Welcome to The B-Gap: A place for Ohio State football coverage

When I joined The Athletic back in 2018, I shared with you that I cried upon learning that I was being promoted to the Ohio State beat at cleveland.com ahead of the 2014 season. They were happy tears. Maybe tears of disbelief.

Many moons ago, I landed on sports journalism as the field I one day hoped to work in. From there, covering college football was always the goal. To get my first full-time crack at it by covering a program like Ohio State was an opportunity I never really envisioned for myself. Plus, I tend to get a bit emotional at even trivial things. Truth time: I once was brought to tears by an episode of “Baywatch.”

Not everyone is fortunate enough to turn their passions into a career. I’ve tried to never lose sight of how lucky I am to do so.

I hope I’m able to write about college football for the rest of my working life, which is why I’m here telling you about this new venture now. I was staring down a fall without an outlet to write about college football, without a plan to write about the Buckeyes. It didn’t feel great. I’ve been in journalism for almost 20 years, dating back to college, and I’ve been writing about Ohio State football for more than a decade.

I didn’t want to stop. Didn’t have any other opportunities to do it elsewhere. I figured, why not try my own thing?

So, welcome to The B-Gap, my new home for writing about the Buckeyes.

Get it? B as in “Bill”? B as in “Buckeyes”? B-gap being a part of football jargon? It’s admittedly not the most clever name, but it’s something more than “Bill Landis’ Ohio State writing place.”

If you’ve followed my coverage of Ohio State previously, first of all, thank you. Secondly, you probably have a good idea of what to expect here. I like writing about the game, mostly because in doing so, I almost always learn something new about it myself. So there will be plenty of that here, game rewatches, statistical analysis and a focus on Xs and Os stuff that I’ve always found interesting and incredibly fun to write about. I’ve gotten away from writing in-depth features over the last couple of years, but I plan on getting back to that here. I’ll chime in on the happenings with columns and opinion pieces as well.

I’m not a news-breaker, and won’t pretend to be to drum up subscriptions. But when news happens, I’d like to think I can offer a perspective that synthesizes that information in ways that help you better understand your favorite football team. I’m also not in the business of recruiting scoops, but I hope you support the many fine folks in this market who are. That said, I do like analyzing roster-building and will certainly do that here.

For now, this is solely a writing outlet. My podcasting will be kept to the Kings of the North show that I do with Doug Lesmerises, which you can find Monday to Thursday and on Saturday nights throughout the season, for free, on YouTube and wherever you find podcasts. We’ll talk plenty of Buckeyes all year on that show.

I plan on being at most Ohio State home games and weekly media availabilities. I won’t be traveling with the Buckeyes, and I may miss occasional interviews. I want to be transparent about that as I ask you to sign up for this thing. Whether I’m on-site or not, I’ll be writing either way.

Most of what I publish will be behind a paywall. You can pay either $5 per month or $50 for the entire year. Or, hey, if you’d rather just be a free subscriber and check in on that stuff, that’s cool too. I appreciate you being here. In addition to the premium written content, subscribers will have access to the chat feature, where we can talk about the Buckeyes and you can submit questions for mailbags.

Stories can be found here on this page, and will also be emailed to you upon publication.

I so appreciate the support and kind words I’ve received from Ohio State fans over the years, and I look forward to continuing that coverage. If all of this sounds like something you’d be interested in checking out, you can hit the subscribe button below.