The Buckeyes are in their first week of August camp in Columbus, and the consensus is that they have already identified The Next Big Thing. Urban Meyer spent a few minutes answering questions from the media Tuesday, and one particular true freshman has clearly grabbed his attention. “He’s gonna play...’cause he just goes really hard,” said Meyer of running back/receiver Dontre Wilson. “And he’s got something we just didn’t have last year...and that’s jets...”

Not every member of the incoming freshman class has the “electric speed” Meyer sees in the 18-year old Texan, but overall, speed could be the defining feature of the nation’s 2nd-ranked recruiting class. Meyer singled out Wilson, but he might just as easily have talked about a dozen other guys.

The 2013 Buckeyes are a veteran team for the most part, especially on offense, so the freshman speed injection will be noticed gradually, and perhaps most markedly on special teams. But it is already apparent that at least a couple of the freshmen will be used in Meyer’s offense right away, especially in the 4 and 5-receiver sets.

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The preseason All-American teams and All-Big Ten teams are out, and they are littered with the names of Ohio State players: Miller, Roby, Shazier, Norwell, Mewhort, Barnett.   This article is not about them. Every summer I take a stab at identifying ten Ohio State players who may not yet be household names in Big Ten country, but are about to be.

It’s a hit or miss endeavor, as you might imagine, and for the sake of consistency, I have a couple of rules I follow in picking my list. As always, no seniors are included. because I want a list of players on the front end of their college careers, with their best days of OSU football still ahead of them when 2013 is over. While breakouts by seniors are welcome (thanks, Reid Fragel, Doug Worthington, Nader Abdallah, Shawn Lane, Antonio Smith, et al.) a look at  this year’s roster doesn’t reveal many potential Fragels. Receiver Chris Fields might be the best bet to make a big senior splash.  But he can’t be on my list, because...rules.

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The summer solstice has come and gone, and as the days once again grow shorter, the preseason college football magazines return to the newsstands like the buzzards to Hinckley...or something. The experts have put their ratings, rankings and ramblings in print for the record, and we consumers of this trove of information have dutifully pored over them, eager for insights and predictions, but also for mind-numbingly arcane trivia to report to anxious readers. You were anxious, weren’t you?

After all, hockey and basketball are over, and baseball is entering the dog days. Before the calendar flips another month, the Buckeyes will be practicing for the 2013 season. All four of the primary college football magazines, Phil Steele’s, Lindy’s, Athlon, and Sporting News, have climbed out on a limb and picked Alabama as the nation’s #1 team this fall, but three of the four have the Buckeyes ranked #2...and as such, project OSU into the final BCS Championship Game.

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Nobody likes the NCAA.  Seriously, do you know anyone who has a good word to say about the National Collegiate Athletic Association?  I’m sure some wonderful people work there, but for some of us, it’s the private sector institution that most closely resembles the federal government...top-heavy, opaque and unaccountable. And those are some of its good points.

Its many nit-picky rules and maddening inconsistencies aside, the NCAA has come under increasing criticism in recent years, as its revenues have skyrocketed while its “product”, the student-athletes of its member schools, has not shared in the bounty. The Atlantic’s Taylor Branch ripped the organization a new orifice in his eye-opening 2012 piece that among other things, exposed as laughable the definition of amateurism the NCAA relies on to keep the status quo in place.

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