FanHouse AlexBoone

There are plenty of temptations for guys in their early 20s, just out of college, and suddenly wealthy. Actually, you don't have to be recently graduated or rich, just in your 20s. But it's only news when professional athletes get in trouble.

Like, for example, former Ohio State offensive lineman Alex Boone, who was expecting to hear his name called on draft weekend in late April until, well, he got drunk off his ass and lost his mind.

It's not how it sounds, but still -- funny. Senior-to-be Ohio State linebacker Marcus Freeman recounts the moment a bunch of men made a very important decision to stay together, while in the shower.

ESPN: I hate to make you describe a shower scene, but take me back to after the LSU loss when you and the other juniors talked about coming back for this season.

MF: Just a lot of emotion. Sitting on that bench and thinking, 'Hey, I don't think I'm going to come back and have this feeling again.' But we got in the shower, everybody's disappointed. I forget who was the first person to say something, but it was weird that all of us that had major decisions about coming back were all in the shower at the same time. (Alex) Boone or Malcolm Jenkins or someone said, 'Hey, I'm coming back. I'm not leaving college football like this.' And then James Laurinaitis said, 'I'm coming back, too,' and I said, 'I'm coming back, too.' We all knew we really had to go home and think about it, but that was the first feeling of, 'Hey, let's come back and do it one more time. Let's go out with a bang our senior year.'

We tease, but the shower is high on the list of unusual places to collectively arrive at such an important decision.

(Via: Twin Killing)

This is the sort of thing that leads to serious comment flaming complete with people calling other people "loosers!!!!" so if we could just clarify: it's not that any of these players are actually bad. They're just not as good as popularly acclaimed to be, either by rave-prone announcers or star-dazed recruitniks or awards-granting committees or All Big Ten teams. All of these players would start on most teams in the league and said teams would be happy to have them; they just aren't all that with bag of chips and salsa and guacamole and etc etc etc.

1. James Laurinaitis, LB, Ohio State

It's not that Laurinaitis is a bad player. He's not. He flows well sideline-to-sideline and if you don't get a blocker on him he will find you and tackle you. He's good on his zone drops, too. But what he is not is an all-conquering "animal" -- ha! -- that can destroy you by idly considering ways in which he would like your head to implode. Nor does he have hypno-toad eyes which force quarterbacks to throw the ball directly to him, copious evidence from last year be damned. But don't tell this to Brent Musberger, whose orgasmic rendition of the James Laurinaitis show in this year's Texas-Ohio State matchup established the middle linebacker as the country's best... for some reason. Never mind that Texas wasn't actually that good at running the ball last year or that Colt McCoy was still in freshman embryo mode and was reduced mostly to checkdowns and screens. By the time these facts became clear, it was too late: the legend of Laurinaitis was born. Simply, if you get a hat on the guy he's done. Both Michigan and Florida eliminated him from their games just by blocking the guy and put up 39 and 41 points, respectively. He should improve this year, and I'd even put him on an All Big Ten second team behind true monster Dan Connor, but he is not the be all and end all of linebackers.