Daily Bullets (Jan. 1): Happy New Year, Tons to Celebrate

Good morning. New year, new Bullets. Welcome to our first day of sending out the Bullets via email. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do so right here. Also, definitely not a “new year, new me” kind of day. I promised to get these puppies out by 6 a.m. daily, and I barely hit that Hawaii time. ?

Bullets Rundown

• 10 Thoughts
• Appropriate Corn sendoff
• Yurcich to Ohio State?

Scores

• OSU 38 | Missouri 33 (Liberty Bowl)

OSU Bullets

• Hope you guys enjoyed our coverage from Memphis. I’ll get this thing going with my 10 Thoughts off the top. What better way to start the new year than by block quoting yourself in a Bullets post?!

To the future and The Franchise. To Tyron and Tylan. To possibly playing 10 DBs on the field at the same time in 2019. To a tailback in 30 who *whispers softly and possibly indecipherably* might be as good as the one before him.

I was surprised at the emotion that flowed on the field on Monday evening. Equal parts expectation and jubilation. It looked like a team proud of its 10-3 year and NY6 bowl win, not a team that lost to TCU and could have been 5-7 about 15 different ways. [PFB]

• Get us to 2019, says John Helsley.

This game brought all the good and bad of the past four months into full view – elite and ugly offense, solid and sloppy defense, clutch and curious decisions. The Cowboys were fully entertaining, and infuriating. None more than Cornelius, who was never fully embraced by OSU fans, yet was named MVP with four touchdowns, but almost became the goat with his two ill-advised interceptions. [Go Pokes]

I agree with the sentiment, but I also thought there was a lot to celebrate on Monday evening — Corn’s last harvest, the Chuba-Tyron-Tylan triumvirate and a young defense that showed promise. Yes to 2019, but I’d also like to let this one linger.

• Mark Cooper had a great line as we talked on the field after the game about how Monday’s game was all 12 OSU games wrapped into one. It kinda was, and QB1 was at the epicenter of all of that.

But that’s been the journey all season. So it was also proper that the final chapter of Cornelius’ 13-game career as starting quarterback had so many of the elements that dotted an imperfect, 7-6 season for Oklahoma State. [Tulsa World]

• Robert Allen wrote about how OSU’s hard-nosed defense (!!) made a final stand on Monday.

“This game will give the younger guys some confidence knowing they are a great defense,” said Kenneth Edison-McGruder. “We have a lot of young guys and they are good enough to play with anybody and they showed it today.” [Go Pokes]

There were innumerable storylines that spilled out of Monday’s game, but I thought a defense that looked really good at times without a boatload of key players was near the top.

• This from Scott Wright made me laugh (and was true).

Coordinating the intro videos didn’t go smoothly for Liberty Bowl operators. The OSU intro video played well before the Cowboys were in position to take the field. Missouri’s video aired after the Tigers had already run on. [NewsOK]

Between that, the paint job, the referee circus, the headsets not working and the gunshots (!) I heard from some neighborhood nearby as I banged away at my keyboard after the game, the Liberty Bowl was certainly an experience.

• Mike Yurcich is gone, and it sounds like Ohio State (or it sounds like farts). Who knows. Anyway, my hot take last night was that Tennessee was the destination, but I no longer think that. It sounds like he’s headed to Columbus.

That’s all to say, essentially, that Oklahoma State’s offense has always been pretty great under Mike Gundy. It was great with almost every coordinator he popped in there, which leads me to believe that it may not be so much Yurcich as it is Gundy to thank for the explosiveness in Stillwater for the past few years.

Does that mean Yurcich couldn’t still be good in Columbus? Absolutely not. Coming from a strong system doesn’t condemn you to forever being nothing but a result of that system, just look at Larry Fedora, Holgorsen and Monken, all of whom found at least moderate success after leaving the nest. But, it does put Ohio State in a spot where they could be hiring the next version of Tim Beck, a coach that picked up clout because of his associates, that goes on to falter when given any real responsibility to install the system of his former employer. [LGHL]

Also, a giggle.

Neither does anyone now. https://t.co/ZCvN7vACF0

— Adam Lunt (@AdamLunt817) January 1, 2019

• Jenni Carlson wrote Corndog, and it was good. I’m not sure why we’re not making a bigger deal about this throw (or maybe we are, and I’m just old and not reading Twitter and haven’t seen it).

And frankly, that touchdown strike might’ve been the best throw Cornelius made all year. He rolled right out of the pocket, and on a full run, he heaved the pass pretty much off his back foot and put the ball right in Johnson’s bread basket. [NewsOK]

This is sick!

• Videos from PFB from Monday: Pokes sing alma mater | Press conferences (part 1) | Press conferences (part 2) | Field celebration | Gundy takes trophy and gives a speech | Postgame show from me

• Apropos of nothing, this is a late (LATE) entry for photo of the year.

So is this.

New hair idea pic.twitter.com/iYL0YF4qxY

— John E. Hoover (@johnehoover) January 1, 2019

Non-OSU Bullets

• This on the courage to be ordinary is good. [Desiring God]

• I came across an article recently not even remotely about Thoreau (but kind of about Thoreau), and this quote from Thoreau flattened me.

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. [Nieman Lab]