of players who now have a year of experience within the scheme could go a long way toward better execution in 2023 – though I am interested to see what changes Knowles might make this year in terms of schematic adjustments and different personnel packages.

WinningForLackOfABetterWordIsGood's picture

Do you know whether any of these guys are coming back in 2023 (kinda the last guys we haven't heard official word on yet) -- Josh Proctor, Tyler Friday, Palaie Gaoteote, Kam Babb ...... and I guess Parker Lewis, because I've never had any idea what his status was?

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Dan Hope's picture

Just reached out to Ohio State and was told no official word yet on whether those four will be using their additional year of eligibility.

Based on what Proctor and Gaoteote told us before the Peach Bowl (https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-football/2022/12/136416/xavier...), I’ve been under the impression that both of them are more likely to move on than stay at Ohio State for another year, though I don’t want to put words in their mouths as neither of them said that directly. Given that Babb wasn’t an active participant in practice before the Peach Bowl, I think there’s a good chance he decides it’s time to call it a career. Haven’t heard anything definitive regarding Friday’s plans for next year.

Parker Lewis was cleared to play in September and still has two years of eligibility so the expectation is he’ll be back with the Buckeyes this season and competing for the kicker job with Noah Ruggles’ departure.

Dan Hope's picture

FYI, I did some additional research and found that the seniors with an extra year of eligibility have until Feb. 3 to withdraw their names from the NFL draft. So Babb, Friday, Gaoteote and Proctor don’t have to make final decisions by today like the underclassmen do.

jwilly's picture

Surprised we haven't heard any additional transfers announced or will the spring period ne busier after guys go through practice?

JWilly3

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Dan Hope's picture

I think Ryan Day has done a good job of keeping transfer attrition to a relative minimum given the current climate, but I am definitely expecting additional outgoing transfers after spring practice. The lack of time between the end of the College Football Playoff and the start of the new semester makes it tough for players on CFP teams to transfer during the winter window if they want to be a part of a potential national championship run. But I think there will certainly be players who see the writing on the wall during spring practices and opt to transfer when it becomes clear they won’t see much playing time this season if they stay.

NorthPoleBuckeye's picture

When will Jacy Sheldon be back?

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Dan Hope's picture

As of this weekend, her status was still day-to-day. The commentators on BTN during Saturday’s game said she was making progress toward a return but that Ohio State was being cautious with bringing her back to make sure she’s fully healthy before she gets back on the court. I’m hoping to make it to the next women’s basketball interview session to talk to them about the great season they’re having, so I’ll certainly ask for an update.

NorthPoleBuckeye's picture

Thanks Dan for the info and certainly looking forward to what the staff has to say.

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Dan Hope's picture

Kevin McGuff today on Jacy Sheldon: “We're getting closer. We're just really making sure we give it ample time to fully heal so that we can have her at 100% down the stretch. But we're getting closer for sure.”

Dan Hope's picture

Thanks for all the great questions, everyone. Will check back tonight when I have a chance in case anyone has any additional questions. Look forward to doing this again.

Lighteyes's picture

Thanks for answering the questions, hope you guys keep this going as a Monday tradition!

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Buck61's picture

Will the OSU quarterback competition be the most watched in all of College football this off season?

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Dan Hope's picture

I think you could make that case for any of Georgia, Alabama and Ohio State, considering they currently have the three best odds to win the national championship and all of them will have starting quarterback competitions this offseason. Ohio State’s may be the most intriguing in the sense that both contenders were top-50 overall recruits and that they’ll be throwing to what should be the best receiving corps in college football once again.

Buck61's picture

The womens hockey team is ranked first, the womens basketball team is ranked second, have the two similar mens programs been ranked first and second ever in the same week ( any sport first or second)?

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jefferson970's picture

Thanks Dan! After reading the q’s and a’s I’m looking forward to asking a question or two next week. Please continue this feature for a little while longer. :)

Hmm

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Dan Hope's picture

Our plan as of now is to do these once a week throughout the offseason (days/times may vary, but we plan on doing one every week). Assuming the response is good, we would like to keep it going during the football season as well – starting out doing this on Monday afternoons is a test run of sorts, as that’s likely when we would do them during the season.

Always_A_Buckeye's picture

Logged in to say I really liked this!! 

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Daniel's picture

What’s the real reason Dylan Raolia (sp?) decommited?

Va Buck

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