Look, we see it every year at Ohio State.
Some hotshot comes into spring or fall camp and one highlight is seen of that player or one quote is made and the media latches on to him like remoras on a great white shark of hype.
You can set your watch to it, if your watch hasn’t become a cell phone, that is.
It gets boring talking and writing about the same players from last year, and so lazy media types look for something new to write about, whether it merits interest or not.
This year, one of those topics is freshman running back J.K. Dobbins. Both shiny and new, Dobbins performed well in the spring and got the hype train rolling. Once head coach Urban Meyer proclaimed Dobbins as one of the freshmen who would play this year, the locomotive really began to pick up speed.
But let’s be serious for a moment and slow things down. Let’s not get burned by media hype again.
Remember the hacks who wrote about Dontre Wilson in 2013? Or those easily-distracted-by-a-pie-pan dolts who did the same in 2014 with Curtis Samuel?
Wilson put up 983 total all-purpose yards as a freshman, which was only good enough for fourth on the team. Based on what the media was saying, he should have been first!
And don’t even get me started on Curtis Samuel in 2014. Shooting his way up the depth chart as a freshman running back, and even earning a start. It was a media fairy tale.
So yeah, when I see people writing about J.K. Dobbins right now, I have to chuckle. And when Dobbins ended up being the first freshman to have his black stripe removed last week, I shook my head because now even the Ohio State coaches are buying into the hype.
I still have the red mark on my knee from where I slapped it laughing as Urban Meyer told me on Monday that Dobbins was named a Champion for his performance in the scrimmage two days earlier.
His first fall scrimmage? As a freshman? A champion?
“He graded a champion in the scrimmage,” Meyer said. “We had a scrimmage, when was it, Saturday, and we had champions. He graded a champion, had his black stripe off. Still early to anoint anybody, but he’s one of the freshmen that will play this year.”
Yeah, okay Urban, sure. Maybe you should stop reading the papers and actually watch what’s happening on the field.
Keep trying to hype up another high-profile decoy. And don’t worry, like pigeons flocking to handfuls of hype-buttered popcorn, the media will swarm down to write about another freshman who can’t possibly live up to his virtual press clippings.
I wasn’t born on a turnip truck, sir.
Obviously, I’m not going to believe anything a head coach says about his players because I have seen the media led astray by deceptive descriptions before. Like sheep being led to a shearer of hype, reporters are herded into a media pen in order to get their words of whoa buzzed into piles of perpetual propaganda, and then they’re put back out to pasture to consume more of the aggrandizing gruel that coaches feed them.
Not me.
That’s why I ask other people about Dobbins. Because I don’t want coachspeak, I want the truth.
Following practice last week, I asked former Buckeye and NFL receiver Brian Hartline about Dobbins. Hartline is now working as a quality control analyst for the Buckeyes. What did he have to say about Dobbins?
“Oh, he’s incredible,” he said. “I think he’s an awesome player, but he’s an even better person. Anytime you have those two mixed together, it can be a very special situation. He can be great.”
Wow.
Even Hartline is buying the media hype. Apparently one of the prerequisites for his job is to read the internet a lot.
That’s pretty sad.
Clearly, once Urban Meyer welcomes someone into his fold, that someone has to then fall in line by being part of the the media hype cycle.
So that’s why I also went and asked somebody who has no fear of reprisals — senior left tackle Jamarco Jones — for his honest thoughts on Dobbins. After all, Meyer needs Jones, so Jones can say whatever he wants and he doesn’t have to worry about getting in trouble.
You can listen to his own words in the video below.
Hearing or seeing Jamarco Jones talk about J.K. Dobbins today conveys things better than words could. pic.twitter.com/00PcwGjhUw
— Ozone Communications (@theOzonedotnet) August 7, 2017
“Choo. He’s gonna be good. He’s fast and he’s gonna be good. Explosive.”
Really? What does “choo” even mean?
And you expect me to believe the words of a Millennial? Not bloody likely. They read more stupid crap than anybody!
It’s a sad state of affairs when we can’t trust the media to tell the entire truth because the players and coaches being talked to are consuming too much media to even know what the truth is anymore.
So, as for me and my house, we’re going to sit this one out.
We won’t be writing about J.K. Dobbins every week like some outlets. The brainless hordes of hypetypers will produce enough for all of us combined. Instead, we’ll wait until there are some actual results to report.
[For related articles from The-Ozone about J.K. Dobbins, click here and here and here and here and here and here and here.]
Hilarious….and can’t wait to see him, because unlike Gerd, I was born on a turnip truck.
Nothing wrong with being born on a turnip truck. Being conceived on one, however…
Every now and then, one of these kids lives up to or exceeds the hype. A RB out of Ytown in the early 2000s comes to mind.
But to Tony’s point, I bought the Dontre hype. Injuries and adapting physically and mentally to the college game can slow a player’s progress, but generally you get the idea that going from HS to big time CFB is a hard thing to do – even for uber talented kids.
Been a fan for a long time. The hype is thicker in the past 15 or so years than ever and more frenetic the past seven or so. All that said, what’s setting Dobbins apart is what’s being said about him off the field as well as on.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record because I’ve said it often this past seven months or so, but I like Mike Weber the kid, but as a player he’s solid, not a star. Dobbins seems to have the making of a star, but we’ll see. It will be quite some while into the season before the Bucks play a D-line that will challenge – my guess is not until Penn State – but if I were a betting man I’d put my bets on a 1-2 punch of Dobbins and McCall with Weber taking a role a lot like Pete Johnson did forty years ago.
Be fun to watch in any case. O – H!
should of used the one sentence response – Mike Weber is going to be one heckuva back-up.
The Dobbins hype will only take place if the rest of OSU’s O soars. OSU’s O isn’t an old pick up truck that just needs a spark plug, it is a high powered Porsche that if not finely tuned, will greatly disappoint. That Porsche lost it driver and needed a serious fine tuning since Hermann traveled south on the Autobahn to Houston.
Well done Tony, well done!
Nods.
Best part about the article:
[For related articles from The-Ozone about J.K. Dobbins, click here and here and here and here and here and here and here.]
I don’t disagree. 🙂
You could smell something like that coming halfway through the article. But it did make me smile when it came as the closer.
There’s over-blown hype for freshman every year, and I’ve learned through the years of being an osu fanatic to temper-it just a bit. This season we’ve heard stuff about Tate Martell(4rth String), Wyatt Davis(3rd Guard-in), and others… Chase Young will play and is competing with JCoop for the rd-in at DE(5-6 down the DE chart). Isaiah Pryor is a 2nd string safety and could see some nickle-too, so he’ll play for sure.. but sorry, I’m not tempering the JK hype. The fact is he came in stronger than Weber, as Quick as Weber, shiftier than Weber… and whether he starts or not, he WILL see LOADS of time and I think he starts by BiG play after he chews up everyone early-on. Josh Myers is fighting with Demetrius Knox for the 2nd-G-in spot, and Myers is flat-out closer to playing than Wyatt Davis imo.. Okudah could break the two deep at C, and his versatility puts him in the 2-deep somewhere regardless… Baron Browning will be the 2nd -string SAM, and probably would move inside before Nick Connor if we need to go three-deep at MIKE. So JK is the only frosh I see starting at some point this season, with Okudah, and Pryor the closest behind… but as of wk 1, I don’t see any frosh starting.. I called Pridgeon long-ago too.. he’s not a frosh, but he IS going to be our starting RG. He’s also the 2nd Tackle-in if we went deeper than Bowen(who’s backing up both t’s). I think the Erick Smith Jordan Fuller battle is closer than the Pridgeon/Burrell battle.. jmo
10/10 article well done
Don’t know why you have a hard on for JK. Hopefully at the end of the year you will get on your knees and have the balls to admit you were wrong.
wow -Don – if Tony had laid the sarcasm on any thicker he would have needed chicken wire to support it. I believe the gist of the article is that OSU is going to be National champs this year – at least that’s my take on the article!