Goodbye Columbus: Ohio State Investigation Expands Yet Again

Hmmm……we a major university having once again issues with their athletes "interacting’ with boosters and local businessmen , noth a representative of the university and a booster have been contacted by various agencies/departments of the Federal Government, and the head coach is underscrutiny for lying to NCAA investigators, his bosses and hiding material information about the actions of his star players.

OU or Miami of the 1980’s ?

No, at the least the Canes had a style about them and Barry’s boys took the creedo if you are going to do something go big literally when you consider drug trafficing, team mates shooting each other, gang rape, and a star player basically saying FU to the NCAA on national television so he didn’t have to go through the normal draft process.

Now that I think about it I can stomach the Canes and Barry’s Caligula act of program far more than Ohio State the past decade. The Buckeyes are the poster child for lack of institutional control and when you consider that Andy Geiggar has already fallen on his freaking sword for the entire program at the start of the century, Tressell’s Eddie Haskell routine about ethics, and Gordon Gee I don’t think I have ever truly disliked a program this much.

More importantly the Buckeyes have backed the NCAA into a corner. If the NCAA fails to act after a decade of this crap in Columbus their days as the governing body in their current role are numbered.

(*This reply is motivated by Arrogant Frog Wine, the unofficial wine of Davey O’Brien’s rambling rants and replies.)

A fork in Tressel, stick. Done, he is.

“their days as the governing body in their current role are numbered”

Obviously the big loser in this is Boise St. The NCAA is sharpening their smurf blue spiked dildo as we speak.

I am waiting for a smaller school to go Tarkanian on the NCAA and sue them for differing levels of enforcement.

id be surprised if anything real serious happens. the NCAA loves their big schools. thats why the only thing that has affected USC was their absence from a middle-tier bowl this yr. Thats why Auburn is “innocent” and the SEC and Oregon arent bein looked at seriously.

These schools need to be penalized like okie state in the 80s- no bowls for X yrs and no tv for X yrs. I would also want reduced scholarships too. If the ncaa did that, teams would have a whole lot better institutional control. But they dont wanna take someone like Auburn, Ohio State or USC off of the airwaves. thats the issue.

You first leak a memo addressing the possible reinstatement of capital punishment. You let that simmer for a bit and let people freak out about it, if no reasonable corrective action is taken; no bowl, no tv, no off campus recruiting trips, and reduction of scholarships. Anyone else caught misbehaving, you drop the bomb on.

Meddlesome that is about a ‘Meh’ an approach as I can think of. Here is how it will play out. OSU gets a wrist slap and the NCAA roars about the penalties the next school will get. That school will inevitably be another SMU or a really small-time program. They’ll get the death penalty and everyone will say the penalty was too strong and then the NCAA will go back to wrist slapping the next big program caught in the act, citing the outcry over the previously stiffer penalties. If the NCAA really wanted to do this right they would have a standard set of penalties for each level of infraction and would then dole out those penalties consistently, allowing successful appeals only in obvious and dramatic cases of investigative failure on the NCAA’s part.

meddy, you seem to think the ncaa actually would like to do something rather than look like they do things.

there is one true overarching desire that drives the ncaa. i have a little bit of the object of that desire in my wallet as we ‘speak’. nothing else really is very important to the ncaa people. absolutely nothing.

the ncaa is all about appearances and that one true desire. i think people all over the country have taken notice.

The thing that pisses me off most about this is that its being made out as a bigger deal than Auburn pay for play. Even cars aren’t in the same ballpark as $180k. The NCAA was so quick to sweep that under the rug and not even attempt to do any investigation, when there was smoke a mile high if not fire. Why not look at financial records or make a phone call to DOJ who was investigating the bank?

This is why I appreciate Mack more than most. I believe that he’s a true class and would never let something like this happen on his watch. Maybe I’m naive though.

So question:
Texas = the best program in the country that doesn’t cheat?

Ohio State is pretty much out of control. But forgive me if I am skeptical that the NCAA will do anything about it.

Gordon Gee was the president of CU the last time they were any good.

Coincidence? I think not.

Can’t really see the NCAA nuking tOSU given the compliance department’s self-reporting of the original emails. Can see tOSU allowing facts of the situation to point towards a football staff that did not go out of its way to play their role in compliance (never properly appreciated — people tend to think of the compliance people as the police and not the coaches, when the NCAA system clearly expects coaches to be de facto compliance staff as well). In other words, looks like everything’s going to land on Tressel’s head.

I think the criticism that coaches skate while programs get hammered is resonating with the COI. Look to Indiana U basketball/Sampson for your template on this one.

Tressell is overseeing a the most profitable “division” inside a multi-million dollar company known as the Ohio State athtice department. At the most it involves 200 ‘employees" and for this he gets paid millions of dollars a year. If he doesn’t know what the hell is going on inside and outside his program something is seriously wrong. Aside from losing games this is the single biggest threat to the health of your program and there is no reason no to hold any head coach accountable for the transgressions of athletes in his program when there have been two other significant incidents during the past ten years.

In regards to the Ohio State athletic compliance department I am convinced it is staffed with former Pakistanhi military intelligence officers.

No disagreement there. I’m still trying to decide why the local paper is chasing this down. The Dispatch is locally owned by a family who also owned one of the TV stations and had gobs of money. Very much in the tank. Something significant’s changed in that particular part of the equation, although I have no way of finding out exactly what.

At some point a story becomes so overwhelming that even the local guys have to work at it. You may be in the tank for the local team, but you don’t want to look like you are a total sellout.

This story has momentum, the local paper has sources that no doubt have information they are more than willing to pass along.

On Sources, Momentum and Being in the Tank … My guess is that, somewhere, there is a personal animosity that got established between one or more people at The Dispatch and tOSU Athletic Dept., and Mr. Tressel. That is essentially how Michael Rosenberg at The Detroit Free Press is rumored to have latched onto the story of players practicing too much at Michigan, (the truth turned out to be far less onerous than Rosenberg reported – 20 minutes of stretching per week – but U-M took punishment anyway, contradicting the notion that “The Truth shall set you free”). That connection between The Dispatch and someone in the AD will never be revealed, of course.

By the way, I made it down to The Drag for the first time last month, (I live in Michigan). Took my wife and children to Texas on Spring Break. Great trip and we came back with Longhorns shirts from the Co-op. To all of you whom we might have encountered, thanks so much for great hospitality! We’ll be back for sure.

Tressel stinks. Some of the fine and influential folks of Columbus are tired of his saintly schtick, when he’s actually quite the scumbag. As well, they are tired of his under-achieving teams. Those who want Tressel out are swimming up stream at the moment, but they actually have the power to force him out. He’s the Mack Brown of the north, so I wouldn’t get too comfortable with the attitude of “we (UT) are the best major school that doesn’t cheat.”

Jim Tresel is not the “Mack Brown of the North.”

Tressel ran a corrupt program at Youngstown St. There is nothing in Mack’s past that is even close.

Ohio State knew what it was getting when they hired him.

As far as you know, there is nothing in MB’s past. How many rule violators are there that haven’t been caught?

Nice Sooner logic there LHDoc

I take pleasure in, cause I discovered exactly what I used to be having a look for. You have ended my 4 day lengthy hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day. Bye