The Buckeye Planet All-Star Team (Football)

How come "Tonga" Terna wasn't on the list for punters?

 

LOL! Where did you hear that?

First, my career wasn't long enough or good enough. If Coop was smart he would've started me as a sophmore but as everyone knows he wasn't too fond of walk-ons (almost chased Groom out of there; I helped talked him into staying). The first year for somone in the K or P position is usually a "get wet" year. Of all the recent guys (Bartholomew, Groom, Sander) including myself, Turano, probably had the best "get wet" year. Look at Nuge's first year...anyway I had to battle like a S.O.B. just to get a look, but it would've benefitted myself and the team if Coop had gotten me the experience sooner.

BTW where the hell did you come up with "TONGA"...only my closest friends in the dorms at college during my freshman year called me that throughout college and still do! Do I know you or you know one of these guys or is it just a coincidence you came up with that?

HAYN

 

From the O-zone

 

That's very interesting...nice work. Considering the fact

that I'm the only Buckeye from Hawai'i (not sure if Wes is still on the team, I don't think so) that was an EASY choice for you. I like the creativity though. Now all you have to do is get a photo of each guy and superimpose them on the Map! GOOD LUCK with that! LOL!

HAYN

 

I hope to hell that Randy Gradishar never visits this site. He would likely think that this is the biggest collection of Ya-Hoos on the "planet."

I'll just chalk it up to the youth of this board, but to place Katzenmoyer as First-Team ahead of Randy is just down right wrong. Gradishar, Spielman, and Cousineau are the three best we ever had here, and a debate could be made for any of the three being the greatest ever. But Katzenmoyer? I honestly wouldn't even rank the guy in the top 8.

 

Honorable Mention

I'd just like to give a shout out to Keith Byars and Mike Tomczak. Two of the best in my book.

 

Yeah I know Kale Ane pretty well...

His is an assistant athletic dir at Punahou as well as the FB coach. He played at MSU as you stated and had a brief career in the NFL (he even has scouted for the Bengals locally). I see him quite often as I am at Punahou a lot. We discussed Wes Scott at one time and figured he had a very outside chance at making the team. Don't know where he is now? Looks like I can claim to be the ONLY HAWAI'I born player to strap on the scarlet and gray for a while still!

HAYN

 

WW, I usually agree with your observations, but we're not even close on this one. The Big Kat is one of the most dominating defense players to play in college football, let alone Ohio State football. He was an absolute game-changer, plain and simple. "Statistics" do not tell the whole story, and the drop in his numbers were due to a position change, an improving linebacker corp around him, and the fact that opposing teams game-planned their offensive scheme to avoid him.

When a linebacker is talked about as being a Heisman favorite in the modern era before the season begins, well, that's just sick...

I understand if people feel a player like Gradishar should be 1st-team ahead of Katzenmoyer, but it's not out of the realm of reasonableness to put Kat 1st-team, and I'm interested to hear who the 8 guys are that you would rank ahead of him.

 

JohnnyCFight, okay, I'll play.

You mention Katzenmoyers being considered for a Heisman Trophy in the modern era as being "sick." Howza'bout in 1973, when it truly wasn't cool for a defensive player PERIOD to be mentioned as a Heisman type of guy. Well, that year, not only did Randy play on the team that featured out greatest OL ever (John Hicks) and our greatest RB ever (Archie) he still somehow managed to come in 6th in the Heisman voting. Think about that, John Hicks and Archie Griffin as the "spotlight" players on that great team yet Randy was recognized Nation Wide as the 6th best player in the nation that year. Excuse me, but THAT is "sick."

As you may have noticed, I not only am tough on Katzenmoyer here, I truly have no respect for the guy. Andy Katzenmoyer used TOSU as nothing more than a steppingstone to the NFL. He signed out of High School to play Minor-League football for the "Columbus Buckeyes." Maybe I'm a bit too harsh on Andy, but as a quickie rank, I'll go something like this:

1. Spielman
1. Gradishar
1. Cousineau
4. Marcus Marek
5. Ike Kelley
6. Steve Tovar
7. Matt Wilhelm
8. Pepper Johnson

Since Hawk has one more year, I'll wait till next year to place him, but it sure as hell will be ahead of Katzenmoyer.

Peace.

 

Good analysis and arguments, Dubs. I'm with you on all three counts: 1) Gradishar deserves to be in the top 3; 2) Katzenmoyer is way over-rated (and I don't think much of him as a person either); and 3) that's a pretty good list of the top 8 (though I might move Pepper Johnson up a notch).

Further, if AJ Hawk and Bobby Carpenter live up to their potential this year, that would knock Katzenmoyer out of our top 10.

 

I'll add another name to the age-bias victim list: Jan White.

I posted my reasons why way back here

No way in hell other than he played in the past 10 years should Rickey Dudley be 1st or 2nd team.

And before anyone accuses me of being a grumpy old timer I never saw him play, his stats speak for themselves.

 

Agreed Jax,

Although it may not seem like much, if you consider the time that Jan played here, and the fact he was basically a blocking TE, his 8 career TD catches are pretty impressive. Consider this, Gary Williams and Doug Donley are considered two of the best we ever had here-and were "go-to WR's" during their careers. Each had a career total of 16.