Ohio State ended last season undefeated and the actual Big Ten Leaders division champions, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that OSU players dot our Preseason Top 25 Players list, but the name on it today may surprise a few who live year-to-year in there following of college football. 

Same for yesterday's player, Zac Epping, who emerged late in 2012 as a significant player on the offensive line. See a theme here? We're not going to blow smoke at you and there was a large amount of thought behind our staff votes. 

Speaking of that, before we get into the third Buckeye on our list, let us remind you of what criteria we used to make our Top 25 list. We used things like importance to your team, overall skill at your position, records set, past performance, conference honors (coaches, media, our list too), and the good old-fashioned eye test.

Having said that, let's get into a player who's best days may be ahead of him in 2013, barring injury of course.... 

Get ready for a Monday double dose of our Top 25 Players in the Big Ten!! We last left off with No. 23 and that was Michigan State's Isaiah Lewis and today we switch sides of the ball to feature perhaps one of the most underrated players on the offensive side of the ball last season. 

Part of that could've been his team's lack of postseason play or a certain QB stealing all the headlines in Columbus or a record setting running back inside his own conference, but we digress. 

Before we get into our newest member of the Top 25, let us remind you of what criteria we used to make our list. We used things like importance to your team, overall skill at your position, records set, past performance, conference honors (coaches, media, our list too), and the good old-fashioned eye test.

So with that, let's explore perhaps the most underrated running back in the Big Ten..... 

Spring games are in the books and now it's time to start looking forward to fall camps... Yep, we've officially hit the dead zone in Big Ten country. However, that doesn't mean we aren't going to bring you the hard hitting coverage, opinions and rankings we are known for. Having said that, it's time we unveil the newest feature here on TheB1GTime.com and that's our player rankings! 

What gets you on our list? Well, we take a lot into consideration, things like importance to your team, overall skill at your position, records set, past performance, conference honors (coaches, media, our list too), and the good old fashioned eye test. Most of us have poured over our DVR's of spring games, taken a look back at last season and we've come up with our first ever Top 25 Big Ten Football Players list. 

This list will be revisited towards the end of fall camp and we'll also give your our official and final list following the season that was 2013. Before we get to No. 25, here are a list of players who you won't see that you might be expecting to see & those that just missed out on the first Top 25 list: 

- Jake Ryan (LB, Michigan): Sorry folks, in order to make our list you better be able to play and Ryan's ACL tear this spring pretty much sealed the deal on him not making this list
- Marcus Rush (DE, MSU): Just missed out on the votes, but is a name to watch in 2013
- Ricardo Allen (CB, Purdue): This guy is electric when he's making INT's, the problem is he hasn't exactly rounded into an all-around player just yet.
- Mike Sadler (P, MSU): Hey, can't tell there was a pattern to the voting of one of our writers or anything... 
- Jeff Budzien (K, Northwestern): With Maher gone it's up to Budzien to keep the torch of solid Big Ten kickers going, he did a fine job last season.
- Stephen Houston (RB, Indiana): He's a TD machine, but the offense doesn't showcase his skills enough thanks to an OL that needs to get better fast.

Now on to the countdown!!  

Facebook and Twitter have become the biggest tools for recruits and recruiters to win the game on the recruiting trail and now more than ever the kids who have committed have become the best instruments of recruiting out there. What better way to get that done than to have the kids talking to each other via social media, right?

It appears that Ohio State's 2014 class has taken things a step further, creating their own website - a website that will allow the general public, and thus other recruits, to see their journey from commitment to signing day.  The site is called 2014bucks.com and is created by the parents of Damon Webb, the first verbally committed prospect to Ohio State in the class. 

No doubt this could be something we see pop up more and more as kids themselves become the face of recruiting, more so than coaches themselves. What's more likely to get you to come to a school? Coaches or peer pressure from people you know and get along with? 

If you've ever made the choice to go to college most likely one of the more important aspects was who you knew would be going and what your friends were doing. So, the same would hold true, in fact if not more so, with recruiting in football. 

Having experience in some small recruiting circles there's no denying these guys talk all the time and a lot of them take social media seriously - it's a different world view than a lot of people who didn't grow up with Facebook as part of their everyday existence. 

One of the interesting aspects of this is it has zero influence from the coaching staff at all, their participation would be a violation of NCAA rules. So, congrats to Webb and his family for coming up with something that no one else has done to date. 

It also begs the question of if this will become the wave of the future? Only time will tell, but Urban Meyer is clearly getting ahead of the game - without even being involved. This guy is just unstoppable!

Be careful, if you are one of the estimated 1,100 student-athletes and employees at Ohio State, because you are being watched by big brother and big sister. No, we aren't talking about physical spying or cameras everywhere (although the latter is likely at all athletic facilities to begin with), rather we are talking about OSU hiring an outside firm to monitor all players, coaches, and other employees in the OSU athletic department via social media. 

Yes, that's right. If you are a student-athlete or employee everything you say and do on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook is being monitored.

Who knew that actual companies exist that offer specialized social media monitoring? Well in the case of tOSU it's a company called JumpForward that is in charge of their social media monitoring. 

Now, some may be suspicious of anyone monitoring their every move, but OSU athletic director Gene Smith assured The Lantern that that isn't what's happening in these cases and that the student-athletes are aware and consented to the monitoring. However, if you believe what Smith is saying then the hire of this firm is less about "monitoring" and more about "compliance and education."

On Monday the hammer came down on Mark Osiecki as the head coach of the Ohio State hockey program after just three years at the helm. It also comes just as the Buckeyes enter a brand new era in their history as a hockey program with the first ever season of Big Ten hockey coming in 2013-14. 

It appears that this was more about the future direction of the program and how it was going to be run than about Osiecki's record of results. 

"We are making a change in our head hockey coaching position," OSU athletics director Gene Smith said. "There was a difference of opinion over the management of the program that could not be resolved."

The Buckeyes finised the 2012-13 season with a 16-17-7 overall record and were 13-10-5 in their final year as a member of the now defunct CCHA. 

Osiecki was 46-50-16 in his three years at the helm in Columbus. The ties between the Big Ten and Osiecki are deep, having played four years at Wisconsin and being an assistant coach under Mike Eaves from 2004-2010, when he was appointed the head coach of the Buckeyes.

According to reports, associate head coach Steve Rohlik will be taking over the day-to-day operations of the program while a national search for a new head coach gets under way. 

Braxton Miller scored three touchdowns, two of them passing and he threw for 217 yards while completing 16 of 25 attempts. That's not a bad outing for the junior signal caller. Problem was, those numbers were rather deceiving as he was sacked a whopping SEVEN times in front of a decent crowd of 37,643 at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati. 

All in all Miller's team won 31-14 and won't have to clean and landscape Buckeye Grove next Friday and that's all that matters. 

However, for us the biggest story of this "game" was the fact that the defense, despite having to replace five of the seven starters upfront ate alive the offensive line and made the day a living hell for Miller and backup Kenny Guiton (9-14 for 116 yards and a TD). 

Anytime you give up 11 sacks it's a bit worrisome on the offensive line and Meyer was quick to praise the defensive effort while also chastising the offensive line as well. 

Screw the NCAA, screw not being anything other than Leaders division champions - we were awesome and you know it!! That's the message being sent as Ohio State decided to give it's players rings for their perfect season last year. No really, they gave out rings for that....

Don't believe us? Here's the proof:

Nothing like celebrating a division championship that meant nothing because you couldn't win a real Big Ten title or possibly play for a national championship. Congrats Urban Meyer and Co.! 

Honestly, does anyone think tOSU would've beaten Alabama, or hell even Notre Dame for the national championship? O.k., maybe some of you who like to put on the extra-crazy bucknuts sauce might... 

Once again, just another example of celebrating anything and everything in this country. I wonder if they sent those awesome rings to Jim Tressel too. I mean, he did have as big a hand as anyone in making that last season possible, no?

This shouldn't be ho-hum material, but for fans of the Big Ten who've been paying attention all season long the art of the late game/buzzer beating three-pointer is becoming just that. Last weekend it was Aaron Craft hitting a game winner with 0.5 seconds on the clock to beat Iowa State and advance to the Sweet 16. 

Don't worry Aaron, you're shot was good, but teammate LaQuinton Ross just said "what you got son" with this:

Yep, that's right another game winning trey for the Buckeyes in the Big Dance. Pretty much sums up what kind of team this is - perhaps a team of destiny as they win 73-70 on Ross' "COLD BLOODED THREE." That's 11 wins in a row for the Buckeyes as they will take on the winner of LaSalle and Wichita State for a birth in the Final Four on Saturday.

Earlier this week we began our breakdowns of the four Big Ten teams left in the NCAA tournament, more than any other conference in the country mind you. Luckily we get two matchups featured conference teams on each day of the tournament's 2nd week. 

We spoke earlier about the Indiana vs. Syracuse game and now it's time for the night's first Sweet 16 matchup featuring a conference team and it comes in the strangest bracket of the 2013 tournament - the West regional - where only one of the top 5 seeds advanced to the Sweet 16, the 2nd seeded Ohio State Buckeyes. OSU will be going for their 11th win in a row since mid-February in this one.

This game has quite a few interesting layers as it's mentor vs. pupil when (2) OSU takes on (6) Arizona on Thursday night at 7:47pm ET on TBS. It also happens to be Arizona's attempt to get back to the "elite" of the college basketball world and a victory here could do that for them. It also means an interesting style matchup between two coaches who think a lot alike on how to play the game. So, where do we see this one coming down? Let's explore, shall we?