brodybuck21 said:

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I don't think I've ever seen that look in Elsa's face before! I like it

Ga Tech Yellow Jackets!

A man returning to South Florida from Cuba was arrested at Miami International Airport after he was found smuggling live birds in his underwear, authorities said.

Alberto Hernandez Castillo, 40, was charged with smuggling goods into the United States.

According to authorities, on Monday, Hernandez Castillo, who is a Cuban and a legal permanent resident of the U.S., arrived at MIA on Atlantic Flight 503 from Havana.

A complaint said that Hernandez Castillo was picked for a second inspection by a U.S. Customs and Border Protections officer.

During the inspection, Hernandez Castillo said he had one carry-on and one fanny pack, and was given a Customs Entry Form, which he answered "no" to all questions related to bringing any animals or wildlife into the U.S., the complaint said.

When the officer searched Hernandez Castillo's belongings, the complaint said, there was no contraband.

When officers asked about his travel, they noticed that Hernandez Castillo had an unexplained bulge on the front of his waistband, and he appeared to get nervous, the complaint said.

Officers then performed a pat-down and found that Hernandez Castillo was hiding six cylindrical clear plastic containers that were wrapped in tape and sewn into his underwear, the complaint said.

After examining the tubes, the complaint said, each tube held live birds.

Hernandez Castillo had a total of 10 birds that he hid in those tubes, and he claimed that they were for his "Personal use," the complaint said.

It was determined that Hernandez Castillo did not have the proper documents to import the birds, and he was arrested.

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brooooooo

CLOSER | INSIDE THE GLASS BOX​

Max LeBlanc (88) played 13 snaps against Iowa.
If you're a defensive coordinator looking at Ohio State tape, you're discouraged by a precise and increasingly courageous quarterback playing behind a gelling offensive line and a steadily improving backfield-by-committee. It's currently led by two Jacksons, one almost old enough to legally rent a car and the other who plays very well when angry.

And, of course - Number Four and his capable sidekicks. What could you possibly do to slow this unit down? Then you begin examining the personnel packages north of 11 and see Nate Roberts, who is - this is the rose-colored stuff you guys complain about not seeing enough of here - playable.

He's an acceptable passing target. He knows where he is on the field. Here's Roberts (83) getting open for a touchdown off a terrific double move, but Julian Sayin bolts the pocket early and never sees him.


Arthur Smith is scheming the Ohio State offense for success that just requires improved execution.
So if you're trying to get Ohio State's offense off the field, it's looking bleak. Roberts is fine, and as usual, the help that developed elsewhere - Mason Williams - is serviceable. But if anyone else from that room gets onto the field, they're the fish.

And if you're a defensive coordinator, that's your biggest opening - by a significant, almost galactic margin - to get Arthur Smith's terrific scheming to collapse beneath the most vulnerable Jenga piece in the offense, the room run by Keenan Bailey. That unit and special teams are still deadlocked in a death match nobody asked for, competing for the title of weakest unit on a championship team showing inspired and steady improvement elsewhere.

If anyone beyond Roberts or Williams enters the game, the Buckeyes are essentially playing down a man. In the play atop this section, LeBlanc's assignment is the DE/OLB. The defender directly in front of him is in a balanced split stance. That's as much of a pre-snap tell as running a receiver in motion and having a defensive back trail him - ah, they're in man.

The guy LeBlanc starts off trying to block is lined up to cover whichever Jackson is in the backfield, should he release. This is basic film room instruction and primitive TE recognition for a unit whose first obligation is to block. And it goes completely unrecognized.

If TE4 just gets in front of his assignment instead of...whatever this was, Sayin has an extra second to hit his first read (out of the frame; no idea what it was) or reach his second, Brock Boyd, for a walk-in touchdown. But when you're the fish, you end up in a dish. And whenever TE depth sees the field, it's an aquarium out there.

When the Buckeyes reduced their TE presence and played in 11 personnel in Iowa City, they ran the ball conspicuously better. Cortez Hankton's unit put on another WR blocking clinic against the Hawkeyes. The team needs that kind of discipline and energy from the unit Smith's schemes desperately want to include and show off.

Maryland brings the last defense on the schedule against which this tight end room can afford to play its depth. Even here, it's the only consistent weak link in an offense that otherwise has everything necessary to avoid being stopped by a single defense in the country.

Just about every position group has played depth thus far, which is great for sustainability and figuring out who The Guys are going to be in an imposing back half. After this Saturday, there's one room that absolutely cannot afford to keep giving everyone it trusts (apparently, all of them?) chances to sabotage a championship scheme.

brodybuck21 said:

Dude is starting to pop off screen more often....

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Looked at the comments: shots fired at Payton Pierce but can’t really argue against it.

Joe McGuire - who believe it or not has a monster leg and can absolutely bomb a punt into orbit while barefoot - is netting a grotesque 38 yards on his punts this season. That captures both the unit's inability to flip the field and its struggles to pin opponents deep. On Saturday he punted from the Iowa 45 - with the Hawkeyes in punt safe and applying no pressure on him whatsoever - and they fair-caught it at the 22.

Unless you're reading this column from a wheelchair or a bassinet, your leg can probably do that. Per PFF (yeah, I know) McGuire is 117th in yards per punt, 114th in net average, 135th in longest punt, 87th in hang time and 122nd overall - out of a pool of 151 punters. He doesn't have to be the Jeremiah Smith of punters. But he's not even average.

https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-football/the-situational/2026/10/164363/the-situational-this-close-to-happy

zbuck said:

Nebby wins. You heard it here first.

Also the game is listed as a home game for IU. It’s in Lincoln.

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Thanks, I’ve updated that.

@Ramzy on it again....

OPENER | THE SOFT KICKOTRY OF LOW EXPECTATIONS​

Special teams and corn: Two things Iowa fans can speak to from a place of authority. via
The Buckeyes once again have a national championship-caliber team led by a title-winning head coach, two NFL coordinators and a roster that's good enough to survive and advance all the way through a brutal schedule, culminating in a 16-game gauntlet.

And yet the headline atop this web site yesterday was Special Teams Must Improve, which has basically been the theme of this column since Jaxon Smith-Njigba was ruining Utah's otherwise sterling Rose Bowl performance. But it took on new relevance yesterday because Ryan Day said it into a microphone.

A younger and more inexperienced version of him once determined Parker Fleming merited a contract extension, despite his unit's performance looking exactly like it does now. An older and accomplished version of him decided Jayden Fielding was good enough heading into 2025, despite having borked numerous critical shots in actual games.

Fielding was making kicks in practice, which is generally how you make playability decisions. The problem was Fielding had missed so many kicks of consequence that it was his brand.

Imagine if Ryan Hamby had dropped six touchdown passes that would have beaten eventual national champions instead of just that one against Texas in 2005 - an impossibly bleak legacy. But while field goal kicking has snatched the most oxygen from our special teams anguish, this unit has done nothing well for years. That's their brand.

Day has called special teams mistakes unacceptable before, including while defending Fleming in 2023. Now he's saying, on the record, that the unit still hasn't improved after another coaching change. That matters because the problem has outlasted the guy who was supposed to be the problem. Keeping it in-house hasn't worked. Replacing the coordinator hasn't worked either.

Robby Discher was brought in this season to correct it, and if you're wondering what's different about this year's special teams compared to [waves hands in the direction of every unit since the pandemic] the answer is that Pam from The Office meme.

Like Discher's boss, we haven't seen a shred of difference or improvement. In some cases...it's somehow worse? Nearly halfway through the season, Ohio State has the best player in the sport along with the worst special teams SP+ score among the top 50 - and that's adjusted to not include any ankle weights from last year's pitiful unit, which means that this year's terrible ranking belongs entirely to the 2026 unit.

Special teams are the one area where even the talent-deficient opponents on the schedule can find breathing room. Under Fleming, it was a weekly clinic for forfeited hidden yards, creating longer fields for the Buckeyes and shorter ones for whomever they were playing.

OHIO STATE CONTENDS FOR NATIONAL TITLES EVERY SEASON WHILE HAVING ONE OF THE MOST INEFFECTIVE SPECIAL TEAMS UNITS IN THE FBS.

If you don't care about longer fields, since Ohio State currently has the best passing offense in the country and most prolific passing offense in program history operating under Day, think about what a shorter field would do for, say, field goal kicking. Would five more yards make a difference?

Would Fielding have made a 22-yarder against Indiana in the B1G title game last year, instead of the 27-yarder he missed badly? I don't know? Shanks shank from all distances ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It hasn't just been the infamous missed field goals and general incompetence - Fleming introduced Ohio State special teams to chronic illegal formations - it's been everything about that unit. You may have memory-holed Main Character plays that removed elite passer CJ Stroud from the field and ignored Biletnikoff winner Marvin Harrison Jr. in favor of a clever fake concept where a long snapper snaps the ball to a slow walk-on tight end.

They botched it against Michigan in 2022, then for good measure - tried it again against Georgia - which Kirby Smart sniffed out, but he didn't need to because Ohio State had 12 guys on the field for it. Two playoff-caliber games, two opportunities for the clever concept to implode on them. They took both.


On Saturday against Iowa, it was more of The Usual. The Buckeyes didn't have enough guys on the field for a punt, which cost them a penalty and yardage. Connor Hawkins missed a 40-yard field goal, which has been an extra point for Iowa kickers going back to the days when Nile Kinnick was beating Notre Dame all by himself.

After Iowa's sole touchdown, the Hawkeyes decided to go for two and were stopped by the Ohio State defense. But they got another crack at it because the Buckeyes had 12 men on the field. Isn't that on the defense? No, it's on the special teamer who instinctively ran onto the field for the PAT and caused that penalty.

Joe McGuire - who believe it or not has a monster leg and can absolutely bomb a punt into orbit while barefoot - is netting a grotesque 38 yards on his punts this season. That captures both the unit's inability to flip the field and its struggles to pin opponents deep. On Saturday he punted from the Iowa 45 - with the Hawkeyes in punt safe and applying no pressure on him whatsoever - and they fair-caught it at the 22.

Unless you're reading this column from a wheelchair or a bassinet, your leg can probably do that. Per PFF (yeah, I know) McGuire is 117th in yards per punt, 114th in net average, 135th in longest punt, 87th in hang time and 122nd overall - out of a pool of 151 punters. He doesn't have to be the Jeremiah Smith of punters. But he's not even average.

It is exhausting to have to keep talking about it - the only progress this year has been Day's explicit admission yesterday that it hasn't improved. On a grading scale, it's a D+ because blasting kickoffs out of the end zone in an era where a fair catch inside the 25 brings the ball out to the 25 is the only strategy off the tee. They've erased any drama from that sequence entirely.

There's only been a single afternoon where the Buckeyes lost and you couldn't take a giant Sharpie and circle SPECIAL TEAMS COMPETENCE 87 times while sobbing since the Alabama CFP title game - the least-watched title game ever despite featuring Alabama and Ohio State - right up until the Georgia-TCU snoozer. Which would have been Ohio State-TCU if not for...you know.

Special teams cost Ohio State nothing in that Alabama title game - COVID absences kept a number of starters from participating, ironically including two kickers. Hard to be the problem when you're not allowed in the stadium.

So which afternoon was the exception? That took place in 2021 in Ann Arbor, the dawn of the Three-Cheat. OSU special teams were blameless that day. We're five years removed from an innocent verdict in a big game.

As with Fielding, Day decided McGuire was good enough heading into this season despite all of the flaccid punts from 2025. Hiring Discher, who is firmly qualified for the job, acknowledged the problem. But nothing appears to be improving.

One idea is to bring back the culture of the room Drue Chrisman left behind after the 2020 season, where special teamers were too goofy, silly and carefree to have The Moment absolutely consume them all the way into the bowels of Shanktown.

Perhaps Pressure is a Privilege isn't the right psychology for the guys on the roster who aren't trying to do anything but kick a ball properly. It's something to consider, because nothing has worked. Still, there are glimmers of positivity in this mess, specifically about having Discher on the staff.

He has experience coaching tight ends at multiple programs, with success. That's interesting!

sparcboxbuck said:

Have held some respect for DG since The Game when JT went down and he went to check on him. That is the kind of thing that I remember the rivalry being about. Beat the shit out of each other between the lines but respect each other after.

He may have been one of the very last ones up there who really understood the rivalry and treated it with respect. I’ll give Butt the nod on that too, but he understood it because he grew up in it.

Those other chuckle-fucks? They’ve all been pretty trashy since LLLLLLLLoyd.

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Wait you mean simple Jim showed up and created a vacuum of integrity and honor? I refuse to believe it

wadc45 said:

Bill Greene @BillBankGreene · 2h
Nordonia CB Denzel Ward having a great day at Ohio State. Think an offer could be coming. If it comes expect a quick commitment.

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nice little flashback,

pnuts34 said:

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he really is the best cover cb in the league.

NJ-Buckeye said:

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That was sudden.

Went to Tavernetta (near Denver Union Station) last night for our anniversary. Had corn and mushroom risotto with a little shaved black truffle and a phenomenal pork collar with borlotti beans and some caramelized leeks.

His last name is Beck......so it's probably a good idea. But then how does that go down? You force your stop gap head coach to fire his hand picked OC that he brought with him from Utah. He's gonna be on board for that move? Sure. Do that.

BATON ROUGE — Police have arrested a 67-year-old man accused of sexually assaulting another man in a city hall bathroom in September.

Alfred Richardson was booked Monday with second-degree rape and simple robbery, according to his arrest warrant.

The victim told police that he first encountered his attacker in a bathroom at city hall on Sept. 16. The man asked about possible housing and the victim said he would go to his office to get information and would meet the man in the lobby to provide it to him, the warrant said.

The victim did that, providing information from the Council on Aging as well as his own business card and $20 from his own wallet for the man’s bus fare, the warrant said.

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In the bathroom, the attacker forced the victim to perform oral sex. Before he left, he demanded more money from the victim, claiming he had provided the victim “with a service,” the warrant said. The victim handed over more than $60, the warrant said.

On Sept. 30, the victim got a call from a voice that he recognized as his attacker. The caller left a voicemail, and police were able to trace the caller’s number, the warrant said.

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DFBIA thinks that scUM should fire the OC because they players said so.

Of course, they completely lack the self-awareness to recognize what kind of precedent that sets.

NJ-Buckeye said:

Would trade him for a promising left tackle. Doesn’t have to be a current starter.

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You mean RT

MGMT said:

The idea of Sheseur Sanders landing is anything better than a 7th round pick is hilarious to me. If Berry somehow comvinced someone to send us a 6th for him I’d consider that an elite trade.

Kid fucking sucks so bad. Gabriel is nothing but a guy that be an oompa loompa actor at your kids birthday party if they liked the Willy Wonka Movies.

I really hope they try to look for a rotational piece on the DL.

What would be on your guys’ wish list for realistic trade talks?

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Find me a decent depth piece at the 1tech in a trade and that would be amazing.

Georgia

Tanner said:

Wouldn't have guessed Inniss and Boyd would have basically the same amount of snaps through week 5

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There was a decent amount of chatter of Boyd consistently performing well in fall camp, sounds like there was some truth to that.

In conjunction with Inniss being a limited player, I don’t think I’m personally surprised. If Boyd continues to block well and take advantage of his targets he might overtake the majority.

I like that the freshmen are keeping upperclassmen on edge. McCuin might have to fight Henry off the entire season if he wants to keep his run (he had a really nice game last week and will need to be ready against IU).

I like it.

buckfan95 said:

any seeders for BuckDubbs007 post?

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i'm still seeding