This is how Cincinnati LaSalle class of 2014 wide receiver Derek Kief announced his commitment to the University of Alabama on Sunday night.
Over the top? Kind of cool? Right in line what this whole recruiting production has become?
Give Kief a 9.5 for use of props and for creativity. The whole DerekKief.com thing, though? Produce first, kid. All that stuff can come later.
We were all young once, I guess.
DAYTON, Ohio – I went to the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association North-South All-Star Classic on Saturday to work on a couple projects for down the road. While I was there, I watched a couple football games.
**This Urban Meyer guy knows what he’s doing. As expected, the stars of the games for some of Ohio’s best in the class of 2013 were Ohio State signees. Massillon’s Gareon Conley caught 3 touchdown passes for the North in the big-school (Div. I-III) game and was named the North’s Offensive MVP, and Cleveland Glenville’s Chris Worley was an absolute terror on defense and was named the North Defensive MVP.
Worley said he plans to start out at safety at the “star” position when he gets to Ohio State this summer but could grow into a linebacker’s role and isn’t opposed to either. He plays fast and violently and if he doesn’t get on the field sooner than later it’s a sign that the Buckeyes are really, really stacked.
**This was the first year the OHSFCA divided the event into two games and played them at Welcome Stadium. The North won the big-school game, 33-27, after leading 14-0 early, trailing 21-14 at halftime and then hanging on late. Game MVP Kyle Kempt, an Oregon State commit, kept finding his high school teammate, Conley, and the South really couldn’t keep up with him.
Kempt threw for 161 yards and threw all 3 of Conley’s touchdowns.
“Pretty awesome way to close our high school careers,” Kempt said. “It was a lot of fun. Gareon made it easy for me sometime at Massillon and he did it again here.”
**In the small-school (Div. IV-VI) game, Akron Manchester QB Nick Peyakov started 7-of-7 and threw 2 early touchdowns to give the North a 14-0 lead. The North held on to win, 27-24, with the winning margin coming on a 55-yard field goal by Michael Geiger of Ottawa Hills, who’s headed to Michigan State.
Remember Geiger’s name. He cleared the crossbar easily on that field goal and has a very bright future.
Norwayne receiver Brady Berger was named MVP of the small-school game after catching two touchdown passes. The South’s biggest play came on an 83-yard touchdown catch by Akron signee Austin Wolf of Lebanon.
Berger plans to walk on at Akron. Peyakov is undecided on a college but is leaning towards Mount Union after he didn’t receive any Div. I scholarship offers. It’s no coincidence, by the way, that Mount Union does what it does on a yearly basis.
**The North-South game has been played since 1946 and is the longest continuously running all-star game in the country. There have only been two Super Bowls ever played without a North-South game alum on one of the rosters.
“I got to read up this week on some of the names of past players in this game,” Kempt said. “It’s an honor to be next. This was a first-class operation this week and something we’ll all remember.”
**Despite being a longtime and involved member of the OHSFCA, Steubenville coach Reno Saccoccia did not attend the games.
A 14-person grand jury begins hearing from witnesses this week as part of an investigation into whether other laws were broken in connection with the incident last summer in which two Steubenville players were convicted of rape last month.
Saccoccia is expected to be called to testify before the grand jury but it’s unclear if he or any other Steubenville Schools employees will eventually face charges.
Three Stuebenville players played for the South team in the big-school game.
**After a bout with cancer that forced him to be away from coaching in each of the last two seasons, it was great to see Glenville coach Ted Ginn Sr. looking healthy and walking the sidelines on Saturday.
**Cincinnati Bengals running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis spoke to the players on Saturday morning about his journey to the NFL, his family’s experience with Hurricane Katrina, the importance of education and a variety of topics. The speech took place behind closed doors at the players’ hotel, but by all accounts was both powerful and memorable.
**The Cleveland Browns are a longtime financial contributor to the game and again this year made a sizable donation. The Ohio National Guard was the game’s primary sponsor.
Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary freshman V.J. King has been invited back to Colorado Springs in May to participate in USA Basketball’s Developmental National Team training camp.
King is one of 25 players invited to the training camp. From that group, the USA Developmental National Team will be chosen to compete in the under-16 FIBA Americas Championship in Uruguay in June. The top three qualifiers from that tournament will play in the under-17 world championship in the summer of 2014.
The 6’7 King leads St. V-M in scoring at 17 points per game. He was named a first-team Div. II All Northeast Ohio-Inland selection on Thursday, and on Saturday St. V-M plays Alliance for the Canton Div. II district title. King holds scholarship offers from Ohio State, Wisconsin and Iowa and has drawn interest from college programs nationwide this season.
The 46 players invited to last October’s USA Basketball mini-camp, also in Colorado Springs, represented the high school classes of both 2015 and 2016 and 25 different states. King was the only Ohio player invited.
FOXSportsOhio.com has been chronicling King’s high school and college recruitment journey. That series can be found here.
Fourth in a series…
AKRON, Ohio – The week of the first semester’s final exams ended just in time for the St. Vincent-St. Mary basketball team to play back-to-back games against highly-touted opponents, on Saturday night in Akron and on Sunday afternoon in Dayton.
V.J. King wanted to use Friday night to get to the barber shop. He ended up spending more than 90 minutes in the gym.
As usual.
A gifted young basketball player by any measure — those who follow this stuff say he’s one of the nation’s best in the class of 2016 — King’s single greatest attribute, at least nearing the end of his freshman season, might be his work ethic.
He’s seemingly always in the gym, before and after formal practices — remember, he pouted when it was locked on Thanksgiving Day — and often twice a day on the weekends or when St. V-M has had long stretches of days between games. He maintains that he’s a normal kid who lives a normal life despite whatever pressures or spotlight have been brought on by his basketball ability. To V.J., the reason he neither has a bunch of outside hobbies nor time for them is because he wants to be in the gym, even more than he already is.
Nineteen games and 13 weeks into his first high school basketball season in Ohio, and there’s just been one day his father, Vince, remembers not sticking around after practice for V.J. to get some extra work. That was the day before V.J.’s big biology project was due, and V.J. was anxious to get to get to the local one-hour photo to get his worm photos and get to finishing whatever it was he needed to finish.
“He was obsessed with those worms,” Vince King said.
When we met last summer, V.J. said he actually enjoyed doing the dishes at home. The great ones are often a little different, and there’s plenty about V.J. King that indicates he may, one day, be great.
That’s part of the reason why the King Family agreed last year to this series, chronicling V.J.’s high school basketball career and college recruitment. And while college coaches from around the country keep stopping by his games and he sat behind Ohio State’s bench for the Buckeyes’ win over Michigan in January, V.J. continues to say any recruitment or college talk is for his parents.
He’s busy with his worms — and his goal of helping St. V-M win the state championship. Three regular season games remain, and the sectional tournament begins in a little less than two weeks.
“And we can win it all, we really can,” V.J. said. “It’s about locking in and finishing strong.”
St. V-M enters this weekend at 10-9, a wholly unimpressive record against a whopper of a schedule. Really, against some pretty tough circumstances, too. V.J. scored 18 points in the season-opener in Chicago, played at the same time the St. V-M football team — with three current starters on the basketball team — was playing its state title game back in Northeast Ohio. Not only was the first half of the basketball season about introductions and learning, but it included games against high-profile opponents from different states and against just about every Ohio powerhouse.
High school basketball in 2013 at St. Vincent-St. Mary isn’t like high school basketball in most other places. It hasn’t been the same since LeBron James left, and there are no signs it will change any time soon. The Irish put their fancy Nike/LeBron gear in their fancy Nike/LeBron backpacks, load up the bus and play teams from all over, often in showcase-type events.
V.J. has encountered his share of grown men this season. He’s had a few ‘wow’ moments, some tough moments and moments that have both shown his tremendous potential and emphasized his need to both get stronger and more aggressive attacking the basket in the future.
He’s averaging 17 points and 5 rebounds per game, shooting 44 percent from the field and averaging a block and a steal per game. He’s a two-guard in an ever-growing body, a heady player who sees things before they happen. Probably because he’s growing so fast, there are times his feet, hands and eyes don’t land in the same place at the same time, and that has cost him a few baskets and maybe some highlight-reel dunks.
Spending a few minutes a few times a week in the cold tub has helped his joints. Playing different roles, new opponents and getting used to new teammates has been good, too.
“More of the strength and explosion will be there next year,” Vince King said. “And I think V.J. knows there’s a little bit of clumsiness or whatever it might be there right now, too, but he wants it all right now. I beg him to be patient. He’s so hard on himself, and as long as he manages that I think that’s a good thing.
“He needs to be hungry. When he gets pushed, he needs to push back. It’s hard to lead as a freshman, but I think he has an understanding of what it’s going to take for him to get where he needs to go. I know he loves school, and I think he’s starting to get a little more confident on the floor than he was early on.”
This kind of potential meeting this kind of work ethic pushes his ceiling very, very high.
“He’s come a long way in a relatively short period of time,” St. V-M coach Dru Joyce said. “He was new to the city, to the school, to his teammates. And as good as he is, he’s still a freshman. He’s worked on getting better defensively. He’s deferred to the older guys as we’ve tried to mesh them all and get going. He has a long way to go, but he wants it.
“There’s no doubt to me that, some day, V.J. is going to be a pro. He’s going to get paid to play this game. How much, for how long and to what level? It’s early to say, but he needs to keep working at it. And he will.”
V.J. hit a growth spurt just before the season, clearing 6 feet and 7 inches. He wore a size 14 shoe last summer, started this season in a 15 and now is in a 16. He’s more comfortable with coaches, teammates and surroundings. He makes 22-footers off the dribble like he’s already ready for that three-letter league, and he’s had a handful of games during which he’s displayed close to his full array of talents.
He’s had rougher nights, too, when the shots didn’t drop, when he let one missed free throw lead to another, when something didn’t click and he — gasp! — played like a freshman. In an early-season loss to arch-rival Akron Hoban, V.J. scored just 3 points.
“Nah, I don’t dwell on the bad games,” V.J. said. “Yes, I get mad about them. But I know I’m a freshman, and I know I have a lot of basketball ahead if I keep working at it. I’ve played some good ones. We, as a team, have played some good ones. We need to string some together here with the tournament coming up.
“My dad says there’s no pouting at home. If I have a bad game or a bad day, I can be as mad as I want on the ride home. But when I get home, it’s time to put it in the past and move on.”
Said Joyce: “When LeBron and my son (Dru Joyce III) and that group first came through here, they didn’t play the type of schedule we play now. There are no breaks. This has been hard on V.J., hard on everybody. I don’t want to make any comparisons because they’re not fair, but even at 9 or 10 years old my son and LeBron always made that extra pass, always wanted that extra gym time. V.J. wants that stuff, too. He’s on a good track.”
Iowa sent two coaches to a game early in the season and offered V.J. a scholarship after, following what Ohio State and Wisconsin did in the fall. USC sent an assistant recently, and UConn coach Kevin Ollie has told the family he’ll be making a trip to Akron soon.
“I’m biased, obviously, but I think the kid is special,” Vince King said. “I know he’s special. And his ability to dismiss all the madness around him is very special.
“He thinks it’s really cool that he got to sit front row for OSU-Michigan with 18,000 people there, and he thinks it’s really cool that he got to sit with Thad Matta after the game. But the next day, you would have never known we even went to Columbus. He was back in school, back in the gym doing the extra work, coming home to his worms or whatever.”
For you Buckeye fans, V.J. wore a red sweater and said he had a “blast” at that Michigan game, which was played 16 or so hours after Matta and Ohio State assistant Jeff Boals came to Marion-Franklin High School in Columbus to watch V.J. play. He napped on the ride home to Akron, then hit the books.
“The next day,” Vince King said, “he was a million miles away. Happily.”
V.J.’s mom, Lo, sometimes keeps stats as the games go and always can be heard screaming words of encouragement. His sister, Jalen, is in eighth grade and is thinking about attending St. V-M next year. When aspiring St. V-M students come to shadow current students for a day, they can request a student to guide the tour.
A bunch of them keep asking for V.J.
V.J. laughs about it all. He promises he just wants to keep getting better, keep trying to win. A week or so ago, he told his dad he felt like he was starting to get an edge to his game. Earlier this week, he made an aggressive cut to the basket, went up and dunked through a foul during at Walsh Jesuit. He missed the ensuing free throw.
It was another classic sign, one of many through this season, that there’s something unique there; it’s just not all the way there yet. Really, that might be a good thing.
Two possessions after that dunk, V.J. beat the third-quarter buzzer with a 3-pointer. In the fourth, he hit two more as St. V-M pulled away.
V.J. King is getting there, maybe faster than he thinks. It’s lining up to be a really fun ride.
Massillon quarterback Kyle Kempt had previously committed to a home-state university.
Now, he’s planning to attend another home-state university.
Kempt, who grew up in Oregon but played high school football at Massillon after his family moved here three years ago, gave a verbal commitment to Oregon State on Saturday while on an official visit there.
Kempt committed to Cincinnati last spring. His recruitment re-opened in December when Butch Jones left for Tennessee and Cincinnati hired Tommy Tuberville. He also visited Toledo earlier this month and Connecticut earlier this year.
The 6’5 Kempt was the Canton Repository’s Stark County Player of the Year after throwing for a Massillon-record 3,056 yards last season and helping the Tigers to a spot in Ohio’s big-school quarterfinals. He’ll graduate in June as Massillon’s valedictorian; he’s never had a B in his academic career.
“I’m extremely happy for Kyle,” Massillon coach Jason Hall said. “He’s a great person, a great leader, excellent in the classroom and an awesome football player. We are all happy it’s worked out for him.”
CHANGE OF PLANS: Scout.com recruiting analyst Bill Greene tweeted Sunday that Youngstown Mooney safety prospect Marcus McWilson, long committed to Nebraska, will instead sign with Kentucky on Feb. 6, National Signing Day.
Kentucky’s new coach is Mooney alum Mark Stoops. Nebraska’s coach is Mooney alum Bo Pelini.
McWilson visited Kentucky this weekend. He tweeted on Sunday that he’s officially decommitted from Nebraska.
Huntington (W.V.) Prep’s Andrew Wiggins is generally regarded as the best amateur basketball player in the world, and he’ll be playing two games in Northeast Ohio next weekend.
Wiggins is the main attraction, but dozens of big-time college basketball prospects and some of the best high school basketball teams in the region — and the nation — will be on display at Walsh University in North Canton on Jan. 26-27 in the second annual Dunk For Diabetes event.
Seven of the top 10 teams in the most recent Cleveland Plain Dealer Top 25 poll will play in the event, as will 13 of the 25 in total.
Tickets, good for all day, are $12 for adults and $10 for students. They’re $10 and $8 via presale at the event’s official website, Dunk4Diabetes.com.
Here is the event lineup:
Saturday: 1/26/13
11:00am Game 1: Cleveland Central Catholic vs. Cleveland John Hay
12:30pm Game 2: Richmond Heights vs. Gateway (PA)
2:30pm Game 3: Brunswick vs. Akron Firestone
4:30pm Game 4: Beachwood vs. Barberton
6:00pm Game 5: Cleveland VASJ vs. Martinsburg (WV)
7:30pm Game 6: Lakewood St. Edward vs. Bishop Kearney (NY)
9:00pm Game 7: Mentor vs. Huntington Prep (WV)
Sunday: 1/27/13
11:45am Game 1: LaBrae vs. Malvern
1:30pm Game 2: Garfield Heights vs. Gahanna Lincoln
3:15pm Game 3: Cleveland St. Ignatius vs. St. Clairsville
5:00pm Game 4: Huntington Prep (WV) vs. Cleveland Benedictine
6:45pm Game 5: Bishop Kearney (NY) vs. North Canton Hoover
8:30pm Game 6: Shaker Heights vs. Pickerington Central
Wiggins, who reclassified from the class of 2014 last fall, is expected to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft but has yet to decide where he’ll play college ball next season. A native of Toronto, he’s Scout.com’s No. 1 prospect in the class of 2014.
Wiggins and Huntington Prep will actually play twice in Ohio before this event, on Jan. 18 in Dayton as part of the Flyin’ To The Hoop event and Jan. 25 in Cincinnati in the Play-by-Play Classic.
Also among the individual headliners at Dunk For Diabetes: Pickerington Central junior and Ohio State commit Ja’sean Tate, nationally-ranked Villa Angela-St. Joseph sophomore Carlton Bragg, Shaker Heights sophomore Esa Ahmad, Barberton sophomore guard Josh Williams and three of Wiggins’ Huntington Prep teammates who have already made their college decisions: Dominic Woodson (Baylor), Moses Kingsley (Arkansas) and Xavier Rathan-Mayes (Florida State).
She won a game Friday night and had a baby on Saturday.
Everything about this boys basketball season at Akron North High School has been a little different.
First-year coach Stacie Horton-Carter started the season as one of three women serving as head boys varsity basketball coaches in Ohio, but the only one who was carrying.
Last Friday night, North defeated Akron Ellet, 68-63, for its third win of the season. On Saturday, Horton-Carter gave birth to her first son, Jonathan Carter II.
Horton-Carter relayed via text message that “everybody’s great” after a delivery that was scheduled for later this week.
“Baby came a little early but he is healthy,” she wrote, “and the team welcomed him with our third win!”
We chronicled the Horton-Carter story — that of a first-year coach, baby in tow, taking over an inner-city program with no budget — in December, just after the Vikings lost their season opener.
Friday’s win made them 3-9. North was 1-20 last year and winless the season before.
“We only expect her to be gone for about a week,” North athletic director Carrie Stewart said. “This was all planned, except for the baby coming early. We’re glad everyone is healthy and look forward to having Stacie back when she’s ready.”
Danyelle Love, who normally coaches the junior-varsity, and freshman coach Kevin Strickland will coach the team this week. North plays tomorrow at perennial Akron City Series power Buchtel.
V.J. King’s already-long arms and long legs are getting longer, almost by the week, but everything around him has slowed to a more manageable pace. His favorite time of the year is here, too, and this weekend he plays his first high school basketball game as a high school student.
That sentence isn’t as confusing as it sounds. There are layers to this story — reasons so many people care what this 15-year-old is thinking and doing — and to V.J.’s budding basketball career, too. Summer included a move several states away from his comfort zone and almost everything he’d previously known, and the fall included a remarkable amount of work on his chosen craft, a weekend with some of the nation’s other top young basketball players in another part of the country and a visit to Ohio State that has perfect strangers offering their opinions on where V.J. should go to college.
Three full months into high school, V.J.’s biggest gripe isn’t with outside interest or anything he’ll be doing past this coming Saturday. In fact, he’s been pretty much smiling since August — with two noticeable exceptions.
The gym at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School was closed on Thanksgiving morning, even to budding stars. And his report card for the first academic quarter included a ‘B.’ Just one amongst a bunch of A’s, but enough to make him angry.
As much as any 15-year-old can be expected to, anyway, this one seems to understand the stakes.
This is the third part in a series of stories the King Family agreed to participate in last winter. For those who explore or lend any credence to such things — and they’re out there — V.J. has ranked among the top basketball players nationally in the class of 2016 since he was a seventh grader. He played high school basketball in Charlotte for former NBA player Mugsy Bogues as a seventh and eighth grader, and the family fully and officially moved back to its roots in Northeast Ohio this summer.
PART ONE: Young star will play high school ball in Akron
PART TWO: Sound priorities, lofty goals
In late September, V.J. took an unofficial visit to Ohio State. The next day, Buckeyes coach Thad Matta offered him a scholarship.
Two weekends later, he attended the USA Basketball Men’s Developmental National Team minicamp in Colorado Springs. That camp was the first true national exposure for V.J. and 40 or so players like him. From that camp, a roster for next summer’s U-16 Team USA will be set, a team that will play in the FIBA Americas Championship in South America.
V.J. didn’t take many trips to the mall or go to many parties in the first few months as a high schooler. He did get to watch a top-secret, high-level workout in the St. V-M gym in September with a couple guys named LeBron James and Kevin Durant going shot for shot, sprint for sprint, as they prepared for their respective NBA training camps.
After watching Durant make 25 3-pointers in a row, V.J. challenged himself to do the same in his next few workouts. Those workouts, often two a day, have helped V.J. add polish to his game and prepare for a high school career that officially starts this weekend in Chicago. He said his goals are simple and lofty; to win state championships, to play college basketball at a high level, and to ultimately play at the highest level.
V.J. said he’s worked at improving his defense, at getting stronger and getting acclimated to Ohio high school basketball. He said he felt little pressure and had “a little room for error” playing as a middle-schooler in North Carolina.
Now, he’s still a kid playing a big kid’s game. St. V-M plays a top-notch schedule that includes powerhouse high school programs from all corners of Ohio and several different states. Even in the games that aren’t against top-notch competition will be spotlight games for the teams on the other side, and since most high school teams don’t have a 6’7 shooting guard to match V.J., there’s a good chance he’ll be guarded by older, shorter and stronger opponents with directives to use that strength to their advantage.
Asked what a good, semi-legal forearm to the chest from an 18-year old will do for V.J., his father, Vince, said “it will make him understand he’s no longer a novelty, and that this isn’t AAU ball or ‘everybody come out and watch V.J. King.’
“If he can’t handle it, he should get his little tail to the sideline.”
Where V.J. goes, Vince follows — even waiting outside the curtained-off doors during St. V-M’s closed practices. Father and son push each other in their early-morning and late-night workouts, and V.J. has chosen to wear No. 13 this season, the number his father wore as a star at the NCAA Div. II level at Indiana (Pa.) University and during his time playing overseas in the 1990s.
Of their visit to Ohio State in the early fall, V.J said it was a “big school, nice campus, (Matta is) a really good coach. It seemed like a great place.” He said he tries to think about college basketball and his own career only when he’s watching games on TV.
“Coach Matta was crystal clear that he wants V.J. to be a Buckeye,” Vince King said. “But he was also very clear that he’ll be watching, and any signs of stagnation, laziness or slipping, he’ll look for someone else.”
Shortly after Ohio State offered V.J. a scholarship, Wisconsin did, too. Among the other programs that stopped by St. V-M during fall’s open gym period or have been sending letters include North Carolina, Michigan State, Pitt, George Mason, College of Charleston and several Ivy League schools.
Both Vince and V.J. King say the college attention is “humbling.” V.J. said he’s worried solely about his grades, his game and trying to win a state championship next March, and that any college talk or scheduling of future visits will be up to his parents. Said Vince: “He has plenty of time for all that. He’s a freshman. Our job as parents is simply to understand where he is, where he’s not and way down the road help him land in the best place.”
In August, V.J. thought his favorite class in his first year of high school would be Geometry; turns out, that’s the one that kept him from bringing home a 4.0 in the first quarter, “but I still like it — most of the time.” In the second semester he’s looking forward to taking a class called “Plan For Success” that introduces students to different career options and paths.
Or, as V.J. puts it, “a little bit of life after basketball.”
Clearly, he’s thinking big.
He measured at a shade over 6-foot-6, without shoes, in Colorado Springs. He’ll be listed at 6-foot-7 on the St. V-M roster this season, and by the turn of the new year that’s probably going to come up a little short of accurate.
“I think I’ve grown a half-inch since break,” V.J. said this week, and the break to which he was referring was Thanksgiving break.
He’s really growing by the week.
“He’s had the sore knees and sore joints to show for it,” Vince King said. “It’s frustrated him, too, because it’s limited him a little bit with movement, burst, explosion. He feels like he’s running in the sand sometimes, but it’s something he has to deal with. Continuing to grow is not a bad thing, and he knows it’s all about the long term.”
Being one of the tallest players on the floor is still new to V.J., who’s done most of his growing over the last 20-24 months and certainly didn’t own any type of physical advantage when he played a reserve role for United Faith Christian Academy over the last two seasons. He’ll play shooting guard for St. V-M this season, handling the ball when necessary.
At a four-team scrimmage early this month featuring three other traditionally strong Northeast Ohio high school programs, V.J.’s talent was obvious. So, too, was the fact that he’s a freshman. Not all of his jump shots fell. Not all of his passes found their intended targets. As many as seven players who will be his St. V-M teammates this winter are still playing football, so December’s schedule will be a preseason of sorts.
V.J. is going to make highlights with his passes and pull-up jumpers, and his dad is going to turn red in the face asking his son to block shots and be more aggressive on the glass. Eventually, he’ll find a comfort zone and a confidence. He’s put in the work, and his confidence is growing as fast as his body.
Right now, he has no idea how good he is.
WATCH: V.J. King on YouTube
Let’s take a minute to enjoy this beautiful weather, the start of basketball season and what’s left of this beautiful football season (Browns and Bengals not included in discussion of such beauty).
Football is so beautiful that Indiana and Duke remain alive to play in BCS bowl games. That is not a misprint.
Football can create beautiful stories out of terrible circumstances. The Indianapolis Colts are 6-3, their head coach, Chuck Pagano, is now in remission and more than 20 Colts players have shaved their heads in a show of support for Pagano and his fight against leukemia.
The start of college basketball means the annual airing of the Jimmy V speech. I’ll watch it (as I always do) like it’s the first time I’ve seen it. I’ll cry (as I always do), too.
The Colts, Jaguars and Browns had the lowest season win totals posted by The Guys Who Know Stuff in Las Vegas prior to the NFL season. That’s more proof that two out of every three times, Those Guys are right.
While I’m doling out and dealing in life lessons, a reminder that cheaters never prosper. Remember when Steelers wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders faked that injury in the Bengals game a couple Sunday nights ago? The NFL came down on it hard, fining the Steelers $35,000 and Sanders $15,000.
The Steelers are the only team still on the Browns’ schedule that has a winning record. A blessing and a curse and, well, we’ve seen those movies before.
Football is so beautiful that Kent State, a program that hasn’t won in ages and hasn’t been to a bowl game in 40 years, sits at 8-1 entering tomorrow’s game at Miami University in beautiful Oxford, Ohio. Football is so beautiful that Miami is capable of winning that game if Kent isn’t careful.
Football is so beautiful that back in Kent tomorrow night, Massillon and Canton McKinley play for the second time in two weeks in the second round of the OHSAA playoffs. With Ohio State off this weekend and this kind of weather, I’d advise checking this incredible rivalry game out if at all possible.
If you’ve never been to a Massillon-McKinley game, the football is always worth the price of admission. The people watching is worth triple.
I have a Massillon story I haven’t shared. It goes back to August, when I stopped to see a Massillon practice on my training camp tour. I was impressed by Massillon’s talent, and the way a bunch of high school kids ran a no-huddle offense with the ball rarely hitting the ground. But something I saw at the end of practice left me thinking this really could be a special season in one of those most special football towns we have.
Practice closed that day with what the coaches called the snake drill. The players grimaced, and I soon understood why. They started in one corner of the end zone, at the pylon, and ran “up” the goal line, turned, and then ran back “down” the 5-yard line. They went up at the 10, down at the 15. All the way down the field, all the way to the opposite goal line.
That’s a lot of running.
The linemen went first, with the idea that at least most of the skill players would start 90 seconds or so behind and eventually catch them. There was one linemen in particular who was really struggling. He was overweight, and this drill wasn’t easy on anybody.
Twice, I saw different coaches intercept this particular player and move him up three or four steps on the snake. Still, he was getting passed. And he was trying like crazy to keep up.
By the time he reached the other 10-yard line, everyone else was done. And gasping for air. And waiting. But it’s what I saw then that told me more than any no-huddle offense or snake drill could tell me about any team, on any level.
Standing in the end zone and encouraging this player to finish strong were three or four of the team leaders. They yelled his name and told him to keep pushing and when he did, they high-fived him and celebrated like he’d just scored a touchdown. It was 85 degrees that day, and I had chills.
It’s the little things that make this game so beautiful.
And, finally, my weekend predictions. Check that yearly ATS record. I’m some sort of genius.
Giants (-4) 34, Bengals 24
Steelers (-12) 31, Chiefs 17
Kent State (-6) 28, Miami 27
Penn State 27, Nebraska (-8) 24
Akron (-18) 38, UMass 17
LAST WEEK: 5-0 straight up, 3-2 ATS
SEASON TOTAL: 35-15 straight up, 28-20-2 ATS
FOX Sports Ohio’s live High School Football Game of the Week returns next month when Akron Buchtel visits Massillon on Thursday, Aug. 23.
The FOX Sports Ohio Game of the Week returns to Stark County on Oct. 4 when Canton McKinley visits backyard rival GlenOak.
This year’s coverage includes seven live television games — from both Northeast Ohio and Southwest Ohio — and up to 10 Saturday games streamed online at FOXSportsOhio.com. Each television game will also be simulcast on the website.
The full schedule will be released later today.
Expectations are always high at Massillon, but especially so this season with a bunch of talent returning from a team that narrowly missed the playoffs last season. Quarterback Kyle Kempt is verbally committed to the University of Cincinnati.
Akron Buchtel is coached by former Buchtel and University of Michigan star Ricky Powers. McKinley is entering its first year under new coach Todd Filtz, who won the Div. II state title in 2010 at Maple Heighst.
