COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State is heading into its first bye week of the 2025 season, using it to prepare for the future instead of a week off.
Here at Buckeye Talk, we’re taking the same approach. Driven by a survey set out to our Subtext Subscribers, Stephen Means, Stefan Krajisnik and Andrew Gillis are taking inventory as we use the people who matter most to create the best product possible.
Thanks for listening to Buckeye Talk and sign up to get text messages from experts Stephen Means, Stefan Krajisnik and Andrew Gillis at 614-350-3315. Get the insider analysis, have your voice heard on the Buckeye Talk podcast and connect with the best Buckeye community out there.
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Read the automated transcript of today’s podcast below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it may contain errors and misspellings.
Stephen Means (00:09.184)
Welcome back to Buckeye Talk. I’m Stephen Means, that’s Stefan Krasnik and that is Andrew Gillis and this is improvement week by week for Ohio State. They don’t play anybody this week and they are not the only people trying to use this week to improve. We also here at Buckeye Talk are going to use this week to improve at least the early part of the week and call this an accountability pod essentially where we’re trying to make sure we’re always giving you the best product both through the podcast, through the stuff we write at cleveland.com slash OSU.
through our YouTube content, go look at that at Buckeye Talk, just go type in Buckeye Talk on YouTube and you’ll find us. In fact, I think it’s youtube.com slash Buckeye Talk. So yeah, go find that. And through the text 614-350-3315, a two week free trial 399 after that. So I sent a survey to our texters on Sunday afternoon with a bunch of different questions, just trying to get a gauge on what they like, what they don’t like, what they’re okay with.
What Stephen might be freaking out about. That’s not an issue whatsoever, but Stephen’s a little crazy. And also just some things that maybe they would like to see us implement, not just during the season, but the off season and years and years beyond, because we’re kind of locked in with this era. Now there have been three distinct eras of Buckeye talk before this current unit came together. You had the Doug Lamarys, Bill Landis, Ari Wasserman era. And that was essentially the urban Meyer.
era, right? The national championship up until I think Ari left in 2017 or 2016. I can’t remember. I got here in 2018. Nathan got here in 2019. That’s beginning the Doug Lamarie, Steven Means, Barrett era of Buckeye Talk. And that’s when Ryan Day takes over as the head coach. That’s through COVID. And that was literally up until 2023. Spring, when Doug left, I went on vacation to St. Martin.
and came back and all of a sudden Andrew Gillis existed into my life. And that’s just how it went. Right. And then 12 months later, I didn’t go on vacation. No, I did. I went on vacation again this time and I came back and Nathan was gone. And then a month and a half later, Stefan popped up into my life. Thus beginning the Stephen means to find Christ, like Andrew Gillis era. So I did ask our Texas, what era did you join? Cause I’m just trying to get a gauge of when people got here.
Stephen Means (02:25.848)
62 % of our listeners in our Texas right now got here during the Doug, Steven and Nathan era, which makes a lot of sense, right? Doug, Bill and Ari had been gone for a while. The pod, what it is now and how we operate. A lot of that happened when Doug, Nathan and I were here when it went from one big show on Wednesdays and then a post game pod show to now we’re doing five pods a week in the off season, six pods a week during the season. So, okay, fine.
Every single one of you for the most part who are on this podcast have been listening since I’ve been here. Good. That makes me feel better about myself.
Stefan, this is why I’ll bring you in first and Andrew asked you the same question of we’re in the season. So that’s how we’re going to gaze. Maybe I’ll ask this question again when we get in the off season, but I gave our textures four different things and one of them is just me. So I won’t ask you about that one, but between the big picture ideas, the texture involvement, recruiting pods, and maybe interviewing more guests, which we haven’t necessarily made a normal part of what we do. But if you were a listener,
of this pod and as someone who is on this pod, what would you want to see from us moving forward of those four staples that we do? And if you have something else that maybe you have in mind, throw that out there as well.
Stefan Krajisnik (03:49.313)
I always enjoy when we do the text, uh, texture involved pod, whether it be the solo rants pod, or even if it’s, even if it’s just the survey we sent out, we do that pretty often, you know, post game pods of, you know, texting out a survey and getting the textures involved and seeing what they say. Um, so I always like those, um, you know, recruiting pods, I’m usually not on, but when I listen in, I learn a lot. I, know, we, we had one texture submit.
You know how much they enjoy getting recruiting news through the recruiting or through the texting service because there is recruiting moves a million miles per hour, 24 seven, 365 days a year. So getting it on your phone and getting it in a podcast form, uh, makes it always fun to keep up with big picture ideas, you know, always fun to do the interview and guess is, is always so interesting to me because, um, there’s pods I listened to where they’ll interview guests and I’m like, Hey, I really just want to listen to the hosts.
like talk and there’s some pods where I’m just like, you guys are so good at interviewing that I love listening to you guys interview guests. And sometimes the guests are so good that the guests make it. So interviewing guests is always a fine line to walk. but I do think that’s something that way. Maybe we could do more of if that’s something that the textures and the listeners wanna wanna hear more of. but it’s always a fine line with podcasts of the guests. I think you have to nail the guests in order for it to work. Sometimes people have guests just to have guests and you’re like,
Stephen Means (05:12.556)
Yeah.
Stefan Krajisnik (05:13.643)
You know what? Can you guys talk about Ohio State running the ball more?
Stephen Means (05:17.879)
What do you want to
Stefan Krajisnik (05:20.959)
Which someone might be listening to this pod right now and like, hey, can you guys just get to the part where you talk about Bo Jackson because he’s awesome?
Stephen Means (05:25.463)
Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. Maybe they don’t get listen. I like you guys. I’m here. Talk about the football team. Is there something Andrew that we are not doing?
Stefan Krajisnik (05:31.981)
Ha
Stephen Means (05:36.427)
Whether it’s of those four that you’d like to see us do more, do less, it’s something that you would want to implement with this pod.
Andrew Gillis (05:43.374)
Well, I think one of the things that, um, you know, I was reading from our subtext replies were, you know, trying to just kind of get a gauge. I think, you know, the, I think people are right about, you know, various things. think the guests are an interesting idea, but like, I mean, obviously if you’re listening to this pod, there’s a decent shot you subscribe to six one four three five, oh three, three one five. Like tell us like also like, maybe like, if you want to guess like what type of guests you want, I think Steven, when you and I had that interview with Brady Edmonds, was like 20, 25 minutes.
I think people really like that. Maybe every high school recruit is not the same as a quarterback, right? You know, is there an appetite for the three star offensive lineman who’s committed in a class? I don’t know, maybe. I think people, you know, let us know, be realistic. Don’t ask us to get, you know, Ted Carter on every week and Ross Bjork on every week. We could try. But you know, I think just kind of what type of guests you want to hear. think that’s
That’s always good. And Stephane’s right. You know, don’t want to have guests just to have guests, but, you know, I, I think that’s really helpful. And, know, one of the things that I really like that we do, and I think that, you know, we should keep doing it as like texture involved stuff, because we all have this in our personal lives. We all have this on the podcast and what we write to, I think sometimes it’s easy to get tunnel brain and you think, well, this is a thing that nobody cares about. And people super care about that thing or.
you know, hey, this is the thing that everybody cares about. And people, yeah, but not really. No, don’t really care about this anymore. You know, let us know like, what there’s an appetite for. And I think that that’s something that, I think we do well is kind of involving textures. And I think we should keep doing that and do more of that of just, Hey man, like if you have a question that, and you’re just begging for us to, to talk about it on the pod and you’re saying, Andrew, why aren’t you talking about the right guard situation more?
Maybe there’s some people who say, absolutely not. I’m interested about the right guard conversation, but maybe nobody else is. I don’t know. Like, let us know kind of questions and comments and concerns because like, this is a message board without the insanity is what it is. You know, you can’t see what other people are saying, but like, you you can, you can let us know your thoughts and we can incorporate that in a way that is unique.
Stephen Means (07:56.79)
It’s not a no no it’s not a message because they can’t interact with each other it’s just it’s just a
Stephen Means (08:07.319)
Okay, so I also asked a question and I’ll be incorporating these as we go through some of these questions here. Like what’s a pod idea that we’re not doing that you’d like to see us do? Here’s one from the server and then here’s one from the text. I’d like to see a weekly pod featuring a beat writer from another pod highlighting the opposing team. And then from the 567, I think it was either 2022 or 2023 season where Doug interviewed a reporter from every team on the schedule before the season. So we had some insight into them. I’d love for you guys to bring that back maybe doing it.
the week of or even preseason would be awesome. Yes, I think we did it a little bit last year. We did it for the big games last year. I do think there is there’s value in that because we do live in the Ohio State bubble, though I’m living in that bubble a little less by the week, to be frank about it with some of the stuff I’ve been doing right. I’ve started a big 10 power rankings. We’re going to be doing playoff stuff. We’re going to be doing Heisman stuff. So I’m.
kind of leaving the bubble, but I’m still in the bubble. So it’s good to get somebody who has context behind things while we’re still outsiders looking into these teams every year. I do like that idea of five, six, seven of what Doug did. He would do it in May where essentially there was a pod a week. He did all 12 games on the schedule. That is something I do want to do next year, next off season, heading into the season. I want to explore doing that and we’ll do it for the big games. I want to get somebody on for Washington.
because I think we have an idea of what Washington is, but obviously to get someone who covers them and is there every single day will help. We’ll definitely do it. The way the schedule is set up this year, it’s value in doing it for, I would say five of the nine Big 10 games. I think that’s probably the right number. The reason I did not do those things over the last two years is because when you have this much personnel change,
And to the point, Stefan, you are making about you’re never really sure if people, if you want to listen to a pod because of the host or do you want to listen to it because they do good interviews? You’re you’ve been here for 12 months, Andrew. You’ve been here for 24 months and I wanted to spend that time over the last year, allowing everyone to get to know this trio and what it is and figuring out what they like and what they don’t like.
Stephen Means (10:27.767)
Because that is first that we are the pod first and that yes, can we incorporate some of these other stuff? Yes. But I do think I felt like it was valuable for our listeners and our textures to get to know Stefan and Andrew because they’ve gotten a chance to know me over the last five or six years here. And obviously this is a new role. So I may be talking a lot more than I was four or five years ago, but I wanted this to settle in before I started inviting other people into the house. And I do think now we can start to invite.
other people inside the house. Andrew, have you ever sent a text message where before you said what you were going to text, you prefaced it with, hey, sorry to send this to you so early or hey, sorry I’m sending this to you so late.
Andrew Gillis (11:15.05)
No, because I mean, to well to subtext, yes, in my personal life, no. I know. know. The one that I was thinking of might have been like Justin Scott, when he decommitted that might have been at like eight or nine o’clock. You know, it’s bad whenever I
Stephen Means (11:21.121)
No, just a subtext. don’t care what you do in your personal life. Yeah, why would I be asking you about that?
Stefan Krajisnik (11:23.526)
Why would he be asking about personal life?
Stephen Means (11:34.718)
huh. Yes.
Andrew Gillis (11:41.774)
To text Stephen and Stefan and I’m just saying all I say is got it I don’t even tell them what the news is I just say I’m on it or I’m handling And that was the Justin Scott thing if a memory serves that was a little later But I think that was like the only one where I was like, oh crap, like this is this is massive So I don’t I don’t that might be the only one I think I think all recruiting news generally happens between the hours of like 8 a.m. And 9 p.m
Stephen Means (12:08.535)
Stefan, have you ever sent a text and along with, okay, yeah, thank you. Thank you. Short answer. Thank you. Okay. Quite often. Okay. Don’t do that anymore. Our texters have spoken. I asked these questions. What’s too early to send the text unless it’s tier one urgent and tier one urgent is, you know, legal things. The sport is changing again. Somebody got fired, right? Things where we can’t hold this. It kind of is what it is.
Stefan Krajisnik (12:11.039)
Yes, very often.
Stephen Means (12:37.943)
7 a.m. Eastern, 8 a.m. Eastern, 9 a.m. Eastern, any time earlier than 9 30 a.m. And I also asked what time is too late and those answers were 8 p.m. Eastern, 9 p.m. Eastern, 10 p.m. Eastern and then any time after 10 30 p.m. Eastern. Here’s what they gave. As long as it’s not before 7 a.m. in the morning, just send the text. As long as it’s not after 10 30 at night, just send the text. So we don’t have to say,
Apologies. And the reason why a lot of the texture said this is this is not 2002 where you have to get the notification. You can put your phone on do not disturb. So just because you sent it at six 30 in the morning doesn’t mean I’m going to read it at six 30 in the morning. Does everybody feel better now about that?
Stefan Krajisnik (13:28.159)
Yeah. Also like if you’re sleeping, your sound’s probably not on anyways. So like, I don’t know why we’re, I’m one, I am, I will say this. I am one of the weird people who does sleep with a sound on cause I still don’t believe that if you turn your sound off that the alarm is going to go off, even though I know that’s not true. But I lie to myself, but most people I think are normal and don’t have their sound out when they’re sleeping anyways.
Stephen Means (13:34.273)
Correct.
Stephen Means (13:54.808)
And also there’s like 40 million different modes on smartphones. Now we have a do not disturb mode for work mode that we both use during our, when we’re working at football games. So it’s, but it made me feel better because I’ve sent that text often. And now that means we don’t have to send it. I also asked our Texas, would they like us to share our stories that we write on cleveland.com through the text? 86 % said yes. So don’t share like the small stuff, right? But I do think that there is an appetite to be had for, if you’re writing a big feature,
Take people along the journey with you. Like, hey, I’m writing a thing on this and I just talked to Bob about it and this is what he had to say. The story’s coming. And then, you know, after you’ve given them appetizers, when you finally write the story, like I think when you talk to Julian Sands, coaching Stefan, this would have been a great time to do that. Andrew, when you wrote the story about Taven St. Clair, you talked to all those people. That’s a good story to share. the things where it’s. You didn’t hear this in a presser, like we put real work.
and blood, and tears into this, share it with the Texas. Make that $3.99 worth it.
This is the most important question I have ever asked.
Stephen Means (15:05.823)
What’s the perfect length of a pod you want to hear from us?
And the opt and I’m saying it’s funny because I also put a timer on how long this pot is going to be and we have five minutes left before we have to take a commercial break.
Stefan Krajisnik (15:18.625)
Yeah, the way Stephen prefaced this pod before we started recording tells me I might know what the answer to this question is.
Stephen Means (15:25.119)
I was not honestly sure what the answer was going to be. The options were 30 minutes or less.
30 minutes to an hour, an hour to 90 minutes, 90 minutes or longer. Andrew, what do you think? I told him, what do you think was the order in terms of what won, what was second most, third most and fourth most?
Andrew Gillis (15:52.002)
I think 90 minutes or longer was last. And then.
Stephen Means (15:54.327)
Okay.
Andrew Gillis (15:59.374)
So was, me the other three. So was, okay, so zero to 30, 30 to 60, 60 to 90. Okay. I think over 90 was last. I think first was probably 30 to 60. I think second was zero to 30. And I think third, what would that leave me with 60 to 90. Yeah, I think that was third. Some of the text are saying like,
Stephen Means (16:01.271)
They’re all 30 minute increments, my friend.
Stephen Means (16:07.862)
Yes.
Stephen Means (16:19.553)
Okay.
Stephen Means (16:24.023)
60 to 90. Okay.
Andrew Gillis (16:28.918)
Hey, if it’s a long pod, I could just tap out or I can listen into viewings. So I think I do wonder though, if that is the case, if what people.
Stephen Means (16:38.711)
Stefan, what’s your order? What do you think it was?
Stefan Krajisnik (16:42.177)
I think it’s 30 to an hour and then an hour to 90 and then 30 or less. Actually, I’ll switch it. I’ll say 90 or longer than 30 or less. 30 or less sounds like, I don’t know. I listen to pods. I don’t want it to just be a 15 minute pod.
Stephen Means (17:00.695)
think if it’s a recap pod, it can be 30 minutes. Like I think there is a world we can live in where the Wednesday pod during the season where we’re just, hey, we talked to people and now we’re giving you the recap of it can be 40 minutes or less. But there’s also, we’re trying to provide context behind what we heard. And so that’s why it ends up being an hour a lot of the time. An hour to 90 minutes was number one, it got 44 % of the vote. 30 minutes to an hour got 40 % of the votes.
Stefan Krajisnik (17:09.409)
Yeah.
Stephen Means (17:26.807)
90 minutes or longer got 11 percent in 30 minutes or less got five percent. People don’t care that we go long. Because you’re not watch. I think it’s because we’re we’re not like a lot of podcasts now where it’s visual. We’re still just. Only listen to and so because of that, you don’t have to sit there and watch us. You can listen to us while you’re mowing your lawn or we’ve had people say, listen, I drive trucks for a living. So a 90 minute pod.
Give me that every single time, please. I gotta get through this thing, right? I think because our pod is set up where it can be more background, noise in comparison to other pods, and I think people don’t care about that. I think we care because we’re sitting in front of the microphone and it feels like we’ve been sitting here forever by the time we get done. Well, too bad. Our textures have spoken. Sit there and talk about Ohio State football. And that’s the first 20 minutes of this podcast. And now we’ll get into, I think, what’s the more intriguing part. That was more about list.
You guys telling us what to do because you pay us if you signed up for the tax. Six one four three five three three one five. When we come back, there’s a lot of good ideas and a lot of good just like notes that I think I want people to hear us here so we can take accountability for it and we can talk about it and discuss it. And we’ll do that when we come back from the break here on Buckeye Talk.
Stephen Means (18:51.509)
Here’s the next 20. We also did that in 18 minutes. I’m proud of you guys. And we’re back here on Buckeye Talk, Stephen Means, Tiffan Kreistick, and Andrew Gillis with essentially an accountability pod. That’s essentially what I’m going to call this. It’s a let’s learn about ourselves here. Improvement week, Ohio State’s in the midst of doing that this week as they’re on a bye week before they play with Washington next weekend. We are also doing that before we go cover Ohio State play Washington.
next weekend. And so I tried to round up as many as I can from both the text and the survey. And we’re going to read it. I’m going to read them off to you guys and try to get your guys’s like thoughts on, are you interested in that? Are you not interested in that? Like, what do you think about all that? And so I want to start here. I got to find it first. I lost it. I lost it.
Stephen Means (19:48.919)
Where’d he go?
Stephen Means (19:56.373)
Well, I’ll find it eventually. Okay. From the nine for one, I like the reporting from the press events. I don’t have time to watch those. So it’s super helpful. Only very minor criticism. Sometimes top topics get to a point of repeating yourself, keep it concise and move on. I would also love to hear more guests. Point noted. Don’t repeat yourself. And that’s the every, cause we’ve all done that. Let’s make sure we’re not repeating ourselves from the nine three seven. The favorite thing is recruiting.
This is something I’ve never been allowed, been able to follow without you guys doing this criticism. Nothing comes to mind. Something to bring back though. Friday with Tyler Shoemaker giving his thoughts on some betting. I included this one because I wanted to give more explanation. So T shoe when former Pukai Talk members, Doug and Bill were doing Kings of the North. I think he had like an exclusive thing with them. So we couldn’t have T shoe on and
So, and it also went back to what I was saying earlier. I wanted people to focus on us for a little bit. I’d love to bring tissue back into the fold at some point. I will probably talk with him about that next off season and get him back into the mix because I think he’s betting stuff. think he’s a freaking genius at it. And tissue is a great fan of the show. We love tissue around here from the seven four.
Favorite thing about the pod, the different views and the good discussions on topics. Even though Andrew was always wrong, Stefan and Jimmy wrote that they convolted that together from their fake number. Favorite texting is the pregame updates, injury report, line up, et cetera. And the quarter and drive recaps. I love all the texts, but these are the best. Biggest criticism would be that the pods are not video on YouTube. I do like that the audio was added, but this is not a deal breaker for me to continue.
But the six to eight minute post game practice videos are awesome. I have zero complaints about the text. You guys are nailing it. One question I would like to know is if Andrew is back tracking on his comments about OSU fans, you need to get used to nine and three as a good season from one of his earlier pods. So that’s a lot to unpack. Before I let Andrew have the floor, Stefan, we’ve already started. We start putting the pods up on YouTube as just another place people can find us. It’s not the video form.
Stephen Means (22:11.574)
Do you think we should do that? Do you think we should put a 45 to 90 minute long pod, depending on the day, in full form on YouTube?
Stefan Krajisnik (22:26.497)
I don’t hate the idea. We definitely have to look at it a bit just because we don’t have a producer to kind of do things behind the scenes of, you know, to make it visually as appealing as possible. you know, we could, we could definitely mess around with it. I’m open to that idea if that’s something that the listeners and the techsters want. It’s a good way of making sure we’re all paying attention, right? Cause the camera’s on, camera’s rolling.
Stephen Means (22:31.349)
Okay.
Stephen Means (22:46.006)
Cool.
Stephen Means (22:49.91)
I think a good compromise might be, cause I don’t think we can do it every day. Cause you’re right. Sometimes we come on this pod and we look, listen, if you, if you could see how Stefan and I look sometimes when we get on Sunday to record that Monday pod, it’s not always pretty. It’s not always camera ready. The bears lost 52 to 21 on Sunday. I don’t think it would have been fair to ask Stefan to be full professional camera ready after the bears lost 52 to 21.
But I do think there’s a compromise of maybe we put the full game preview pot up or maybe we put one or two up a week. I think that’s something we can talk about though, because there’s a way we look when we’re not, we know we’re not going to be on camera versus a way we look when we know we’re going to be on camera. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Andrew, the floor is yours. I don’t remember you saying that Ohio state fans need to get used to nine and three.
Stefan Krajisnik (23:35.67)
I’m always camera ready. I’m always camera ready. Dope.
Stephen Means (23:47.754)
but this texture does, and that’s all that matters. And so because they said you said it, you said it. Do you want to stand by this thing that I don’t remember you said, but they said you said it and they listened, so you said it.
Andrew Gillis (23:53.507)
Yeah, I-
Andrew Gillis (23:59.318)
Yes, sort of. I want to stand by it. like, they’re right that I was probably a little bit overzealous with that. But I think maybe it was in the I forget the context of it. But I do remember like, you know, when we were kind of this might have been Oregon and Washington, like right around then, when they were coming into the Big Ten. And you just kind of have this idea of Super League and like, what happens if in five years, you know, Ohio State’s schedule has
Michigan, Oregon, Penn State, Notre Dame, Georgia, Alabama, Texas on it because they’re in some crazy super league, right? You know, like if you play 12 games in the NFLification of college football, mean, nine and three might be like the best, like nine and three might be at that level. And you just, a down year, you know, I think, and I think that was kind of my point was like,
You know, whereas a down year in the big 10, 15 years ago might’ve been 10 and two for Ohio state, 11 and one, a down year in this new era, especially where, you know, we look at Oregon, Steven, I think you said this like off the pod where it’s like Oregon might be the best team in the country or excuse me, Ohio state might be the best team in the country and Oregon’s the second best team in the country. We’re just here again. Like, you you got Oregon, you got Michigan, you got Penn state, like you got, you got other tough games on your schedule. Just there are more loseable games than there are. I think.
It was probably based in the idea of this thing is now more possible, but I do think like, remember vaguely saying something like that. So yes, probably a little overzealous, but I do think it is still more possible than it was five years ago because of the way that the sport is trending and the way that the big 10 is and the way that things are right now.
Stephen Means (25:47.297)
Do you think that, I mean, Ohio State’s been so recession proof. Is your theory that maybe more than ever that concept of Ohio State being recession proof might get tested more than at any other point in the past 25 years because of everything that’s changing?
Andrew Gillis (25:51.502)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Gillis (26:03.98)
Yeah. I mean, this is some real like, you know, upper-class privilege to say that like, nine and three recession, you know, one year recession. Yeah. I don’t think this is like a long-term thing. You know, I would, you know, I don’t, I don’t think it’s crazy. to say like Ohio state has historically proven that they are that, you know, maybe it’s not a lock in the future, but I mean, the best indicator of future results is.
Stephen Means (26:10.806)
I mean, yeah, but they’ve never done it.
Andrew Gillis (26:31.438)
past success or past failures and Ohio State has never really had that kind of downturn historically. you know, certainly there could be a year where it’s, you know, 11 and one, and you’re playing a big 10 championship game and, know, there’s, there’s a blip of nine and three, you know, that, that I think is, is probably the idea that maybe it’s not recession proof or, you know, recession proof, not long-term. Maybe it’s more of a, you know, the Dow had a bad day.
Rather than it’s all right. We have two quarters of economic downturn
Stephen Means (27:07.444)
Here’s one from the survey. would like to hear more about your interactions with the Ohio State Athletic Administration. Do they push back on stories, get upset about certain questions? Do they control narratives? Are there unwritten rules such as don’t contact players outside of OSU channels?
Have you, has that happened to you, Stefan, in your career? I mean, you’ve covered two Power Four teams at this point. Has it happened to you in your career, and has that happened to you at all in the past 14 months since you joined this beat? Any of those things?
Stefan Krajisnik (27:40.725)
Yeah, I mean, there’s, there’s times where, people aren’t necessarily happy with something you write or things of that nature. And, know, they’ll express their thoughts, but oftentimes they’re just, they’re doing their job of trying to protect the brand that they’re, you know, hired to protect. I don’t, I don’t think it’s happened at Ohio State. I’m trying to remember sometimes it all kind of starts to blend together. but the administration in Ohio State is usually pretty straightforward to deal with. so not many problems on that end. On the, the OSU channels thing. Yeah.
To talk to player, it’s a glimpse inside our world of how NIL changes some things. There are times where, you know, if you’re trying to talk to a player, to a coach, you have to go through kind of the PR staff at Ohio State. But there are times where these players now have, you know, like the Jeremiah, everyone knows the Jeremiah Smith event at Dick’s Sporting Goods that kind of went viral because of the crowds that showed up. Like that’s stuff that, you know, his agency and PR people put together. It’s not.
through Ohio state. So there are avenues now, you know, like I interviewed Caleb, Caleb Downs over the summer, and it was centered around kind of the, charity that him and his, his brother, Josh and the NFL, do. So those are channels obviously where you don’t necessarily have to go through Ohio state. It’s more so kind of their agencies and that’s the reality now of these players are also their personal brands while also representing Ohio state. And it’s kind of this interesting balance that has never, you know, never existed before like
COVID happened, I guess, and before the NIL era kind of really got going.
Andrew Gillis (29:09.164)
Yeah. Yeah. Like Stefan and I went to a Caleb downs, Josh downs event at top golf. And we talked to Caleb downs for a few minutes. Like that doesn’t happen 10 years ago. yeah, like we, Stefan picked me up. We went to top golf. We had interviews with Caleb downs. There was nobody from Ohio state there. There was nobody there from, you know, the program or anything like that. It was kind of a, you know, set up thing. There were other reporters there. Stefan and I weren’t stocking Caleb downs, right? I want to be clear. Like we were at a, an event where there was media set up, but
That’s just the way of the world. We did the event, we got Taco Bell for dinner, it was great.
Stephen Means (29:46.529)
Pro sports have had that for a long time. And now that college sports turning in the pro sports, you’re seeing that more and more often be a thing. Here’s another one from the survey. If there are areas of OSU football or football generally that you all enjoy talking about, do those things when someone genuinely is interested and enjoys what they are talking about. It’s fun. Something you geek out on.
What’s your football dork thing? I guess. Each of you.
Stefan Krajisnik (30:20.737)
I go crazy whenever there is a big hit like the Jalen McClain hit against Ohio the other day. Like I will in the press box verbally be like, Oh my, like I live for that. So I am like, whenever something goes to review for targeting, I’m happy because it was a big hit. And then I’m immediately upset because we have to sit there and review it. But I love, maybe that’s why my, uh, uh, appreciation for Arvel Greece has grown or Arvel Reese has grown to this level because that dude will
put you through the ground. If you’re a quarterback trying to get out of the pocket.
Andrew Gillis (30:55.502)
Stefan loved that ESPN segment back in the day. He got jacked up. I know it. You guys remember that? Yeah, that was awesome.
Stefan Krajisnik (31:02.261)
best. Yeah, jacked up. It was was like pre and now it’s now it’s getting mossed.
Stephen Means (31:05.13)
What’s your
Andrew Gillis (31:08.15)
Yeah.
Stephen Means (31:09.652)
What’s your dork saying, Andrew?
Andrew Gillis (31:12.734)
Whenever I see like a well designed run play. that’s amazing. Like, there are like when you see a defense bite and like, there are guards pulling, there’s a great kick out block. It’s like the famous Vince Lombardi quote. It’s like, we get a seal here, we got a seal here, we’re run this one in the alley. It’s like that when you see that in motion.
Stephen Means (31:16.864)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Gillis (31:40.268)
That’s awesome. Like, have you guys ever seen like Navy just cook somebody with the triple option? They run the flex bone, you know, the defensive end bites, you know, the quarterback is running out to the sideline gets hit as he pitches it. They go for 25 yards. It’s just, you know, when they run like that QB counter where he starts left fakes right. And then all of sudden there’s a garden of tackle and student body, right? The defense doesn’t know what’s going on. Like that’s why I love watching Chip Kelly kind of play or call plays last year because
When you get a well-designed run play, that’s just, I mean, that’s football poetry in motion.
Stephen Means (32:18.613)
Everybody knows I like receivers. So I don’t, you know, this is more of a get to know you guys. Everybody knows I love receivers. Everybody on the beat knows I like receivers. It’s a, a, it’s it’s a little embarrassing, but it’s also fun at the same time. It means I’m building a brand. I love that. This is the time that I get to cover college football, like this era of college football.
Because I feel like every day I wake up and there’s something new that’s happened that’s fundamentally changed how the sport works. Right? You look at UCLA just fired to Sean Foster. 15 years ago, the players just have to kind of sit with it. Right? They’re just stuck with the fact that the dude that they signed up to play college football for isn’t here anymore. Okay, that’s not true anymore. They have 30 days ago, I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m going to hop into the portal.
Right. And they don’t have to lose this year of eligibility because they did it. They fired the Sean Foster the first three games of the season. So this year isn’t a lost year for players. The reason I love receiver so much is because Ohio State’s receivers have always been elite, but over the past decade, this is the first time they’ve actually tapped into it in a way that it feels like they’re maximizing it, not just in terms of development and recruiting, but the output that we’re seeing on the field. I’ve covered a 14 college playoff.
I’ve covered a 12 team college playoff. I’m like three years away from covering a 16 team college football playoff. I’m probably like 10 years away from covering a 32 team college football playoff. I’m like 40 years. Just going to keep growing and growing and growing. Right. And I just, and also I think it’s been cool that I got to see a head coach literally growing into being a head coach. Like this is the only place he’s ever coached at. And I am privileged that
I’ve only covered the extremes of college football. I covered Kent State who sucks. That’s literally bottom of the barrel college football. And now I’m covering probably the best college football program in the past 30 years. When you talk about consistency, when you talk about the NFL draft output, when you talk about the winning, everything that they’ve done, I’ve covered both into the spectrum. And so there’s a privilege in that, I, I,
Stephen Means (34:33.033)
have recognized over time that maybe I ignore the middle class a little too much in college football. And so I’ve tried to correct that. that’s, I think that’s what helped me this year in terms of getting out of the Ohio State bubble is acknowledging the value of Minnesota, the value of Vanderbilt, the value of Indiana, right? The value of a BYU and even a Tennessee, even though their fan base hates me right now.
The value of these teams that are not living on the extremes of either you are in a championship or bus conversation or why do you still have a football program conversation? The programs that have normal ebbs and flows. I’ve learned to have more value in that. And I love a good pass play, man. I love creativity. I love when you snap the ball and I have no idea whether or you’re throwing or running the ball because it’s sec any play call that is created in second and five or shorter is I love that.
because everything is on the table. So that’s what I love about football. That’s what I love about covering college football.
Let’s see here. Another one from our survey. I love what Lance wrestling does, breaking down tape for origin Brown. You guys should do that. You guys do that already a good bit while taking the, while talking about other things though. One other note about the text, if the it’s the press conference play by play that gets a little crazy, maybe just bombshells by text. You can get into more of what was said on the pod than texting transcripts, but also love you for it. I get you. I get you.
I don’t know if I need to send nine texts on Tuesdays when I can send four texts, I get you. Lance, I want to have Lance on the pod more here because I think we all do a good job of breaking down football, but that like that’s what Lance does for us. It’s literally what we ask him to do. And I do think that’s going to have more and more value as the season goes on. You know, everybody was having a love fest with Matt Patricia.
Stephen Means (36:31.285)
After we saw what they did defensively against Texas, maybe I dropped the ball there and should have had him on but I would love to have Lance come onto this pod. So Lance, if you’re listening, this is an open invite for you. Couple of more that we’ll get into a few of these other ones. I’m gonna read all of these and take all of these into account but these are the ones I wanted us to be able to discuss. Doesn’t have to be every week.
But it was always fun when you guys had beat writers from the other teams on at some point during the week to bring another perspective. I specifically remember the time Doug had a guy from Oregon. He’s talking about James Crepper. Andrew got and they got into it a bit while recording the pot and it was pure entertainment because Doug absolutely stuffed him in a duffel bag. I’d like to see more of that. You two should go find that podcast. So I had been on the beat for four months and Doug had started his
off season, I’m going to have a beat writer from every single team on to get to know teams. And we were looking out ahead. And what we were doing was we were looking at the non-conference schedule that was coming up because this is 2019 spring. So Nathan hadn’t got here yet. And we’re looking at some of the non-conference games Ohio State’s playing in the future because they weren’t playing a marquee one in 2019. And so he had James Keppria come on who was covering Oregon at that time. We were preparing for a home and home Ohio State goes out.
to Oregon in 2020 Oregon comes to Columbus in 2021. Obviously the former of those did not happen because of COVID the latter did and Oregon ended up winning that game. I’ve never felt more awkward on a podcast. They got into a shouting match that was you know how back Stefan and when Andrew and I had that thing before the Tennessee game where I’m like throw the ball throw the ball throw the ball. He’s like no you can still run the ball. I’m like why why it was that.
but on steroids. Yeah, it’s, it’s, don’t know. No, no, no. It was no, no, no. It didn’t get that crazy. It was just two people yelling at each other. And I don’t know how Doug feels about that. I think he has a love hate relationship with that episode of book. talked with it was hilarious. Couple more from the survey in season on your Friday prediction pot include a couple of other top games that could affect OSU.
Stefan Krajisnik (38:19.681)
Let’s go back and find that. I haven’t heard that one.
Andrew Gillis (38:23.822)
Did anybody get called a name? Oh, okay.
Stephen Means (38:45.501)
In addition to the Buckeyes game score predictions, even if the pod goes 90 minutes, I think we have done that in the past. I don’t know if it’s been a staple. think now that big 10 play has started, we are going to make that a staple of give our picks, take a break and then get out of here. And those are our 20 minutes. Okay. A couple of more. actually do want to read though, before we get out of here. If you were the coach, what would you have done differently? What Ryan day did right and what Ryan day did wrong? It would also be cool to hear y’all’s perspective.
personal experiences at away games. This could include flights, last drive, food places, treatment of media members, stadium critiques, and atmosphere. We’ll do that part of it after Washington because none of us have ever been to Washington before. The problem is, I don’t know if there were Big Ten stadiums that we went to last year that nobody had ever been to other than.
Andrew Gillis (39:31.957)
Oregon.
Stefan Krajisnik (39:32.641)
room.
Stephen Means (39:35.603)
And Andrew, you’d never been to Penn State. Okay. really? Okay. Penn State, great environment. It sucks to get to. Oregon, great environment. It’s annoying to get to cause you got to fly into Portland because they hold.
Andrew Gillis (39:38.04)
I’d never been to Penn State, Neither is fun.
Stefan Krajisnik (39:38.718)
I had never been to Pensacola either.
Stefan Krajisnik (39:50.965)
Not anymore. I will say, think it was American airlines has started to add flights to like, college towns around game days. Like there’s more options. So I bet if we were going this year, it might’ve been easier. We had to go through the Portland route. There were some people on the beach who were able to fly into Eugene. So our route was not the easiest. A lot of people have the same Portland route that wasn’t the easiest, but Austin is definitely easier to get to than, than Penn State.
Stephen Means (40:15.733)
There’s also element of how expensive the hotels were in Eugene because how big that game was. So we might end up having to go to Portland anyway. But annoying to get to awesome environment, even though I was dying. In fact, I think I think Oregon’s environment was better than Penn State’s. that because that’s because Penn State had to play at noon. Oregon got to play at night. If Penn State got to play at night, it got a little rowdy in there. It had been a lot. It was great. I’m not taking away from it. It was great. But it’s just there’s a reason why those white outs are at night. Looking at you, Fox.
I think the, what Ryan Day did right, what Ryan Day did wrong sounds like a good idea for post game pods when we’re moving at a million miles per hour with things. And it’s a way to make maybe slow us down a little bit. And then one more person of what I want to read is a mid season positions breakdown, maybe on a buy or halfway through the season, you can check up on certain position groups and see if they are exceeding expectations or not. That’s a good thing to do. I think coming out of October.
when we head into that second five week before things get real, real crazy around here. And I think that is it. I think that’s it. I think that’s all the ones I can read here. one more. As an older guy on occasion, it would be cool to listen to a pot with an historical perspective. That’s nitpicky. No, it’s not. The standards are standard. This is the best 399 I’ve ever spent. I think the greatest Buckeye thing we did in the spring has helped us all.
in terms of, we’re all three of us are due to were born in the nineties. We’re millennials. And so we’re, we have to learn. We didn’t live it. So we’re learning it. Right. And I had a decent amount of historical context cause I am from Columbus, but I do think the greatest Buckeye thing has allowed us to not feel like we’re young guys who are only talking about Ohio state football since we stopped voting on national champions and allowed us to see the bigger picture of things and have different conversations.
And I do believe Stefan that has shaped how we have talked about things so far this year when those opportunities have shown themselves.
Stefan Krajisnik (42:20.523)
Yeah, the greatest book I was was a fun project and I think we learned a lot from it. doing something, I don’t know what would be something similar, but that’s definitely an off season thing to think about. think there’s the historical route has its options.
Stephen Means (42:33.001)
I think one thing we can do during the second bye week, and this is actually an idea from our Texas that I’m going to steal comparing every Ohio state started to a previous Buckeye counterpart and asking if that historical book I line up with when the national championship in any given year, basically, like if Julian sand is first year CJ Strauss carnotate is maybe Terry McClellan or something like that. And then how the roster would do in your guys’s opinion at the end. I love that idea and I’m stealing it from you and we’re doing it later this year.
This was awesome. Any final thoughts? Andrew that like, mean, you’ve been here for two years. What do you think? You having fun?
Andrew Gillis (43:13.356)
I think, yeah, I think that people should keep giving us their thoughts. cause like I said, it’s like, there are some times where it’s like, it’s easy to get tunnel vision and you know, there are some times where people will say, yeah, I don’t care that they won this game X to X or lost this game. I want to hear about the big picture, you know, and let us know. Like I think that that is one of the things that I have really enjoyed about this is that whenever we can incorporate those, you know, kind of text those thoughts,
obviously clean ones, but, you know, just kind of having people let us know is, part of what makes this fun because, know, as somebody who did not go to Ohio state as somebody who did not grow up in Ohio state fan and didn’t even grow up in Ohio, it’s, it is definitely helpful. And it is definitely cool. Whenever you have people say, Hey, you know, you’re doing this well, or, Hey, I really am interested in this. You should talk about this or, Hey, I don’t care about this. Stop talking about this. Like, you know,
I think that that is always good and that is always helpful.
Stephen Means (44:15.527)
If you had to describe to someone who’s not listening to this podcast or doesn’t have the text and you’re not promoting it, you’re just being real, right?
How would you describe what we do here now that you’ve been doing it for a year, Stefan?
Stefan Krajisnik (44:33.025)
I think we give the most genuine takes and analysis of Ohio State that we can. And I think sometimes you probably see that in our immediate post-game pod, or maybe sometimes our reactions are a bit too much. And then we come back on a Sunday, sorry, the Monday Leave No Doubt pod, and we kind of reassess. But I think the three of us have never been filtered in what we say and think about Ohio State. Obviously it’s thought out and planned.
but never have, you know, do we come on here and, and back away from saying something because we might make someone upset or whatever that may be. So I think if you want genuine, just real Ohio state takes like this is, this is the place to come. We’re going to have fun conversations. We’re going have different conversations. We’re going to have crazy conversations sometimes, but I think it’s all going to be genuine from place of us trying to give the listeners and the texture is the best possible product. And that’s why I’m like, this is, is in the survey. Like this is great because.
We love hearing from you guys and hearing what you guys want, what you guys want less of, which one more of whatever it may be. There was also one text. Um, I couldn’t find it now to read exactly. So I’m sorry. Um, to the person who sent that, but it was all about like doing, doing maybe a weekly segment where we just talk about something not Ohio state related. That’s on our minds. I, that could be fascinating because if the three of us came on here and was like, what’s one random thing that’s been on your mind this week, it could genuinely range from anything. I,
Stephen Means (45:51.603)
Yeah.
Stefan Krajisnik (46:02.055)
I can probably assure you that it won’t be anything political or anything that’s going to make you mad. It will literally be as random as I don’t know, me watching a TV show yesterday, but that could be fun as well.
Andrew Gillis (46:12.878)
Taco Bell brings back the Lord of Potato Grillers. Stefan and I are gonna have a 20 minute segment.
Stefan Krajisnik (46:16.895)
We can always talk Taco Bell, that’s always an option. Taco Bell and Celsius, don’t wanna give out too many free ads, but a lot of these things fuel our road trips. I was gonna shout out a rental car company, I was like, that’s a little too far, and shout out to people that don’t need shout outs. Rental car companies don’t need shout outs unless they wanna come give us ads. But yeah, that could be fun to do.
Stephen Means (46:30.516)
I’ll do that. Yeah, I’ll do that.
Andrew Gillis (46:30.855)
Laughter
Stephen Means (46:38.612)
So we can, somebody did say that. was a, I’d like to see you guys do a 15 minute ish segment on non football pods. I think that would be a good way to take the Newsy pod and not make it feel like it’s so mundane if we were doing that for the Wednesday pod. So I think we might try to implement that, especially this week and see how we feel about it. Just like, what’s the most non football thought you’ve had over the last seven days and you bring it to the table and you present it. Maybe it’s weird. Maybe it’s normal. I guess we’ll.
Stefan Krajisnik (47:06.559)
Non, you guys can help us name it, but non ball talk comes to mind.
Stephen Means (47:11.282)
Yeah. yeah. I like that. And one more, there were a lot of people who said that they would like to see more Michigan stuff. Just checking in on Michigan.
Yes. I don’t want to say that we can guarantee we’re going to do that every single week. But I do think when it’s warranted, it’ll happen. Like Monday. Yes, yes, it’s because we cover Ohio State first, and we want to make sure we’re giving that our all. But I do understand checking in on your rival.
Stefan Krajisnik (47:34.369)
We definitely will on Monday, this upcoming Monday.
Stefan Krajisnik (47:42.625)
I think one thing that’s interesting about the Michigan thing this year specifically is I feel like last year’s rivalry game has changed so much how we view it because there is this sense of, it sounds foolish sometimes to say it out loud, but like there’s this sense of, I don’t really care what Bryce Sunder would look like against Oklahoma because we know.
that a lot of this comes down to Ryan Day and his staff and how they approach the Michigan.
Stephen Means (48:14.428)
And because of that, I think last year we saw them against Texas and then we dismissed them. And I think that’s the point of what every texture that sent something about, let’s check it on Michigan. I think that’s the point. Don’t ever dismiss them again. It’s disrespectful to the rivalry, especially since there is a large conglomerate of Ohio State fans who lived through the nineties where that type of loss they had in 24 was the norm. And so we will do it.
When it’s, it feels like there’s something to be learned and there will definitely be some things to be learned around the big 10 specifically with Michigan first this weekend. And so that will probably be the focus of Stefan and I’s Monday pod is Illinois, Indiana, which Stefan’s going to be at, by the way, he’ll be at that game. And then also we’ll talk Michigan, Nebraska and Washington plays this weekend. So we’ll, we’ll dive deep into all of those things. So thank you so much.
for your feedback, continue to send your feedback. If we didn’t read it here, do not think that it was not read and not taken into account. There was someone who sent a text saying that one thing they didn’t like from the 716 that like, hey, like my sound, sometimes it pops. And I hear it too when I’m editing this, my P’s always pop out actively looking into getting a more high quality mic. There are people who have to sign off on that first. So that’s why it hasn’t happened yet, but.