While Ohio State hasn’t yet named a new starting quarterback, Real Pod Wednesdays has named a new co-host. In his first episode sharing co-hosting duties with Dan, we introduce you to new Eleven Warriors reporter Andy Anders, who outlines his journey from posting in the 11W forums to becoming a full-time member of the staff. Then, we get into our usual hourlong discussion of the biggest topics in Ohio State sports of the past week, starting with the ongoing quarterback competition and what we ma...
Aug 16, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 202
Ohio State is nearly one week into preseason camp and two more teams are leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. That gives us plenty to talk about on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays as Chase Brown joins Dan Hope to discuss the most notable things we’ve seen and heard during the first six days of preseason camp and weigh the pros and cons of the Big Ten continuing to expand by adding Oregon and Washington in addition to USC and UCLA. ( Note: This podcast was recorded before Gene Smith ann...
Aug 09, 2023•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 201
Ohio State’s current football players are about to return to the practice field while there’s been no shortage of happenings – both good and bad – impacting the Buckeyes on the recruiting trail over the past month. With all of that to talk about as well as a new wave of conference realignment starting, Garrick Hodge returns to Real Pod Wednesdays this week for a discussion on what’s gone well and what hasn’t for Ohio State recruiting in recent weeks, the biggest storylines entering preseason cam...
Aug 02, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 200
This week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays comes to you one day late but from on location in Indianapolis as we react to everything we heard from Ryan Day and the Buckeyes at Wednesday’s Big Ten Media Days. There was plenty to react to on Wednesday, particularly Ryan Day’s suggestion that the Ohio State vs. Michigan game could be played before the final week of the regular season, as well as Day’s latest thoughts on the quarterback competition, praise from Luke Montgomery and other Buckeye newco...
Jul 27, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 199
Ryan Day, Marvin Harrison Jr., Cade Stover and JT Tuimoloau will be in Indianapolis participating in Big Ten Media Days one week from today. We’ll be in Indianapolis too to catch up with those Buckeyes and cover the first official media availability of the preseason for Eleven Warriors. With that in mind, we look ahead to next week’s event on this week’s Real Pod Wednesdays with a discussion on why those Buckeyes were chosen to represent the program and what we expect to be the biggest storyline...
Jul 19, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 198
If you could pick only 22 Ohio State football players to go win a game for you against 22 other Ohio State football players, which Buckeyes would you choose? That’s the question we were tasked with answering on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays as we held our annual Eleven Warriors preseason team draft, going head-to-head to pick the best possible lineups for a hypothetical intrasquad game. The ground rules were as follows: Each of us had 22 total picks to draft 11 offensive players and...
Jul 11, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 197
On the latest edition of Real Pod Wednesdays, we discuss another massive commitment for Ohio State's 2024 class and take a look at what's on the horizon for the Buckeyes. With regular podcast co-host Dan Hope on vacation, resident Eleven Warriors recruiting expert Garrick Hodge joins the show once again as Griffin Strom returns from a trip to Florida. While we usually record the show on Tuesday, the Fourth of July pushed things back a day, so we hope you don't mind a rare Thursday edition of RPW...
Jul 06, 2023•46 min•Ep. 196
The summer official visit season is now over, but more BOOMs could still be coming to Ohio State. Ohio State already landed three big BOOMs from in-state prospects over the past week as quarterback Tavien St. Clair committed to the Buckeyes’ 2025 class last Wednesday and Glenville teammates Bryce West and Damarion Witten joined Ohio State’s 2024 class on Saturday. With Eleven Warriors recruiting reporter Garrick Hodge filling in for Griffin Strom on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, we...
Jun 28, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 195
There are plenty of good vibes emanating from the Woody Hayes Athletic Center following its most recent weekend of official visits. While Ohio State hasn’t landed any new commitments yet, the Buckeyes certainly appear to be expecting some soon following a weekend in which they hosted four five-star defensive prospects: defensive ends Dylan Stewart and Eddrick Houston, safety KJ Bolden and cornerback Kobe Black. Landing even one or two of those prospects would be a huge and much-needed boost for ...
Jun 21, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 194
The Big Ten’s new scheduling model should help Ohio State, but it might make for a less entertaining regular season. Following last week’s announcement that the Big Ten will go divisionless and that Michigan will be Ohio State’s only protected annual opponent beginning in 2024, we spend the majority of this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays discussing what we like and what we don’t like about the Big Ten’s new scheduling model and why it should give Ohio State an easier path to both the Big ...
Jun 14, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 193
With Ohio State’s 2022-23 year in sports just about complete and a new year of Buckeye sports just a few months away, we decided it was the perfect time to sit down with Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith to talk about the hottest topics in Ohio State sports, college athletics as a whole and the Big Ten. In a 30-minute conversation with Gene Smith to begin this week’s Real Pod Wednesdays, we talk to Ohio State’s athletic director about his expectations for the Buckeye football and basketbal...
Jun 07, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 192
For the first time since the end of spring practices, we had the opportunity to talk to all of Ohio State’s assistant football coaches on Tuesday. All 10 of Ohio State’s on-field assistants as well as director of sports performance Mickey Marotti met with the media on Tuesday, giving us the opportunity to get updates on every Ohio State position group and how summer workouts are going for the Buckeyes. Just a few hours after finishing up those interviews, we sat down to record this week’s episod...
May 31, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 191
If you’re eager to bet on Ohio State football this season, there’s already plenty of wagers you can make. Even though the start of the season is still more than three months away, betting lines have been released for half of Ohio State’s 12 regular-season games this year. Sportsbooks have also put out futures odds for which team will win the national championship, who will win the Big Ten, how many games each team will win this season and who will win the Heisman Trophy. On this week’s episode o...
May 24, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 190
With usual podcaster extraordinaire and general Eleven Warriors superstar Dan Hope on vacation, Chase Brown makes his RPW debut alongside Griffin Strom, who returns from a one-week hiatus to discuss all things Ohio State sports. Griffin and Chase discuss Ohio State’s latest transfer portal addition, Ole Miss defensive tackle Tywone Malone, who is expected to be the final player added to the Buckeye roster from Transferland this offseason. After that, we rank all eight Ohio State transfer acquisi...
May 17, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 189
This week’s Real Pod Wednesdays is all about recruiting as Garrick Hodge fills in as co-host for this week’s episode. With Griffin Strom on vacation, Garrick joins Dan Hope for nearly an hour’s worth of conversation about Ohio State’s recruiting efforts in the 2024 and 2025 recruiting classes. It’s an apropos time for Garrick to join the show, as both Dan and Garrick were at the Under Armour Next camp on Sunday and the start of official visit season is just a few weeks away. A lot has changed si...
May 10, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 188
It was a busy week on multiple fronts for the Ohio State football program. Ohio State brought two new transfers into the program with the additions of former San Diego State offensive tackle Josh Simmons and Notre Dame wide receiver-turned-cornerback Lorenzo Styles. A few other players left the Buckeyes before the post-spring transfer window closed. And six members of last year’s Ohio State football team, headlined by first-round picks C.J. Stroud, Paris Johnson Jr. and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, were ...
May 03, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 187
NFL draft week has arrived. We’re just one day away from finding out which teams will draft C.J. Stroud, Paris Johnson Jr., Jaxon Smith-Njigba and perhaps Dawand Jones. Over the next three days, 259 players will be drafted, and at least seven Buckeyes are likely to be among those who get that call, while numerous others are also likely to sign with teams shortly after the draft as undrafted free agents. This week’s show is all about the Buckeyes in the draft as we talk about why teams shouldn’t ...
Apr 26, 2023•58 min•Ep. 186
Spring football is complete at Ohio State, which means it’s time to wrap it all up and project ahead to how it will all translate to the games that count this fall. We begin this week’s episode by discussing everything that stood out to us in Saturday’s spring game, including a not-great but not-terrible performance by Kyle McCord, the offensive line remaining Ohio State’s biggest problem, the defense continuing to show improvement and impressive performances from young Buckeyes like C.J. Hicks,...
Apr 19, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 185
Ohio State officially has a new NIL collective, and two of its leaders join us on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays to tell us what it’s all about. Former 97.1 The Fan station manager Todd Markiewicz is the president of The 1870 Society while former Ohio State safety Tyvis Powell is its director of player engagement, and both of them join us for the first part of this week’s show to tell us why they chose to get involved with the new NIL collective and how they believe The 1870 Society ...
Apr 12, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 184
College basketball season is over, but spring football season remains in full swing. The NCAA basketball tournaments came to an end on Sunday and Monday, so we begin this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays with a conversation about how the Final Fours played out and make some early predictions for how Ohio State’s men’s and women’s basketball teams will fare next season. The rest of the show is focused on Ohio State football, as we share our biggest takeaways from Saturday’s second scrimmage ...
Apr 05, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 183
After attending Ohio State’s first scrimmage of the spring and the Buckeyes’ pro day last week, there was plenty for us to talk about on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays. The first half of this week’s episode is focused on the current Ohio State football team, as we talk about who and what stood out to us while watching the Buckeyes’ scrimmage on Saturday, as well as what we learned from last week’s interview sessions with offensive linemen and defensive linemen and Tuesday’s interview...
Mar 29, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 182
The next three-and-a-half weeks will be some of Ohio State’s busiest weeks of the year from an on-campus recruiting perspective. Ohio State is set to host a multitude of top targets this weekend, next weekend, during the April 15 spring game and in between, so we brought Eleven Warriors recruiting analyst Garrick Hodge on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays to help us break down which visitors you need to know about and where things stand for the Buckeyes with some of their top targets at...
Mar 22, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 181
Ohio State’s men’s basketball season came to an end last week, but not before the Buckeyes offered some hope for the future. Ohio State’s run to the Big Ten Tournament semifinals couldn’t save the Buckeyes from missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time in six years and finishing with a losing record for the first time in 19 years, but it did give Ohio State some much-needed positive energy entering the offseason and gave Buckeye fans reason to be excited about Bruce Thornton, Roddy Gayle Jr...
Mar 15, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 180
We had plenty to discuss on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays after getting our first on-field look at the 2023 Ohio State football team Tuesday. Between watching the first 30 minutes of Tuesday morning’s opening practice of the spring and talking to Ryan Day, Jim Knowles and Ohio State’s quarterbacks afterward, we learned a lot about how the Buckeyes are stacking up as spring begins. In the first half of this week’s show, we discuss everything that stood out to us on day one, including...
Mar 08, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 179
Current and former Ohio State football players will both be back on the football field over the next seven days. The 2023 Ohio State football team will take the field for its first practice of the year on Tuesday when the Buckeyes will hold their first of 15 spring practices at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. Before then, eight members of the 2022 Ohio State football team will participate in the NFL Scouting Combine, where workouts will be held Thursday through Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium in In...
Mar 01, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 178
What would an ideal 2024 football schedule for Ohio State look like? We drew up our answers to that question on this week’s Real Pod Wednesdays. In reality, Ohio State’s non-conference slate for 2024 looks likely to be boring after the Buckeyes canceled their scheduled home-and-home series with Washington last week, leaving them without a marquee non-conference game. The Buckeyes’ conference schedule for a year from now remains undetermined, as this week’s Big Ten meetings concluded without any ...
Feb 22, 2023•55 min•Ep. 177
There will be no shortage of position battles to watch when Ohio State takes the field for spring practices in just a few weeks. On this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays – following another brief discussion about the continuing collapse of Ohio State basketball – we look ahead to the 10 biggest position battles that will take place during Ohio State’s 15 practices this spring and project which players could come out of those battles with starting jobs or more playing time. The full rundown ...
Feb 15, 2023•59 min•Ep. 176
We had our first opportunity of the offseason to talk to all of Ohio State’s football coaches last week, and it gave us plenty of early insight into where things stand with the 2023 Buckeyes. We didn‘t want to avoid the elephant in the room, so we start this week’s episode with a brief conversation on the continued struggles of Ohio State men’s basketball. The rest of the episode, however, is devoted to sharing our thoughts on everything that stood out to us from last week’s media availability, ...
Feb 08, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 175
Ohio State football got two pieces of exciting news over the past week, but Ohio State’s basketball struggles went from bad to worse. We talk extensively about both sports on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, starting with Ohio State football. While it’s a quiet National Signing Day for the Buckeyes in that they are not making any additions to their high school recruiting class of 2023, they made news on Friday when they announced the return of former Buckeye linebacker James Laurinait...
Feb 01, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 174
It was a quiet first year for Ohio State’s freshman class of 2022, but many of those Buckeyes are candidates for breakout seasons in 2023. That’s what we spend most of our time discussing on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays. First, we talk about the impact of a couple of Ohio State football news items that dropped over the past week: The addition of transfer offensive lineman Victor Cutler and the return of sixth-year safety Josh Proctor. Then, we talk about all 21 members of Ohio Stat...
Jan 25, 2023•58 min•Ep. 173
