{"id":126588,"date":"2020-01-07T04:56:14","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T09:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=126588"},"modified":"2020-01-07T04:56:20","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T09:56:20","slug":"random-thoughts-koza-nfl-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2020\/01\/07\/random-thoughts-koza-nfl-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Random Thoughts: Koza, NFL and more"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent sports editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week\u2019s Random Thoughts center around Vince Koza, Ohio State basketball, high school basketball rankings, a big matchup in store, Mike McCarthy, Dallas and Cleveland, and the snake bitten New Orleans Saints. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vince Koza<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you know, 93.1 The Fan\u2019s Vince Koza passed away last week after a short battle with cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this line of work I would run into Vince occasionally and we served on an Ohio High School Athletic Association committee together. He was a genuinely nice guy who was very passionate about high school athletics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His passing is a big loss to the area sports scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calling hours for Vince Koza will be held from 3-8 p.m. on Wednesday in the Lima Sr. High School Gymnasium and one hour prior to a 10:30 a.m. service at St. Gerard\u2019s Catholic Church in Lima. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rest in peace Vince. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

OSU hoops<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After rising to as high as No. 2 in the rankings, the Ohio State Buckeyes basketball team has suffered back-to-back losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not like it\u2019s time to hit the panic button, but those losses have exposed a couple of holes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things won\u2019t get any easier this week. OSU will play at Maryland tonight and at Indiana on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Rankings<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first Associated Press boys and girls basketball rankings were released on Monday and there aren\u2019t many surprises. The polls can be found on today\u2019s Sports page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big matchup<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week from Saturday, January 18, Ottawa-Glandorf will host Lima Sr in non-conference boys\u2019 basketball action. I can\u2019t imagine any empty seats in the gym that night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was fast<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cowboys certainly didn\u2019t waste any time hiring a new head coach. A day after officially announcing that Jason Garrett wouldn\u2019t return, sources confirmed that Mike McCarthy, who also interviewed with the Cleveland Browns, would be the next Dallas coach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Cowboys didn\u2019t handle Garrett\u2019s dismissal very well, they didn\u2019t mess around naming a new coach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This says it all <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I came across this Tweet on Monday and it\u2019s spot on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It reads \u201cSo Jerry Jones makes Mike McCarthy feel welcome by opening his home to him for the night. Jimmy Haslam makes McCarthy feel welcome by scheduling a press conference in the middle of McCarthy\u2019s interview during which he stressed how the Browns are interviewing a ton of candidates.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bingo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snake bitten? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there a more snake bitten team now than the New Orleans Saints, who have lost three straight playoff games to the Minnesota Vikings?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunday\u2019s 26-20 overtime loss in the NFC Wild Card game was no less heartbreaking than the previous two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As always, if you have thoughts about any of the above subjects, feel free to email me at sports@thevwindependent.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor This week\u2019s Random Thoughts center around Vince Koza, Ohio State basketball, high school basketball rankings, a big matchup in store, Mike McCarthy, Dallas and Cleveland, and the snake bitten New Orleans Saints. Vince Koza As you know, 93.1 The Fan\u2019s Vince Koza passed away last week after a short battle with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-04 01:43:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}