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

[lineygoblue]

Herbstreit's house has been on the market for 3 years...fwiw....

And yet, for some reason he never took it off. And, he left.

Goodbye Columbus ...

[SeanB]

Sports radio was reporting this morning that more memorabilia belonging to osu players (not the original 5) was found for sale by some folks who enjoy doing such digging/searching. Items included game worn helmets and pants along with other trinkets.

Of course, according to Gee and Smith, what happened with the Tat 5 was "an isolated incident" and "there are no other violations to report". Whoops. The hole is getting deeper...we'll see who actually falls in it and gets buried.

[lineygoblue]

Just win, baby ...

[Jeff Buchanan]

For years I have hated but respected osu .... I will never look upon that program with the respect I had for it again.

I don't think anyone in a position to do anything about it has a clue with regard to how much damage jim tressel and his Christian bull shit has done to the credibility that osu had before the recent revelations.

If those fucktards think that by keeping quiet, like it appears gee and smith have been doing recently, will allow all of this will go away they are dumber than I give them credit for.

After a decade of indignities meted out on the Michigan football program by osu and their fans, built upon cheating and lieing I am going to enjoy the coming months watching that empire crumble under the foot of the NCAA. I wish them nothing less than the crushing USC like penalties that the osu footgball program deserves while jt and tp praise the Lord.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Two day old news but making the rounds in various forms .... here is what jt said

"I wasn't able to find the ones to partner with to handle our difficult and complex situation?"

Does that mean that you couldn't find anyone to help you cover up or weasel out of this situation? How about apologizing for lying?

And just what "difficult and complex situation" did you find yourself in? Your players were mixed up with a scumbag and likely violating NCAA rules. Then, someone did you a favor and told you about it. After receiving this tip, you sat back and did NOTHING. You didn't call your compliance people, talk to your boss, or, least of all, the PLAYERS THEMSELVES -- the kids you are supposedly trying to help.

Keep digging, Jim. No one is buying it.

[SeanB]

Here's a another good excerpt from a decent read:

And one of the conditions of Tressel's suspension was a public apology. (That's one tough administration. I hear a couple of them might get jobs as NHL goons.)Tressel was the featured speaker at a booster backslap the other day, and a reporter was on hand to see if Tressel would choose the friendliest forum to unveil his apology.

And this is what Tressel said: "I sincerely apologize for what we've been through."

Is that an apology? Is this taking responsibility? Does it even make sense? Doesn't that sound a lot like, "Sorry we got caught"? At its best, it's an evolved form of the if-I-offended-anyone apology. It was such a non nonapology that the reporter felt compelled to ask Tressel afterward if that statement served as his apology.

And this is what Tressel said: "I've tried to apologize all along."

Here's the link, good stuff about other issues as well: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/comme...ory?id=6219865

[lineygoblue]

And just what "difficult and complex situation" did you find yourself in? Your players were mixed up with a scumbag and likely violating NCAA rules. Then, someone did you a favor and told you about it. After receiving this tip, you sat back and did NOTHING. You didn't call your compliance people, talk to your boss, or, least of all, the PLAYERS THEMSELVES -- the kids you are supposedly trying to help.

Good points, all.

[Ghengis Jon]

After a decade of indignities meted out on the Michigan football program by osu and their fans, built upon cheating and lying, I am going to enjoy the coming months watching that empire crumble under the foot of the NCAA.


Heh. I wonder if the NCAA inquiry meetings are open to the public. If I can get tickets Jeff, you want to go? We could be the M-Borg On-line Correspondents... :-D

[geo weidl]

It is only cheating if you get caught.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Jon, I would definitely go.

I would wear every piece of M gear I could slap on my body.

I would applaud loudly after every piece of damaging testimony and use terms like, "you go" and "believe it" when NCAA officials would ask open ended questions to which the answerers were already known ...... cheer madly when tough sanctions were doled out .... leap out of my chair when tressel is slapped with a show cause.

[hack]

Jeff you've come a long way since the ``Tressell's a good man'' post last week.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'll say this about that ......

I think he probably is basically a decent person .... misguided ....possibly misguided to the point of delusional .... but a good fellow.

I worked in Prison Health Care for a time. I met some very interesting characters. Among this group who weren't murderers and rapists - the really bad guys - were criminals only because they had been labeled as such for breaking the law (usually more than once or twice) but they had families, most had had jobs before they were incarcerated and led somewhat normal lives .... other than the crimes they committed.

The most interesting feature of this group was that virtually none of them thought they had committed a criminal act by a reasonable man's standard. Sure, some knew they had broken the law and had to pay, but most rationalized their behavior in ways that surprised me and led me to believe a large number of people act this way, obviously in varying degrees of criminality, all the time.

I think jim tressel is like this. From his post punishment comments I have no doubt he does not think what he did broke any rules that should be applied to reasonable men and this is all a big mistake and he will explain why he did not go up the chain with Cicero's tip. I also suspect that while he knows what the NCAA rules say about inappropriate benefits being received by players, he thinks he has some kind of moral imperative to interpret them to fit his perception of events in the Tat 5 episode.

That is exactly what he will maintain and I don't think it is beyond the realm of possibility that those NCAA officials who will be hearing his excuses will buy them. There were plenty of times that I left a room after a conversation with a convict that I felt sorry for him .... thought, yeah, he actually got kinda-screwed. Fact is, these guys are experts at fooling you; there are legions of criminal defense lawyers who make a living out of making jury's believe the sad story that should excuse criminal conduct ... which is why, after a time, somebody on the bench in a robe has the guts to wave the BS flag and throw them in jail.

tressel will get good legal counsel. They'll make the lies tressel perpetrated seem less conniving and less dangerous .... they'll make him out to be a caring, giving man who was only thinking of the best for his players. None of this however will excuse the naked fact that he lied, he covered up and he did this to advantage his football team and advance his own interests. It will take one tough SOB at the NCAA level to cut through tressel's BS and nail him like he should be nailed .... I'm not holding my breath.

[JRB]

I don't think there's much chance the NCAA will buy his excuses to the extent of accepting Ohio State's self-imposed penalties. I suppose it's possible, but the recent enforcement record in eligibility cases(particularly in the Reggie Bush case) is going to force the NCAA's hand here. If they accept these penalties, after the punishments handed down at USC, to Dez Bryant, and to A.J. Green, they would be tacitly admitting that the NCAA standard of integrity is lower for head coaches than it is for players. No matter what you think of Jim Tressel, you can't want that set as a precedent for the sport.

Even if you accept Tressel's mistake as an honest error in judgment arising from confusion(and I think that's a stretch, but I'll at least consider it), the effect of that mistake, as we all know, was that Tressel concealed evidence in order to play guys he had every reason to believe were not eligible. The NCAA has to come down harder on this than OSU has to this point. I tend to think Tressel will get the same suspension he gave his players, which would have some poetic justice to it, but if this matter were up to me, I'd give him the same suspension Dez Bryant got.

[Hannibal]

If the coach is suspended for five games, it's still a pretty meaningless punishment. He will still participate in practice, film sessions, game planning, recruiting, etc etc. This would be an incredibly light and lax punishment, and it would completely destroy the credibility of the NCAA.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Agreed ..... his conduct is, IMO, egregious. I don't see how anyone looking at this responsibly would not see that he lied, he covered up and in doing this he unfairly advantaged his team for the entire 2010 season and in the Sugar Bowl.

The Bowl part is the worst (although I'm not prepared to excuse that 5 ineligible players played a full season) in that somehow, someone, probably tressel in concert with gee and smith, lobbied the B10 front office and the NCAA to let tp and the rest play in the Sugar Bowl with tressel knowing all along that these 5 players had accepted inappropriate benefits and, under most circumstances, would have been ruled ineligible for some period of time during the season had all of the facts been made known when they should have been made known.