\n Welcome to the Skull Session. <\/p>\n
\n\tThe 12th Warrior Happy Hour with Jim Lachey was awesome on Thursday. If you missed it, that\u2019s fine \u2014 just make sure you become a 12th Warrior and join us for the next one in June. We have another Ohio State legend lined up for a great time!\n<\/p>\n
\n\tHave a good Friday.\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u00a0MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Before the NFL draft, a moment between Ryan Day and Nick Saban went viral when the Ohio State head coach joked that Caleb Downs \u201cwas a mess\u201d when he arrived in Columbus from Tuscaloosa.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tAppearing on 97.1 The Fan\u2019s Bishop and Friends<\/a>, Day said he had planned to crack a joke \u2014 or at least try to \u2014 during his trip from Columbus to Pittsburgh for the NFL draft.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI thought we could smile a little bit, laugh a little bit,\u201d Day said. \u201cI was just thinking on the trip over, when they ask about Caleb, what do you say? The guy was sort of ready-made, I think, when he came out of high school. I thought if the timing was right and Coach was there, we could maybe get a smile on him.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tMission accomplished.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\tRyan Day\u2019s got jokes.<\/p>\n With Nick Saban seated to his left, here\u2019s Day on what Caleb Downs meant to Ohio State: \u201cI think the first thing that surprised me, when Caleb came to Ohio State was that he was a mess. I don\u2019t know what they were doing at Alabama.\u201dpic.twitter.com\/Khv7NykklR<\/a>\n\t<\/p>\n \t\u2014 Chase Brown (@chaseabrown__) April 23, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n \n\tLooking ahead to the 2026 season, however, Day and the Buckeyes will have much more difficult missions to accomplish than making Nick Saban laugh. Ohio State has road trips to Texas, Iowa, Indiana and USC on next year\u2019s schedule, while Oregon and Michigan will visit Ohio Stadium.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe\u2019re gonna get challenged this year,\u201d Day told 97.1 The Fan. \u201cThere\u2019s no question about it. I mean, you look at the schedule that we have ahead of us\u2026 We\u2019re gonna learn a lot about ourselves.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tDay views that as a good thing. This offseason, the eighth-year head coach has reflected on whether Ohio State might have been better prepared for the postseason had it faced more adversity before losses to Indiana in the Big Ten Championship Game and Miami in the College Football Playoff.\n<\/p>\n \n\tESPN\u2019s latest preseason top 25 <\/a>ranks Ohio State No. 1 in the country. Oregon sits at No. 2, Texas at No. 5, Indiana at No. 6, Michigan at No. 14, Iowa at No. 19 and USC at No. 20. Day believes navigating that gauntlet will have the Buckeyes ready for another national title push in 2026.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe push through this schedule, we\u2019ll be playoff-ready at the end of the season,\u201d Day said.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0WHERE\u2019D ALL THE TIME GO? It\u2019s hard to believe Ryan Day is entering his eighth season as Ohio State\u2019s head coach. It\u2019s even harder to believe he\u2019s now coached the Buckeyes longer than Urban Meyer, whose seven-year run in Columbus included the 2014 national championship.\n<\/p>\n \n\tDay is catching up to Earl Bruce and Jim Tressel, too. Bruce spent nine seasons leading Ohio State, while Tressel coached the Buckeyes for 10 years and led them to the 2002 national title. Ahead of them sits John Cooper at 13 seasons.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tAnd then there\u2019s Woody Hayes.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tThe legendary coach remains in a category of his own after patrolling the sideline in Columbus for 28 years. Could Day catch him? Who knows. That mark feels untouchable in modern college football, but maybe Day wants to stay in Columbus for-ev-er.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0ROOM FOR ONE MORE. Jack Nicklaus is one of the greatest golfers \u2014 if not the greatest golfer \u2014 of all time. (You can debate Nicklaus vs. Tiger Woods in the comments.) But before he became \u201cThe Golden Bear,\u201d Nicklaus excelled on the basketball court, too.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n\tIn fact, he nearly played for Fred Taylor and the Buckeyes in the late 1950s \u2014 the same era in which Ohio State won its lone national championship in 1960 and reached three consecutive title games from 1960-62.\n<\/p>\n \n\tIn a 2024 interview with the PGA Tour, Nicklaus said Ohio State recruited him alongside Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek. He built strong relationships with both future Buckeye legends. So when Ohio State unveiled a statue honoring Lucas outside the Schottenstein Center in 2025, Nicklaus couldn\u2019t have been happier.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThat\u2019s very nice,\u201d Nicklaus said Wednesday during a Memorial Tournament press conference. \u201cHe should have been honored.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n\tLucas joined Nicklaus, Jesse Owens, Woody Hayes and Archie Griffin as the only Ohio State athletes or coaches with statues on campus. Nicklaus joked that if he had chosen basketball over golf, he never would have joined that exclusive group.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cYou look at (Lucas and Havlicek), that\u2019s why I didn\u2019t play basketball,\u201d Nicklaus said. \u201cI would have had splinters sitting on the bench with those guys.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tNicklaus, now 86, will host the 50th edition of the Memorial Tournament this year at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin. The tournament runs June 4-7 and features a loaded field that already includes back-to-back champion Scottie Scheffler, Tommy Fleetwood, Hideki Matsuyama (2014 champion), Gary Woodland, Viktor Hovland (2023 champion), Justin Thomas and the world\u2019s slowest player, Patrick Cantlay, who won the event in 2019 and 2021.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0LET\u2019S GET DOWNS 2 BUSINESS. There\u2019s The Brotherhood \u2014 and then there\u2019s actual brotherhood. Caleb Downs experienced the former for two seasons at Ohio State. The latter? He\u2019s lived it his entire life alongside his older brother, Josh.\n<\/p>\n \n\tNow a wide receiver for the Indianapolis Colts, Josh met with reporters this week and shared his excitement about eventually lining up against Caleb in the NFL.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\t#Colts<\/a> WR Josh Downs on facing his younger brother, #Cowboys<\/a> rookie S Caleb Downs, this year:<\/p>\n He told me if he goes to the Cowboys, hes playing nickel. So, thats like head-to-head all game. I gotta let him know hes the little brother in the situation.<\/p>\n (Cc: @jonmachota<\/a>) pic.twitter.com\/CvSdFjzbUL<\/a>\n\t<\/p>\n \t\u2014 James Boyd (@RomeovilleKid) May 6, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI remember before he got drafted, not to talk about the Cowboys\u2019 scheme or nothing, but he told me if he goes to the Cowboys, he\u2019ll be playing nickel. That\u2019s like head-to-head all game,\u201d said Josh, who primarily lines up in the slot for the Colts.\n<\/p>\n \n\tJosh doesn\u2019t know exactly when he\u2019ll face Caleb this season. He just knows it\u2019s coming. Like the rest of the league, he\u2019ll be waiting for the NFL schedule release later this month.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s all fun and games, but you know I still got to let him know he\u2019s the little brother in the situation,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0SONG OF THE DAY.\u00a0“Where’d All The Time Go?” – Dr. Dog.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0CUT TO THE CHASE.\u00a0Shakira teases new song for the FIFA World Cup 2026 with Afrobeats star Burna Boy called “Dai Dai”<\/a> (remember “Waka Waka”<\/a>?)…\u00a0From grading papers to decoding jargon, here are some ways people are putting AI to work<\/a>…\u00a0Yes, pen pal programs still exist in a digital world<\/a>…\u00a0The Attention-Span Panic<\/a>… Could Claude Mythos actually destroy the internet<\/a>?\n<\/p>\n