33 Days To Ohio State Football*

This is the 68th in a series of 100 daily posts, a Countdown to College Football. (Sort of.)

When you set out to do a 100-day countdown, the one thing that nobody explains to you is that 100 days is a lot of days. You may think 100 is just a number, but it is in fact 100 numbers. They don’t teach you that at countdown school and it really feels like they should.

Always check the brochures, my friends.

Anyway, in today’s countdown we look at Urban Meyer’s first favorite Buckeye, a Pac 12 North tilt, an Ohio State safety who could be up to big things this season, and a freshman quarterback against a freshman quarterback demolisher.

If you missed yesterday’s edition, you can find it right here.

Now please join us as we continue our countdown of the 100 greatest Buckeyes of The Ozone era (1996-present).

We will also preview one of the 100 most exciting games on this fall’s college football schedule, and one of the 100 things we’re most looking forward to this fall.

Plus, we’ll preview one of this season’s 100 biggest personnel matchups.

Greatest Buckeyes Of The Ozone Era

#33 John Simon

John Simon was Urban Meyer’s first love as the head coach at Ohio State.

When Meyer took the job in November of 2011, he thought he was going to love Braxton Miller, which he did, but he eventually warmed up to Simon, who was a senior in 2012.

Long before that season ever started, Meyer would regularly sing Simon’s praises. He loved the way he worked, the way he led, and just the passion that he carried with him every day.

Meyer told a story once about John Simon and how he was always working out and he’d be at the football facilities before anybody else, but he’d be there alone. So OSU implemented a rule that he could no longer work out alone. If he wanted to be in the facilities at six in the morning, he had to bring teammates with him. So he began bringing teammates like Ryan Shazier, Curtis Grant, and Noah Spence to the weight room.

Simon’s impact was felt well before the 2012 season, where he was the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and Ohio State’s team MVP. It goes beyond being a two-time captain. Beyond his school records of five tackles for loss against Nebraska in 2012 and four sacks against Wisconsin that same year. Beyond his 43 career tackles for loss and 20.5 sacks.

Urban Meyer sums up Simon better than anybody else. These are his words following the 35-28 win over California in 2012, when Simon had a shoulder injury and played, but probably shouldn’t have.

“John Simon played hurt today. Gave a little emotional speech in there.

“He had a sore shoulder. They kept telling me all week, it should be fine, it should be fine; it just didn’t heal as fast as we hoped. Boy, he just lost it in the locker room as far as just sharing, opening up his soul for this team.

“And I’ve done this a long time, man, and he’s as good — you mark that down there, can you put a jersey up there or something that says John Simon, because that’s a grown ass man excuse my language, that’s a guy.

“If we have another child I want to name him, what is it, Urban John Simon Meyer or something like that. Can’t wait for that headline. But that’s how much I love that guy. I’m not ashamed to say I love him. Love that guy. Man.

“Makes all of us look in the mirror and say: Are we doing enough for our team. That guy, what he just did in there, not to give you too much of what went on in there, but am I doing enough? When I say I, as our coaching staff, are we doing enough? Are we doing as much as he’s doing? No. We’ve gotta do more. Gotta do more. Gotta get you fired up.”

Best Games This Fall

#33 Washington at Oregon

The Mario Cristobal Era gets underway this season for the Oregon Ducks. After a 7-6 season last year under Willie Taggart, expectations are much higher this year for Phil Knight’s football team.

This game takes place in the middle of the season and Washington will come into it just one week after traveling to UCLA. Oregon, meanwhile, comes in off of a bye week as Cristobal and defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt prepare for a way to stop Washington quarterback Jake Browning and running back Myles Gaskin.

Washington and Stanford are the favorites in the Pac 12 North, but the Ducks get both at home. If quarterback Justin Herbert is as good as many think, Oregon could steal one — if not both — of these games, which would create an amount of chaos in the Pac 12 that not even Dr. Ian Malcolm could have foreseen.

What We Can’t Wait To See

#33 Jordan Fuller

Any time I get a chance to talk about Ohio State junior safety Jordan Fuller, I like to remind people just how impressive he was last season. First, I like to remind people that he moved from free safety to strong safety in order to take over for Malik Hooker (who had arguably the greatest season for a Buckeye safety in human history), and nobody ended up complaining about him last season.

We could have gotten used to what Hooker gave us every week and then wondered why we weren’t seeing it each week with Fuller. The thing about it, however, is that what we got from Fuller was so good that there wasn’t really anything to complain about. The deep safety can so often be the scapegoat for any play that gets behind him. That didn’t happen much with Fuller. As the last line of defense he was pretty darn effective.

And now he is likely to be back at free safety this season, taking over for the departed Damon Webb. Fuller may go through his Ohio State career without ever playing the same position in consecutive seasons.

Fuller came to Ohio State as a cornerback, so he has the coverage skills necessary to play free safety in OSU’s defense. There is a concern about moving him from a position where he was so successful a year ago, but right now there is no reason to have anything but faith in Jordan Fuller’s ability to do whatever he is asked to do.

Matchup To Watch

#33 Adrian Martinez, NEB QB vs. Nick Bosa

What do you get for the defensive end who has everything? A true freshman quarterback.

Now, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Nebraska may not be starting freshman Adrian Martinez this year. They could be starting redshirt freshman Tristan Gebbia, which is only slightly better.

Fortunately for Nebraska, whichever quarterback they do start at Ohio State, they’ll be doing it in November, so they’ll at least have a bunch of snaps to their credit before they step into Ohio Stadium.

That experience may help prepare them for the environment, but it rarely helps anybody prepare for a Bosa.

Scott Frost will try to wear down the Ohio State defensive line, but because the Buckeyes rotate, rarely has the OSU defensive line worn down over the last few years.

Both Gebbia and Martinez can run the ball, so Bosa will need to be disciplined as he tears into the backfield.

With just a couple of early hurries, however, Gebbia or Martinez should hear Bosa coming even when he isn’t.