The Buckeye Football team has chosen their captains to lead them in the first year of the Urban Meyer Era. All five chosen this year are Seniors.

DL John Simon, FB Zach Boren, LB Etienne Sabino, DL Garrett Goebel and RB Jordan Hall were tabbed by their peers and announced during a team meeting on Sunday. This group of Seniors have experienced quite the emotional roller coaster during their time at Ohio State. They started at the top, came crashing down last year and will now influence the next generation of Buckeyes during their final year.

Maintaining focus will be critical this year as they will not be playing for a bowl or a BCS MNC. These Seniors will no doubt carry a massive chip on their shoulders and have no issues with keeping everyone in line. Simon has already had a pretty huge impact on some of the youngsters as his insanely disciplined workout methods have lead to Noah Spence joining him for his early AM workouts.

Simon has also become only the seventh Buckeye to be named as a two time captain. The last Buckeye to receive that honor was James Laurinaitis in 2007 and 2008.

Congratulations to the new Captains!

More preseason watch-lists have been announced for the upcoming 2012 football season. There are more Buckeyes getting a little hype.

Corey “he’d rather not be called Philly but people do it anyway” Brown has been named to the Biletnikoff Award preseason watch list. The award is given annually by the Tallahassee Quarterback Club to the Nation’s best wide receiver. It’s a great honor for Brown, and one that signals he is expected to surpass last year’s 14 reception/205 yard/1TD performance. Did I mention that was tied for the team lead? Yeah, expect that number to jump just a tad.

Etienne Sabino has been named to the preseason watch list for the Butkus Award, which honors the Nation’s outstanding linebacker. Sabino is a 5th year Senior and OSU’s MVP in the TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl. One could argue that he may have been the only bright spot in that debacle.

John Simon, Johnathan Hankins and Jake Stoneburner all appear on the Lombardi watch list. This award is given by the Rotary Club annually to the Nation’s top lineman who plays no more than 10 yards to the left or right of the ball and linebackers. Yes, it is that specific of an award. All three of them appear on multiple watch-lists with Simon and Hankins getting a massive amount of love in the pre-season.

Hopefully with all of these Buckeyes on all of these watch-lists, someone is bringing home some kind of hardware.

More love for more Buckeyes has been given in the form of pre-season watch lists.

Kicker Drew Basil has been named to the watch list for the Lou Groza College Place Kicker Award. The award, named after the Ohio born former Buckeye and Cleveland Brown Lou Groza, is presented by the Palm Beach County Sports Commission to the Nation’s outstanding Place kicker. Basil hit 84.2% of his FG attempts last year, good for 5th all-time at OSU. He nailed 12 consecutive attempts at one point, which is the 3rd longest streak in OSU history.

D-linemen John Simon and Johnathan Hankins added to their collection of watch lists for 2012. Both linemen appear on the Bronko Nagurski Trophy watch list. The award is handed out annually by the Football Writers Association of America to the Nation’s top defensive player.

Additionally, Hankins is on the Outland Trophy watch list. The Outland Trophy is awarded to the Nation’s outstanding interior lineman.

Hopefully, the D-line lives up to the pre-season hype.

It has been a happy couple of weeks for me as College Football season begins to creep up on us, waiting for a hug of jubilation. I’d recently received the Phil Steele CFB preview and now the award watch lists are beginning to pop up. First up, the Maxwell and Bednarik awards.

The Bednarik Award is presented to the nation’s top defensive player each year and features two Buckeyes from what should be an incredible defensive line. DT Johnathan Hankins and DE John Simon were both forces to be reckoned with last year. Hankins is massive and, frankly, has probably haunted the dreams of many a B1G QB. Simon is, well, he’s just a beast. He’s also a tremendous leader and a master of the weight room. Both anchor a unit that could arguably be the best in the B1G.

The Maxwell Award is given to the Nation’s most outstanding player. It often seems to go to the Heisman runner-up, but that’s not important. QB Braxton Miller has made an appearance on this list, no doubt a result of the fact that he pretty much single-handedly carried the Buckeye offense last year. Oh, yeah, and he will be playing in an Urban Meyer system that plays very much to his strengths.

Tomorrow, the Mackey and Rimington watch lists will be announced. I will not be surprised to see a Buckeye on one of these lists, assuming they were not hindered by the, uh, peeing incident.

Buckeye defensive linemen John Simon was named as a third-team All-American by the AP. Simon recorded 50 tackles, 15 TFL, 7 sacks, 3 PBUs and, by unofficial count, drew approximately 20 uncalled holding penalties against TSUN in their attempts to restrain this beast of a defender. Simon was named 1st team B1G by the coaches and earned B1G player of the week honors for his performance against Illinois.

Congratulations, John!

John Simon was one of ESPN's top 10 workout freaks in CFB and he now has POTW honors to add to his list.

Ohio State defensive tackle John Simon earned Big Ten defensive player of the week honors for his career performance in the Buckeyes 17-7 win over the Illini.

Simon had a career best four tackles for loss and two sacks. The four TFL is one shy of the Ohio State record. This is Simon’s first POTW honor and the first defensive honoree since Brian Rolle on November, 22nd 2010.