Things of Interest: Tressel Tresselizing Berry Situation

- Ken Gordon does work, son:

"(I) probably won't know (if Berry will report) until early this week, when we get a little early indication as to really what we're facing, as opposed to hearsay. I don't have much information yet."

That's Coach Tressel essentially pleading the fifth on the Jaamal Berry situation, which is the reasonable and expected thing to do. Berry will not be arraigned until the second of July, so Tressel has little to go on aside from the fact that this kid has a little bit of Santonio Holmes in him before he even hits the field.

- The Detroit Free Press is confirming what has been feared on the Michigan bloggernets for weeks:

Rodriguez confirmed that offensive lineman Dann O’Neill has left the program, but he wasn’t sure whether O’Neill will transfer to another school.

Before you laugh and point, O'Neill had not really separated himself from the crowd on the offensive line, and was originally a Lloyd Carr recruit. While most Michigan blogs are downplaying his departure, attrition on a unit that was so incredibly bad last year cannot be good. On MGoBlog, you have the usual frustration with the lack of attribution of sources that the media typically prides itself on; Brian reported this over a week ago, yay mainstream media:

So… confirmed, eh? Which sort of implies the existence of a report that O'Neill has departed, eh? Where might this report be? I'm curious as to when a newspaper will credit something other than another newspaper for breaking a story.

Not until the newspapers are finally forced to stop circulating print editions. At the earliest.

- And offseason fluff ho!:

Justin Boren doesn't want to be singled out. He's a guard -- anonymous by nature -- and he just wants to quietly fit in with his still relatively new Ohio State teammates.

That's why, as his intense, physical play raised eyebrows in spring practice, Boren refused all interview requests.

I don't think he refused all interview requests because he is "intense", he may have done it because he's a tad douchey (also, re: his girlfriend). The article essentially goes on to proclaim that Boren, with his "physical play" and "prototypical size" will "bring an attitude and an edge" to the offensive line this fall. Last I checked, the offensive line had plenty of attitude:

So how is Boren's "bad attitude" better than Boone's "raging, possibly stone-drunk bad attitude"? Boren has been schooling fools in practice, yes, and it's nice to have some new, experienced blood on the interior, but I'm not sold on Boren being the savior here. In the last four games of the season last year, Ohio State rushed for 244, 335, 232, and 203 yards against Northwestern, Illinois, Michigan and Texas. Not a laundry list of killer defenses, but the rushing game was a little more than functional for most of the season, outside of the games against PSU and USC. Perhaps Boren will give us the extra juice we'll need against those two teams against this year, but I would much rather have a proven pass protecting tackle than yet another roadgrading offensive guard.