M-Borg vs. THE Flavortown U Thread, Orig. by Buckeye Paul, absconded w/by talent.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Allegedly it goes beyond Ginn Sr. .... way beyond and is widespread. Whether or not osu is involved is the question at present.

If there is a money trail to them at all, just another bullet between the eyes.

[Pasadena Blue]

Jeff,
can you post a link to this?

None of this really surprises me, and the Oregon stuff kind of is in the same vein ... since paying the players directly is problematic, pay various enablers/influencers.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Sorry PB ...... it is a general discussion item that I have seen at Rivals from a reliable poster. It was mentioned again this morning and somewhere on the boards there will be a link but I'll have to dig. If I find, I will post.

[Dr. Strangelove]

We haven't been getting our money's worth out of the Glenville pipeline since '06, goddamit

[SeanB]

Strangelove, not trying to sound like an ass (really), but your tone has changed a bit of late in regards to all of this. Just too much info out there now not to expect some heavy punishment?

Also, there was mention this morning on the local sports radio that the IRS may be getting involved with Pryor and Talbott, given the level of unreported income for the two. Talbott had allegedly been running an unregistered business in Ohio, Varsity O Sports Memorabilia (or something like that), which is a no-no.

He also had items up on ebay as recently as two days ago, but they have since all come down. Problem is, he forgot to clean up his old MySpace page, and there was incriminating information on there as well.

As we've all said, as soon as the feds get involved, it won't matter if these guys don't want to talk to the NCAA (as Pryor has said), they'll have to talk to the feds.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I expect a bowl ban now after the news about the memorabilia sales came out. I am hoping its localized to Pryor but we'll see. It sounds like he's been ineligible practically since he stepped foot on campus. Compliance certainly should have caught it over the course of two years at the very least.

This is on AD Smith and I don't see how he survives. Compliance reports to him, not Tressel.

[Hannibal]

The O/U is stil "USC". Still taking the "under"? heh heh

[Jeff Buchanan]

Interesting thread on the Talbott - pryor autographed equipment sales at Rivals. I'll try to summarize .......

While the NCAA does not need proof in a legal sense (the burden of proof is also not well defined when it comes to COI proceedings), it is not likely it will act on hearsay re the newest allegations about pryor getting large sums of cash for equipment and so far that is all that is available.

There is reportedly a check out there that pryor deposited from Talbott. Nothing confirmed but if there is any hard evidence of the exchange of money between Talbot and pryor the NCAA will have enough to act and will act on other hearsay surrounding this issue ...... that incidentally spreads to the issue of the overall management of football equipment by osu, known or should have known arguments and LOIC or failure to monitor. These are big deals if there is one piece of evidence that an exchange of money took place; moreover, nothing in the NCAA proceedings by-laws says that the piece of evidence has to meet a legal requirement for such evidence one might find in a court of law.

In the USC case there was only one phone call that proved a link between USC football staff and receipt by Reggie Bush of improper benefits but that is all it took for the NCAA to connect the dots and state USC's explanations of these dealings between football staff, Bush and others was implausible and therefore ...... you know the rest.

This is predominantly a technical argument. Nevertheless the outcome of the argument will determine the severity of the penalties osu receives from the NCAA. Some observers have commented they don't trust the skills of NCAA investigators nor do the trust the NCAA not to come to some politically acceptable outcome here.

In other words, lets say there is evidence supporting an exchange of cash did take place between pryor and Talbott but the NCAA, for political reasons, decides not to pursue it. They are under no legal obligation to do so. They just choose to not open that box for all the reasons that have already been raised here by skeptics.

osu will be working hard to try to demonstrate that the serious NCAA by-law violations are limited to pryor and perhaps a few others who are (or will be) gone. Aside from tressel lying about when he knew about this stuff about which there is no excuse, osu may be able to demonstrate that they did know about the equipment stuff and about talbott and did a good deal of cleaning up to try to shut him down when they first learned about it. They can distance themselves from tressel (sort of a separate issue, but yes, related) and by doing these things may be able to avoid the dreaded LOIC allegation/appropriate sanctions should this be proven.

[Hannibal]

OSU skating at this juncture on LOIC would be an upset on par with Buster Douglass beating Mike Tyson or Appalachian State beating Michigan.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Yep ..... but stranger things have happened when it comes to the NCAA and compliance.

This stuff is tricky. What sounds like a slam dunk case against the buckeyes still has a lot of lose ends and you can bet the greasy bastards with suits and law degrees hired by osu to do their bidding are busting their asses to make their case.

The discussion and interchange I tried to post a summary of does not do justice to some very sharp posters (at Rivals) with obvious legal backgrounds who put forth credible reasons why the NCAA might have trouble "proving" some of this stuff .... not the least of which being that there really are no legal standards of proof here like there are in a court of law ..... so, its murky with lots of loop holes and lots of room for maneuvering on both sides.

That the NCAA is such a political animal and that Emmert is getting poor reviews (lots of tough talk but nothing yet that shows he will really do anything to clean up college football by hammering his buddies), is an indication that folks like me who think osu should simply be blown off the CFB map because I know and have known for decades they cheat, may be disappointed.

[hack]

Oh wow - when does this hit bottom? If all this is true The Game is going to have to take a back seat to the health of CFB. This does sound as bad as anything in decades. Can it really be that OSU has been the dirtiest program in CFB for a decade, or even more? Surely they are just the ones who got caught?

[Jamie H]

No way is OSU the dirtiest. C'mon--Auburn just bought Cam Newton for 200K.

[Hannibal]

That the NCAA is such a political animal and that Emmert is getting poor reviews...

Who is he getting poor reviews from?

If the NCAA is a political animal, then I don't think that it plays into OSU's favor. The college football world is sick of these stories and the public's perception is that corruption in the sport is out of control. The OSU scandal is a huge, highly visible test case and a chance for the NCAA to turn them into an example. The NCAA isn't going to want to sacrifice all of its credibility just to keep one major program from going south for a few yeras. If anything, I thnk that the bias in this case is going to be towards a more severe punishment, not a less one.

[hack]

I agree that the sentiment right now is not going to help OSU.

[Mackenzie]

Just heard something an ESPN about Pryor and several others playing golf at some local country club. Apparently it was reported to Tressel about 3 years ago. This may be old news but I just got in and saw the telecast.