A lot of fun was had at The Who’s expense over the weekend, as they schlepped through the Super Bowl halftime show playing songs from their heyday (Boomers, no protesting please - this is a band that is quickly approaching the 30^th anniversary of its break-up).  Their placement at the centerpiece of Super Bowl halftime was consistent with six-year exercise of brick-and-mortar rock acts that abruptly halted what had become a regular foray into graceless pop entertainment mashups.  When we last saw anyone under the age of 50 ripping up the field between halves of the year’s biggest game, it was Diddy, Nelly, Kid Rock and Justin Timberlake all sharing the stage with Janet Jackson’s right breast amidst the backdrop of an MTV-produced mosh pit.  Outrage ensued, and the acts that have been rolled out since have been exclusively of the vintage variety.

Clearer hindsight would have seen that watershed moment in television history coming.  The two years prior to the Breast that Shocked the Country, the Super Bowl halftime show was a tempered, relatively dressed down formality as large crowds-plus-Americana equaled 9/11 remembrance.  That grace period only delayed the inevitable; Jackson’s breast would have made its world debut two Bowls earlier coming off of the 2001 show that featured a Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler and Chris Rock pre-recorded skit that led into some vomitous DJ nightmare combining N’Sync, Aerosmith, Britney Spears, Nelly and Mary J. Blige all grabbing their crotches and high-fiving each other (recall that this was three years prior to the advent of the fist bump going mainstream).  Left undeterred by the infamous wardrobe malfunction, last Sunday’s Super Bowl would have likely been an exponentially more perverse concoction than rolling The Who out of their long term care facility to play the oldies; think Black Eyed Peas, Ke$ha, Young Money & Lloyd, Lady Gaga and Lil Wayne all shouting over each other in some tricked-out version of Immigrant Song along with Robert Plant that anyone with a sophisticated enough palate to prefer Quik over Yoo-Hoo would rightfully hate.  And you had the drunken intrepidity to make fun of The Who.  Dude, they saved you from something far worse.

There’s a premium on decision making, regardless of industry or craft.  Jackson’s breast flopping out (and the subsequent fines that were levied against the network) shifted the tracks of the Halftime Show train toward the current series of relatively safe acts in their twilight or past it.  The decision was made by consequences; lessons learned, tough stuff, hello sanitized classic rock, goodbye auto-tuned Sodom and Gomorrah.  The same weekend that Pete Townsend took time out from “researching” kiddie porn to deftly execute his more palatable signature move, another sign and rather ominous clue was benevolently projected from Minnesota toward Central Ohio in the form of a radio interview with Cretin-Derham Hall offensive lineman, Tom Lemming pawn and former must-have recruit of the Ohio State Buckeyes, Seantrel Henderson and his aspiring rapper father.  When asked if looming sanctions at Seantrel’s top choice school of USC could impact his son’s decision to go there, Mr. Henderson explicitly said:

"I wouldn’t lose the leverage that we have. I mean, at the end of the day it’s still a business and at the end of the day it’s still my son’s future. And everything that’s going to possibly go on in his life could boil down to that decision and I wouldn’t sell him basically, per se, you know, but my son, his life away and put it in their hands not knowing, you know, what the future holds for USC or for him. And so I’d rather be able to at least let him keep his options open,  because if things aren’t looking good come the 20^th or the 21^st [of February] or whatever, then we might have to move in a different direction, but it’s only for the sake of his future."

Now, to borrow a little logical happenstance from Donald Rumsfeld, there are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.  What we know about recruiting is that it’s unavoidably creepy most of the time.  What we know we don’t know about recruiting is who exactly is going to end up successful in the comprehensive collegiate capacity, succinctly, progressing through a valid course of study, avoiding eligibility dramatics, thriving in university life and producing in game time.  What we don’t know we don’t know about recruiting is if a solitary teenage soul and his attention-loving paternal figure could be the ringer magnet for the unsavory masses that flock to impressionable budding stars with promises and offers that compromise program stability and stature.  All it takes is one sycophant, one enabler, one instance of youthful indiscretion and one wannabe Carl Bernstein to produce a decade’s worth of inescapable black clouds.  Having followed the Henderson recruitment - probably too closely - put me in the camp that won’t shed a tear of regret if Derek Morris - I mean, Seantrel Henderson - goes elsewhere.  I came to this decision by simply expunging Ohio State’s 2012 OL depth chart from my hippocampus.  It was that easy to think more clearly.  Every scholarship offer is a calculated risk, and while Seantrel’s film and measurables are both awesome, from a selfish standpoint not a month will go by when he and his father won’t look like a delicious chicken wing in the fishtank of piranhas that are the bootlickers and adulators constantly on the periphery of any major college football program.   But Ohio State needs a huge offensive tackle.  Who doesn’t.  Dude, the Hendersons going elsewhere may save you from something far worse than a hole on the line.

It might not be fair or relevant to compare one situation to another; another example from this past recruiting year is the general aversion to Latwan Anderson being blamed in part to an aftershock from Ray Small redux: Less than ideal student from Glenville with a history of extremely poor decision making.  Sure, they’re two different people.  Seantrel probably hasn’t ever heard of Morris.  But one thing to take into consideration is that among the many gifts that Ginn Senior sends in Ohio State’s direction, his scrutiny is probably the most overlooked.  If you pay enough attention to how that recruitment transpired (at this point Mr. Bucknuts would shove me into a locker if I failed to point out the relevance of a sexy, stylish total access membership to this noble endeavor) you’d better understand.  I’m not fluent in tea leaves, but I’m good enough to translate in a pinch: If Ginn Senior thinks one of his Glenville boys belongs at Ohio State, it will happen.  There isn’t a Ginn Senior at Cretin-Durham Hall.  Seantrel’s father has stepped into that role, bizarro or otherwise, creating hindsight before it even happens.

Coming back to Henderson Senior, frowning on the idea of jumping the boxcar that is your behemoth son’s football future to launch a rap career in your late thirties is far more unsavory than simply aspiring to be a thirtysomething rapper.  It’s not Mr. Henderson’s ends as much as it is the way in which he has broadcasted the means.  It would be equally insipid of him if he were riding his son’s football career en route to being an aspiring phallus juggler, barista or dog park landscaper (in which case Seantrel would have verballed to Michigan State long ago - ZING!)  My personal lifelong affection of Mr. Henderson’s preferred musical genre notwithstanding, if he was going to intertwine his own parasitic proclivities with his son’s college choice, he could have done the decent or self-aware thing and been a just little more subtle about it.  Seantrel had been getting major scholarship offers since he stepped foot in high school.  His family has literally had years to adjust to the flood of publicity, which suggests that the signs are not just of the smoke variety.  With this recruitment, we are at the point where we are watching Puff Daddy perform “Diddy” to the tune of the Toni Basil song “Mickey” during the Super Bowl halftime show and wondering, “hmm, things are pretty stupid right now; could they get even worse?” (And were it not for Janet’s little surprise gift moments later, that would probably stand as the singular Gigli moment of Super Bowl halftime shows.)  Among the unknown unknowns is what will become of Seantrel’s football career, but if for whatever reason it goes controversial it would be impossible to say nobody ever saw it coming.

The Super Bowl halftime show has some history that has probably escaped a lot of self-proclaimed football devotees.  Huge, mega-celebrity acts like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Treach from Naughty by Nature, Indiana Jones, Brian Boitano - the actual guy, not the cartoon, the University of Michigan marching band and sweet Carol Channing (twice) have all taken that stage.  Granted, the Super Bowl wasn’t always what it is today, but for decades the halftime show had no identity.  And unlike the Super Bowl in its formative years, Ohio State football already has an identity.  We talk about Tressel-type guys that slip through our grasp for three to five years and leave memories of accomplishment and excellence.  Seantrel Henderson may be one of those guys, but if somehow that ends up materializing and he moves to Columbus in a few months, I’ll feel more relief once he matriculates through Ohio State without crisis than when he arrives amidst fanfare and heavy hip hop beats knowing that what could have passed for cautionary hindsight was in fact bogus data.

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A NOTE TO BUCKNUTS’ CHARMING READERS: I would like to apologize to the noble and resplendent of you who emailed my Bucknuts.com email address over the past several, um, months and/or years.  I had incorrectly assumed that Bucknuts email was forwarding to my ramzy_bucknuts Yahoo address which many of you continue to use.  It was fun logging in for the first time to over 1,200 messages and immediately feeling like the jackass of the year.  To answer the gist of your questions: No, I don’t know why Tressel doesn’t throw to the TE more often, I know even less about the efficacy of blocking sleds or any the existence incriminating photos Jim Bollman may or may not have stashed in a safety deposit box and yes, as long as Jim Tressel is the first guy sprinting out of the tunnel Ohio State will be swishing around annually in that little elitist BCS Title teacup. (And again, I’m sorry - for the jackassery and for anything else I should be sorry for.)