Eddie and the fellas
Season Recap: One of the great teams in Buckeye history! I know, I know – Biankabatuka killed us and ruined our chance at a title. But, I mean – this kinda shit happens when your coach is John Cooper: Your team is amazing. Eddie wins the Heisman. And you lose to Michigan. And THEN you lose to Tennessee in the bowl game. More on that later. I’ll remember this as the season where 1) Eddie was truly great and became an icon, 2) Terry Glenn became the best wide receiver in the world, 3) Shawn Springs became Shawn Springs and 4) Dudes like Dimitrious Stanley and Greg Bellasari and Mike Vrabel and Rickey Dudley became household names. OK, so here’s the rundown: The Kickoff Classic vs. Boston College! YOUR #12 Ohio State Buckeyes vs. the #22 Boston College… Eagles. I knew that I swear. We win 38-6 and BC is not ranked for the rest of the season and ends up 4-8. In retrospect, NOT a quality win. 11 straight wins to start the season, including ranked shitty Boston College, ranked Washington, Notre Dame, Penn State, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Just a great run to start the season and we’re all the way up to a #2 ranking. 7th ranked nationally in points per game – 36. And 10th nationally in Opponent’s PPG – 17.
Michigan: the famous Michigan loss, where Tim Biakabatuka goes for 313 yards and we can’t get things going. 2 interceptions by a true freshman named Charles Woodson, who, weirdly, didn’t do anything else interesting for the rest of his football career. Terry Glenn talked a lot of shit before this game. Woodson talked shit afterwards. Brian Griese was their QB. Eddie gets 100 yards and a TD. We lose 31-23. Coop now 1-6-1 vs. TTUN.
Bowl Game: Citrus Bowl. (Setting the scene) We’re 4th and Tennessee is 5th. There’s, like, oranges and shit everywhere (OK, scene set). Tennessee wins the game because they fucking cheated. They had illegal cleats and also Peyton Manning pulled the fire alarm at the team hotel and drove around honking his horn. This lack of sleep + the cleats allowed that fucking cheater Peyton Manning to squeak out a 20-14 victory over the bucks. If you’re ever bored, a fun thing you can do is ask my brother about this game and then just sit down and watch the fireworks.
Awards: Eddie win the Heisman, the Doak Walker, the Maxwell, Walter Camp, and Big 10 POY awards. Terry Glenn wins the Biletnikoff. And Orlando Pace wins the Lombardi. The next time a team had the Heisman winner and the Biletnikoff winner was 2019 (Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase at LSU). And then it happened again in 2020 because DeVonta Smith won both.
- All Big Ten – Eddie, Terry, Orlando, Bobby Hoying, Rickey Dudley, Mike Vrabel (as a Linebacker), Shawn Springs (CB).
- All American – Eddie, Terry, Orlando (Consensus. And, obvs, unanimously for Eddie). And then Vrabel as a defensive end according to Football News.
QBs: Bobby Hoying completes 62% of his passes. 29 TD’s and 12 INT’s. 3269 yards. 10th place in the Heisman voting. Stanley Jackson and Tom Hoying each get a couple TD’s in limited action. Regarding our guy Bob Hoying… This was a great Heisman year. Tommie Frazier comes in second in a pretty close vote behind Eddie and is followed by Danny Wuerffel, Darnell Autry, Troy Davis, Peyton Manning, Keyshawn Johnson, Tshimanga Biakabutuka, Warrick Dunn, and then Hoying. Quite an excellent showing by Bob.
Running Backs: Eddie runs for almost 2000 yards and 24 TD’s and also has 47 catches, 2nd on the team. Pepe Pearson, Jermon Jackson, and Sualua are the others with over 100 yards rushing for the season.
WR/TE: Terry Glenn explodes for 1400 receiving yards and 17 TD’s. Rickey Dudley has 37 catches and 7 TD’s. Dimitrious Stanley – 13 catches and 4 TD’s. Nicky Sualua – 17 catches and 2 TD’s. Buster Tillman with 30 catches and a TD. Dee Miller, future stud, is on the team and gets a few catches.
Defensive Line: Vrabel, Luke Fickell, Matt Finkes
LB/DB: Shawn Springs (5INT, 1TD. Also 26.8 avg kick returns, 1 TD), Greg Bellisari, Damon Moore, Ty Howard, Rob Kelly.
Drafted:
- Terry Glenn – 7th overall to the Patriots. My favorite ever buckeye of the John Cooper teams. Maybe all time? A walk-on from Brookhaven High School here in Columbus. A monster junior year leads Terry to the 7th overall pick. 12 seasons in the NFL with the Patriots, Packers, and Cowboys. 4-1000 yard seasons. 8823 overall yards. 593 catches (82nd all time), 44 TD’s. Pro Bowl in 1999. 7 children. Bill Parcells once referred to him as “She” because he was rehabbing an injury and slower to come back than Bill thought he should. Parcells did this because he’s a misogynistic asshole who think putting a feminine pronoun on something means it’s weaker. He apparently later came to appreciate Glenn as a hard worker. I recall Glenn as an insane athlete who was extremely fast and could also sort of fly sometimes. Like, the power of flight. He would pop up in the air extremely high, make a catch, and then slam down on the field. If you have a really specific athletic skill, certain things can really fuck with it. If you’re a long jumper and you plant off your left foot, and then you sprain that ankle… that ankle has to be 100% if you want to keep being good at the long jump. Anyway, fuck Bill Parcells. Glenn did some coaching in an indoor football league. Some legal issues. Did some non-profit work on domestic violence awareness. Died in a car accident Nov 20, 2017 at age 43. Fuckin bullshit.
- Rickey Dudley – 9th overall to the Raiders. 9-year career with the Raiders, Browns, and Buccaneers. 108 games. 221 receptions, over 3000 yards, 33 TD’s. Looks like he’s involved with personal training in Texas now. I tried to follow him on twitter – we’ll see if he accepts me (update: It’s not looking good).
- Eddie George – 14th overall to the Oilers. 9 seasons, mostly with Oilers/Titans. Could do 10 pages on Eddie… over 10000 yards rushing. Over 2800 rushing attempts. 7-1000 yard seasons. 68 rush TD’s (35th all time) and 10 receiving. He has basically all the Titans/Oilers franchise rushing and yards from scrimmage records. 1996 Offensive Rookie of the Year. 4 Pro-Bowls. All pro once. 19th all time in “career touches” – 3133. It doesn’t look like he’s going to make the hall of fame. Basically, the Titans super-sophisticated offense was to hand it to Eddie and have him smash into the mass of bodies. So that wore him down a bit. After football he got an MBA at Northwestern (fucking traitor), was on some TV’s shows and in 2016 he played Billy Flynn in Chicago ON BROADWAY. Also, up on campus was a bar called Eddie George’s Grill 27. This was a great place to have a pint and also the men’s room had a 1-way window so you could use the facilities but not miss the next play. Also, he went to Fork Union Military Academy… Eddie did several years there (like prison – he did his time), basically going to high school for 5 years to prep for college football. Plaxico Burress, Cardale Jones, Carlos Hyde, and Vinnie Testaverde are some other notable attendees. Super close to winning the super bowl with the Titans over the Rams… Kevin Dyson coming up juuuuust short at the end. His jersey is retired with the Titans.
- Bobby Hoying – 85th overall to the Eagles. Bobby played in 22 games over 5 seasons for the Eagles and Raiders. 11 TD’s, 6 INT’s and 1500 yards passing in 7 games in 1997 for the Eagles. These were the only TD’s he threw in the NFL. In 1998 he completed 114 of his 224 passes for 961 yards, no TD’s and 9 INT’s. So… that was a rough season. Almost 1000 yards passing and no TD’s? How does that happen? Fast forward to 2020. He’s just Bob now. He’s a principal at Crawford Hoying, one of the largest real estate firms in Columbus (according to their website anyway). He’s been on the Central OH YMCA Board and he has 4 kids. Lovely! And, once again JUST TO REITERATE, he was 10th place in the Heisman voting in ’95, a year that was LOADED.
There you have it. Shout out to the ’95 Buckeyes. A bunch of us millenials got really cocky and thought our team was unbeatable and made us fans for life. And then they pulled the chair out just as we were sitting down enjoy some Tang.
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