Tag: OSU

Ohio State Seeks to Trademark the Word “The”

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ESPN.com – Ohio State is seeking a trademark on one of the most common words in the English language.

The school, formally known as The Ohio State University, is seeking a trademark on the word “The” for use on clothing and hats. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the filing was made Thursday.

I guess….Ughh…I guess I could just add my “Idiocracy” introduction to every blog I write now. Certainly to this one.

We’ve all heard it. Some love it and feel it encapsulates the pure spirit and bonds of college sports. Some hate it and see it as a pretentious thumb of the nose from a school that has a number of very solid programs but only reaches truly great heights once a decade or so. Personally I’m just not bought into college sports (save hockey) enough to give a fuck.

I am of course talking about THE Ohio State University.

For the life of me I can’t imagine how this got started. I suppose there was Ohio State and Ohio University. Maybe way back when there were a couple of different state school systems in Ohio and one decided to stick it’s tongue and/or denoting article out at the other. Who knows (probably every fucking rabid Ohio State fan).

Anyway, it would seem Ohio State sees it as such an important part of their identity that they now wish to copyright the word “The” in order to financially capitalize on what is probably the most used word in the English language.

There are just too many questions to get into with this but my main ones are:

1.) Did Ohio State really think they were going to get away with this?
2.) …Wait are they?

It SHOULD NOT be possible for Ohio State to own the word “the.” I get that they are sort of trying to protect their signature propensity to add it douchebaggedly to the beginning of their name, but let’s be reasonable. If Washington State realllly wants to start going by THE Washington State then go ahead and let then. They’ll be ridiculed and derided into stopping the practice faster than Drew Bledsoe and Ryan Leaf’s average 40 time. It’s Ohio State’s thing, and, begrudgingly or not, people get that.

But you have to imagine that such a huge school has a team of lawyers, etc. who know this stuff. So do they actually have a shot? Are we in danger of losing the word the? No other school or semi-competing entity could use that on merch etc.? What a bonkers thing to think about.

Anyway, we’ll see how this plays out. Hopefully US Patent law has sections dedicated to, idk, colleges copyrighting extremely popular words used in titles and beginnings of sentences. If not I might have to hate Mike Vrabel.

-Joey B.

Urban Meyer to Retire After the Rose Bowl….But For How Long?

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10TV – The Ohio State athletics department announces that head coach Urban Meyer will announce his retirement on Tuesday afternoon.

All in all this is just plain confusing. There was speculation Meyer was not feeling too hot a few weeks ago but to most non-lunatic eyes it looked like he was just another overly exasperated coach. Ho hum. Now he is retiring, on the precipice of a Rose Bowl, so maybe he wasn’t doing so hot? Or maybe getting players to come to fucking Ohio just isn’t as easy as Florida? Who knows.

Red doesn’t like me inserting my own biases to bash people on here, but I’m being about as neutral as possible when I say Urban Meyer is the most hateable person in college football next to Nick Saban. Between “leaving Florida for his health” after Tebow was gone to never actually developing his beloved Tebow to be an NFL QB in the first place, to kind of just coming off as a dbag, there really isn’t a whole lot to like. He’s been successful, sure, from Utah all the way up to Ohio State, but not without controversy (Aaron Hernandez, his asshole of a domestic abuser coach this year etc.) and not without just sort of rubbing people the wrong way.

So now that he is “retiring” from Ohio State, what is his next move really? One would assume his first stop is back in the TV studio/booth, but how about after that? My bet? I could see one of the premier teams that have about a season’s left of patience with their current coach reaching out to Urban Meyer after this year. Think LSU, Texas, USC, one of those. At that point he’ll be suddenly 100% healthy and ready to turn a blind eye to battering coaches and homicidal players alike.

I don’t know which would be less shocking, his come back or this “retirement”/

 

-Joey B

 

I’ve Somehow Developed a College Football Addiction in Boston

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Maybe its just Baker Mayfield being like Johnny Football-lite and filling the massive Manziel void in my life, but I’ve recently developed a college football addiction.

Not a ton of people around here are big college football guys, probably because we’ve had ONE good year of college football in Boston since the 80s. Back in 2007 Matt Ryan was at Boston College and they got as high as No. 2 in the AP Poll.

That was fun as hell because it was the first time BC had been ANY good since the days of Doug Flutie. After Matty Ice moved on to the NFL though BC went right back into the tank.

So its hard to have a lot of love for a sport thats basically nonexistent in your market. With legitimately every major team in this city being so good (all having won a title since 2008) theres no time for shitty teams, especially shitty teams that have no intention of bringing in the players necessary to be any good. Kind of like being a Mets fan.

If I wanted to get in my car and drive to a big time college football game, I think the closest team would be Penn State; a cool 7 hour drive from Boston. Fuck you, UConn and UMass do not count, neither does Syracuse. I’m talking BIG TIME college football where they sell out 70,000+ seat arenas. It just does not exist up here.

So not long after BC went back into hibernation I declared myself a free agent and started looking for a team to call my own. I was looking for a team that was fun to watch, played fast, scored a ton of points, spread out the field, threw it a lot, recruited mobile QBs, and of course had some fire flames unis. Basically I was looking for a team that played the same style as me in Madden. Now what team matches that description to a T? The Oregon Ducks of course.

It was right at the start of the Chip Kelly era too so it was perfect timing to get into and follow a team that was actually good at playing football unlike BC. Not to mention a couple of trips (read: losses) to the National Championship and then Marcus Mariota later wins the Heisman in 2014 and I’m pretty invested in the Ducks. I still wasn’t about to sit down and watch college football all afternoon though.

But I think I reached that turning point this past Saturday. It was the first big weekend of the year with some prime matchups. I know CFB kicked off the week before, but this past Saturday we had Oregon vs Nebraska, Louisville at UNC, Georgia at Notre Dame, Auburn at Clemson, Oklahoma at Ohio State, Stanford at USC, and if you’re a real night owl type degenerate, the triple OT #Pac12AfterDark thriller in Boise St at Washington St.

Long story short, I found myself watching college football on the couch for 8 hours straight. There’s so many great characters this year led first and foremost by Baker Mayfield, who took down Ohio State almost singlehandedly on Saturday.

Maybe its something that is just fresh in my mind after a particularly lousy Week 1 in the NFL, but the majority of these college games are always exciting with the added benefit of projecting who would be a good fit where in the NFL. Sam Darnold or Josh Rosen on the Jets is not something I look forward to.

But also, just getting to watch the Heisman Race from Day 1 and witnessing all the big signature moments these guys need in an effort to win the trophy is exciting as hell.

You got comeback bids with insane catches.

You got former NFL quarterback dopplegangers.

Baker Mayfield just putting Urban Meyer right to bed.

College football, I get it now. Which is a problem since I also just spent 10+ hours watching NFL Football on Sunday, getting my money’s worth from Sunday Ticket. So this could devolve into an incredibly sedentary lifestyle quick.