Looking At The Tressel/Ohio State Situation

So, Tressel’s excuse is that he didn’t notify the NCAA because the Feds trump the NCAA. Fair point.

Fair point? There is no documentation to support this. None. Under law, A.K.A. his contract, he should have immediately reported this to the compliance office/NCAA. There is no excusing this infraction regardless of what colored glasses you wear. People need to quit making excuses and examine the facts available, regardless of what teams we are fans of.

And all Tressel did was send an email back that essentially says:

“okay, thanks for the info. Keep me posted.”

Misleading. ‘ASAP’ isn’t a thanks for the info type response.

but even if it was a Fed (which I don’t think it was) that was telling him to ‘keep it quiet’

Again misleading. The April 2nd email makes no mention of it being confidential, not until the April 16th email does the person state that ‘What I tell you is confidential’. This is you spinning things to make JT look at least decent. Again, just stick with the facts. There is no documentation for him to keep it quiet, only an email in which an ‘informant’ if you will, says keep my name out of this.

When I was in the Army

When I was in the Army my platoon sergeant used to say, “You’re only as good as your last fuck up”.

I’m sick of this being spun one way or another. It isn’t good, no matter how you spin it. What is to be determined is the repercussions of the NCAA investigation. It is a black eye to all the B1G no matter the spin.

There is a huge discrepancy in the character and integrity of the people who are in charge at schools like Ohio State. There is a reason kids like Maurice Claurette and other young men of very questionable character find themselves at OSU. It’s a good fit.

1. He thought he was genuinely doing the right thing by not saying anything about players that he knew were violating NCAA rules, because it was part of an ongoing federal investigation…that the OSU legal department and AD Gene Smith didn’t need to be bothered about.

He still kept his mouth shut once the FEDS told OSU about the investigation in December. I mean, you have to suspend a lot of rational thought to believe he was right to never tell anyone by the time December rolled around. But once the feds are telling you about the investigation what is there to keep secret anymore? In the end, even the most generous interpretation of the timeline has Tressel lying (by omission) to his compliance dept and the NCAA in December. Unless of course neither of them ever asked the question “Had you previously heard anything about these infractions” (or something similar) during the December investigation. And somehow I doubt that’s the case.

As much as we like to think we’re different in the Big Ten, it’s still big time college football, and the pressure to win means that you could probably go to 115 DI schools and find some kind of violation, recruiting or otherwise, but make no mistake, I’m not saying that to try and minimize what happened here.

I take umbrige with this only because I can’t remember the last time anyone other than OSU screwed up something this bad with the NCAA. The Rich Rodriguez practicing thing maybe but even then it isn’t like Michigan has a long history of offenses.

As a league, we certainly all make mistakes. However it would be interesting for someone to study how many NCAA violations Ohio State has had in the past decade compared to the rest of the conference. Perhaps it is because they are a bigger insitution and get more publicity but I feel like Ohio State has certainly gotten busted for NCAA violations a lot more recently than the rest of us.

Note, I am referring to NCAA violation here. Drug/alcohol charges are different because they don’t impact a school’s ability to win (and if they do it is almost never in a positive way) and are variable depending on how much athlete’s can get away with in a specific area. If someone wants to do a study on that as well though be my guest.

I am not saying Ohio State is dirty either, I just feel like some research should be done on the subject so we have a barometer to judge by. If we could find a reasonable way to determine what constitutes a major NCAA infraction (i.e. something they will actually hand out a fairly substantial punishment for) and then compare the Big Ten I think it would put this in a lot more perspective rather than look at this with blanket assertions like “oh they’re a dirty program” or “everybody does the same thing” because the limited evidence we have now really doesn’t support either of those.

Please don’t feed him. You’ll spoil his supper and this thread. ;o)

Is every offseason we get top billing in the local papers, we being the larger SEC programs, for having multiple secondary violations… aka big scary words used to get hits and continue whatever narrative the local paper has going at the time.

If I can’t avoid finding out that Georgia committed 4 secondary violations without hiding in a cave… then how in the world can OSU’s NCAA record 370ish secondary violations go completely unnoticed by most of the college football world?

Seriously, I’d kill for a local paper that wasn’t constantly trying to play gotcha with our AD.

but first, getting busted for possession of beer while underage but just sorta maybe sticking out in a small town called Iowa City, rife with wound-up cops, because you’re 6’7" and 280?, is an offense that Jim Tressel wishes he were dealing with — right after he pulls all those strings to get a neighbor off on a jaywalking ticket.

We’re talking about something a little more troubling, with this obstruction of NCAA justice thing. Honestly, Tressel is so buttoned up I cannot understand it. It’s like reading in the morning papers that he hasn’t paid his taxes in five years. You could knock me over, similarly, if you told me that Ferentz had an Oxy problem. Or that Doyle sent 13 guys to dialysis …. well, maybe not that. I was already knocked over by that.

So my two questions:

• Tressel is not OSU football, and Tressel is not the proprietor of OSU football. So on one level, the NCAA’s level, he doesn’t matter — at all. He is an instrument, an employee, of an institution. I’m very skeptical about all this ‘punishment’ of Tressel, followed by (without so much as a semi-colon) statements by Smith that he was coach for life or something. Well, OSU is in the witness box, here; Tressel merely implicates OSU. He’s a sideshow. This is an institutional meltdown, no less than if a corporation publishes a phony 10-K. Sure, blame the CFO, but the plaintiff’s bar wants to know why the CEO hired that CFO. What am I missing?

• I read (and can hardly believe) that Tressel played potentially ineligible players knowingly. First he forgot to tell people what was going on, then he forgot that he was supposed to tell people the truth. So everyone is talking about vacating the entire season’s wins. If they are right, how on earth is OSU’s ‘punishment’ of Tressel supposed to mollify the NCAA? They take a month of pay, and two weeks of the season, when they’re playing Muskingum or Oberlin or somebody. Either OSU is dreaming, or the innertubes are overstating the gravity of this situation. The punishments do not align. What am I missing?

Tressel: Sorry, I forgot

NCAA: Oh, well……..tough shit, shoulda remembered (Hits him with USC like sentence)

^^^

is what i want to happen

this over use of the word Integrity when speaking of Tressel. I suspect when he was hired from Youngstown State (and the hot mess he left there) fOSU felt the need for a makeover of sorts and all kinds of subliminal and overt efforts were made by the sports marketing people there to achieve this.

It worked. There is a huge segment of the population here (I live in Cleveland) who can’t see what has happened. They believe he did nothing really wrong. Because he’s a man of “integrity.”

Or, worse, they see it and say, “Big deal. Delany is crooked. He will get us out of this” – actual quote. Or “He’s playing the confidentiality card. Classic Tressel. I love it” – another actual quote.

I also need to mention that there are many who are dissappointed and want him gone.

But if Ohio St is forced to vacate all of their wins it’ll be a final kick in the balls to Michigan St fans. Now Sparty can claim the 2010 crown outright but still couldn’t say they went to a BCS bowl game.

One also has to remember this: Schools, AD’s, fanbases, etc…they have different relationships everywhere. Remember the Detroit Free Press essentially going after the Michigan football program? I’m not sure the Columbus Dispatch would ever do that. People who live in Columbus, the AD, the president…they’re all protecting the hell out of Tressel right now. It’s the natural reaction for that fanbase and it’s leaders. Compare that to say, Texas Tech looking, praying for reasons to fire the very successful Mike Leach.

That I am proud of the majority of Ohio State fans for settling on rationality here on Day 2. I agree with the majority of your opinions – I don’t begrudge your situation, but I appreciate the balancing of your desire to succeed on the field with your desire to have a program that you can take pride in and trust to not completely sell out in a situation like this where the writing seems to be on the wall.

As far as Tressel’s ultimate resolution, I think it’s smart to just wait and see. If this is an isolated incident (I have my doubts, but that’s for another discussion), then I think it wouldn’t be terrible to give him a second chance (after a fair punishment is meted out). I’d hate to see him thrown under the bus just in hopes of getting a lesser penalty. But if the situation becomes such that he’s gotta go, then that’s what should happen.

So, Tressel’s excuse is that he didn’t notify the NCAA because the Feds trump the NCAA. Fair point. Okay, so far, I can buy this. And if there’s no proof of wrongdoing, do you sit guys without anything other than a single email?

BS. Tressel knows selling rings is an improper benefit for an amateur athlete. He should have notified his compliance dept at the very least.

So with that, there are only two logical conclusions that we can come to reagarding Tressel’s decision making in this matter.

1. He thought he was genuinely doing the right thing by not saying anything about players that he knew were violating NCAA rules, because it was part of an ongoing federal investigation…that the OSU legal department and AD Gene Smith didn’t need to be bothered about. didn’t want to lose 5 key players for a promising season.

2. Jim Tressel is no different than any other coach

/fixed