Lou Holtz reacts to Ryan Day calling him out

Did the Irish legend respond well?

A seemingly inconsequential remark about Ohio State by Notre Dame coaching legend [autotag]Lou Holtz[/autotag] has become anything but. After the Buckeyes stunned the Irish, coach Ryan Day let a large TV audience know he felt disrespected by Holtz saying the Irish were the more physical team. Finally, Holtz has broken his silence.

The Columbus Dispatch broke down some of Holtz’s comments he made while speaking on “Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich”. Of most importance was his response to Day’s unhappiness about the physicality remark:

“I’m sorry that Coach Day was offended by it. I hope he goes on and has a wonderful year. I don’t think they’ll be a great football team. I really don’t. I felt Notre Dame won the football game. All we had to do was fall on the ball. The last two minutes, the opposition is not Ohio State. The opposition is the clock.”

Holtz also said he called [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] to apologize for putting him and his team in the spot he did. But he also doesn’t mind Day taking shots at him:

“That’s his choice. I can understand why he did. He doesn’t want to talk about Michigan. 0-2. He doesn’t want to talk about the big game coming up against Penn State and against Michigan again. He’s a great coach. He’s a tremendous coach. He’s a great offensive mind. He hired an outstanding defensive coordinator from Oklahoma State who is doing a tremendous job. Ohio State is a good football team, but I don’t think they’re a great football team.”

There’s no telling if this apparent feud will continue, but it will be worth keeping an eye on assuming it does keep going.

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What the experts are predicting: Notre Dame vs. Ohio State

Who do you have in this game?

Notre Dame is hosting Ohio State on Saturday. Does anything else need to be said? No? OK, let’s just see who the experts think will win:

Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann ‘not going to Notre Dame’

Scratch one name off the list.

ESPN’s Pete Thamel recently gave his list of potential names to fill Notre Dame’s coaching vacancy. One of those names was Chris Holtmann of Ohio State, who recently had a streak of 20-win seasons in Columbus come to an end. You can scratch him off that list because he told the Columbus Dispatch that he’s not going anywhere. Specifically pertaining to the Irish job, he said this:

“I’m not going to Notre Dame. I stand by what I publicly said. I’m committed to being here.”

As the Dispatch story notes, Holtmann is a year removed from signing a contract extension that keeps with the Buckeyes through the 2027-28 season. He currently has a $2.5 million buyout, and we have no idea how much Notre Dame is willing to buy out a coach if necessary. The athletic department is just coming off a misinformation fiasco with its offensive coordinator hire for the football program, so it better choose wisely in the event of a buyout.

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MSU Basketball picked to finish 4th, Aaron Henry left off All-Big Ten team in Media Poll

Michigan State basketball is not the favorites to win the Big Ten this season, not even to finish in the top three of the league.

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Michigan State basketball is not the favorites to win the Big Ten this season, not even to finish in the top three of the league, according to media members that cover the conference.

The annual Big Ten preseason media poll — which is jointly tabulated by The Columbus Dispatch and The Athletic — came out on Tuesday and listed the Spartans at No. 4 in the league, coming in behind Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. Despite winning at least a share of the regular-season title the past three years, MSU didn’t receive a single first-place vote in this year’s media poll.

Here is a breakdown of the voting from the 28 beat writes (two from each school) with first-place votes in parentheses:

  1. Illinois – 376 (16)
  2. Iowa – 350 (6)
  3. Wisconsin – 347 (6)
  4. Michigan State – 323
  5. Rutgers – 249
  6. Michigan – 241
  7. Ohio State – 229
  8. Indiana – 212
  9. Purdue – 179
  10. Maryland – 141
  11. Minnesota – 121
  12. Penn State – 72
  13. Nebraska – 54
  14. Northwestern – 47

All offseason the hype train has been pumping for Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin so I’m not surprised to see those three teams ahead of the Spartans. But what did surprise me was to see junior small forward Aaron Henry left off the All-Big Ten team. Henry earned 7 votes and was just left off the list behind Franz Wagner of Michigan, Nate Reuvers of Wisconsin, and Kofi Cockburn of Illinois.

Here are the All-Big Ten team selections with the number of votes in parentheses:

  • Luka Garza – Iowa (28)
  • Ayo Dosunmu – Illinois (28)
  • Trayce Jackson-Davis – Indiana (24)
  • Kofi Cockburn – Illinois (11)
  • Nate Reuvers – Wisconsin (11)
  • Franz Wagner – Michigan (11)

Joey Hauser (2 votes), Joshua Langford (1 vote) and Rocket Watts (1 vote) were the other Spartans who received votes in this poll.

Click here to see more on this year’s Big Ten preseason media poll.

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Co-author of Myocarditis study says results were misconstrued, shouldn’t be reason to not play football

One of the Ohio State co-authors of the study on myocarditis and COVID-19 says data was misconstrued and that it’s safe to play football.

One of the main reasons the Big Ten decided to postpone the fall football season amid the COVID-19 pandemic was emerging evidence that it led to a heart condition called myocarditis in some cases. In case you’re just now getting up to speed on that health complication (we can’t blame you), it is an inflammation of the heart some viruses can cause that may lead to complications, including death. It’s the same thing that the late head coach of Northwestern, Randy Walker, passed away with years ago.

Undetected, it can strike what appears to be an otherwise healthy individual, especially in the midst of strenuous exercise. American football conditioning and gameplay would fit that bill.

However, one of the co-authors of that study, Ohio State doctor Curt Daniels, now says the results were misinterpreted and misconstrued. In fact, Daniels believes the information should be used for a safe return to play as opposed to a reason to shut things down. He took some time to speak with Bill Rabinowitz of the Columbus Dispatch to expound further.

“I think we have a safe way to return to play,” Daniels told the Dispatch. “I hope that we will find a way to do so.”

Wait. What?

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Even more so, Daniels was perplexed that the positive cases that were found using cardiac magnetic resonance (CRMs), as opposed to the more traditional means of EKGs and echocardiograms were focused on more than the ability to monitor the condition more effectively.

″‘My gosh, they found myocarditis, there’s no way we can play,’ ” Daniels said of the general reaction. “They’re putting it out there saying it’s not safe to play. They’re not reading the article. Or if they’re reading it, they’re just putting their own spin on it, like, ‘It’s not safe.’

“It’s actually the opposite. We’re saying we actually found this, but we know a path now to say it’s safe to go back as opposed to having this uncomfortable feeling of not knowing anything” about the actual risk.

Daniels also expressed frustration over a New York Times article sounding the alarm bell for something that he felt was positive news. He also cited the low statistical numbers that should have been taken with a grain of salt.

“There’s obviously an angle that somebody’s trying to take, not just based on the data, but trying to infer different pieces of information from what’s out there,” Daniels said. “And clearly, people have very strong opinions. I mean, this is a very important topic. It’s a big topic, and there’s very strong opinions, but they’re all opinions.”

This is all just crazy when you think about it. There have been so many decisions made based on data that is either incomplete, emerging, or taken the wrong way that it begs the question of who is making decisions in the ivory tower of the Big Ten.

I mean, in this case, the two doctors that published the study weren’t hanging out on the West Coast or somewhere in the Northeast, but right in the freakin’ footprint of the Big Ten, at a member institution nonetheless.

It appears the other co-author, Dr. James Borchers, is now on-board with the medical subcommittee to help transition (if possible) to a safe return to play, but where was he or Daniels when this data was being interpreted that was reportedly so key to making the call to shelve the season?

This situation only adds to the mountain of questions that are being asked, and for reasons that are hard to argue with. Maybe there’s more to it that we just don’t know about, but the silence from the Big Ten doesn’t help one bit.

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LISTEN: BuckeyeXtra podcast interview with Urban Meyer

Former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer appeared on the Columbus Dispatch’s BuckeyeXtra podcast to discuss B1G’s decision to postpone fall.

If you are like us, we can never get enough from the mind of one of college football’s greatest coaches of all time, former Ohio State head man Urban Meyer. Now that he’s not knee-deep in molding a college football team any longer, he’s around plenty to provide his insights and thoughts on the current state of college football.

He dropped by the Columbus Dispatch’s BuckeyeXtra podcast that was dropped Tuesday morning to discuss several topics with Bill Rabinowitz on the current, chaotic scene in the Big Ten and around college football in general.

Click on the below and listen to Meyer discuss the Big Ten’s decision to not play fall football, how he hurts for the players, and what a mess it’s going to be if Ohio high school’s and other college conferences get a season in while Ohio State sits on the sidelines.

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The BuckeyeXtra team does a great job, and you could do a lot worse by following their work, subscribing, and giving the podcast a listen.

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Contact/Follow us @BuckeyesWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Ohio State news, notes and opinion.

We have a forum and message board now. Get in on the conversation about Ohio State athletics by joining the Buckeyes Wire Forum.