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

[Jeff Buchanan]

No. Recruiting is relationships or, in some cases, being bought. ....No recruit is going to pick a school based on the car the QB drives. ..... A recruit always prefers a staff and that's who he will sign with absent the outright high priced auction shit.

That's why this is difficult. I think you made a good case that osu tries to run a clean program and I actually think jim tressel was not only a really good football coach, loved and took care of his players and was, essentially, about 95% clean. That 5% that he tried to skate on was huge and cost him. Such is life .... risk, reward.

I can relate.

I'll repeat what I said earlier.

I think the the typical osu fan - especially the ones that have some money to burn - is much more prone to provide that $100 handshake to a top recruit than his counterpart Michigan fan.

So, despite there being absolutely no factual evidence to correlate substantially better on field performance to illicitly luring recruits with promises of shoes, tats, golf, money, cars or whatever, there is circumstantial evidence that this kind of thing is more prevalent in and around the osu football program than it is around M.

That supports the argument that osu is a dirty program. One could argue that they are unable to optimize that sort of shit and turn into better on field performance. That is the fault of the coaches who know its going on but fail to advantage themselves by it.

5%

[hack]

Bullshit. Tressell was as bad as they get. WTF Jeff?

[Jeff Buchanan]

I don't agree with you, Hack.

Despite my utter distaste for anything having to do with osu, the facts simply don't support that tressel was, as most M fans would like to beleive, the embodiment of evil.

He was a flawed man. Who isn't.

What I do believe is that there is and was back then a culture among the osu faithful, whomever that might include, similar to the cultures that exist in about every SEC school. Money talks.

Impossible to prove ..... which is why Oregon got away with that sort of culture, Auburn got away with it, USC got away with it and osu gets away with it. Does it always pay-off? No. But I think MoC and TP of osu gave a boost to osu's chances to succeed. tressel certainly understood that or he wouldn't have lied .... twice .... about the inappropriate benefits TP got and MoC wouldn't have made the kind of public statements he did make.

[iam416]

I don't think USC got away with it and it remains to see if Oregon got away with it.

I think your take on Coach Tressel, at least in the last two posts, is largely correct. I think his greatest weakness as a coach was his handling of star players. I think for the vast majority of the players he did it perfectly. I think the price he paid was probably harsh, but not necessarily unfair. He probably knew TP violated an amoral NCAA regulation, and didn't report it. He had to do better, and he paid a huge price. I, however, won't condemn him for all-time because of that mistake.

I think your take on OSU/M is wrong. It suggests that OSU has more, significantly more, boosters with money who care about winning. M has gads of well-money boosters, some of whom, I presume, care about winning. Though, who the fuck knows with the way you boys run that ship.

Regardless, the difference or lack thereof is, as you say, "impossible to prove." That's why I just don't get it as part of a fact-based conversation. In particular, a conversation where the facts are, at a minimum, good for M. I mean, the TP teams waylaid some of the shitiest M teams I've ever seen. It belies all credibility to suggest OSU won those games because they violated NCAA regulations.

As I've said again and again, fact-based discussions ought to be based on facts. That's been my point for awhile.

[lineygoblue]

I'm going break my own rule ONE TIME, and give Tressel just a bit of a benefit of a doubt.

I think Jim Tressel is a man who does indeed have some sincere deep Christian morals that he believes and adheres to. However as a fallible man, he made some decisions to keep his team winning, that he knew would be a problem, should they come to light. They did come to light, which led to embarrassment for him, and his testimony as a Christian, and whether Ohio fans want to accept it or not, it brought shame to their university and its football program.

Bo Schembechler held such a tight rein on the program when he was coach, that "boosters" couldn't get close enough to a player to give him a $100 handshake. Woody did the same thing. They guarded their respective programs with their lives. To be considered a cheater, was to them, like cursing their mother. They could not even tolerate the thought of being considered a cheater. This is why I have so much difficulty with Ohio willing acceptance of the cheating that took place under Tressel, because it flies in the face of everything that Woody did for their program. Without Woody Hayes, Ohio would be floundering around in the middle of the pack of the B1G. Woody was a great coach, but he was also a man of great integrity. Both of those things laid the foundation for what Ohio football is today. Same with Bo at Michigan.

What made the 10 year war between Woody and Bo so great, was that it all came down to football. 11 on 11 on the third Saturday of November at high noon. There was no hanky panky on either side in recruiting. There were no $100 handshakes on either side. There was only state's pride, school pride, sweat, and good hard CLEAN football. The winner got to celebrate, and the loser started preparing for next year.

Today, Ohio sits in Columbus, snickering at the NCAA sanctions levied against them, because they actually ended up with a better coach, and better recruiting classes. The breaking of the rules actually helped them step forward. By contrast, the Ed Martin affair put Michigan basketball in the dumper for over a decade, with Michigan finally breaking out of it, just this past season. I don't think that Ohio should have to be penalized for a decade, but they should have to pay a bigger price than they are paying.

Instead, they'll likely be a participant in the B1G Conference Championship game this year, and a win there probably puts them in the BCS Championship game. This, for a team that is supposed to be under sanctions for breaking the rules. That's not right.

That's all the niceness I can generate at this time ... back to your regular programming...

[Jeff Buchanan]

I don't agree with everything Linesman says above. Its unrealistic to think Bo and Woody never encountered something smelly and then looked the other way because to do something about it would have brought unnecessary scrutiny from outside. If anything, both of those two dudes understood the mantra, "what happens in AA (or c-bus) stays there." They were the kings of Omerta.

The current sports media coverage environment, where there is no reciprocal loyalty among sports reporters and coaches, and that the nastier/more titillating the story is the more money it will get you along with the impact of social media, has changed the landscape of CFB forever.

CFB is dirty, to an extent, and always has been. Nowadays, the likelihood of getting exposed though is pretty high. Still, the risk/reward equation is tilted toward the risk side ..... mostly because the NCAA is inept and its rules, well, I wouldn't call them immoral, like talent did, but they are pretty useless with respect to intent. The penalties are not severe enough or correctly directed to shape behavior. That is clear.

TBH, ufm did a terrific job with his football team in 2012. They had little to play for but he made it something. That's leadership 101. I'm looking forward to a return of the rivalry. You have to be a cold M fan to not want the intensity of it back with the playing field level between the two teams. I think its getting there after the nightmare of the last 12 years. At my age, that's a long, long time.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I guarantee you there were $100 handshakes in Woody and Bo's day. Come on. I don't care how vigilant Bo was, you can only catch so much.

[hack]

Chrissakes. Revolting. But Tressel knows that Christian bullshit fools a lot of people. He's not a Mormon.

[WM Wolverine]

I'm sure there plenty of M & OSU players have taken $100 handshakes, but the difference is what happened if and when Tressel knew about them compared to Woody, Bo & Lloyd.

[hack]

And marketing himself as some sort of mentor. I dont mean it only in the context of this thread. That is a vile human being.

[madootra]

Yep. As with many things, the abject hypocrisy from the Holier-Than-Thou types is the linchpin for the disgust. He wrote a fucking book, fechrissakes, about how "Moral and upstanding" he was. Fuck him, and fuck all the apologists who scurry around to canonize him. The Mormons have nothing on this affair.

[Optimus Prime]

Matters not how Bucknutters try to spin JT's tenure, at the end of the day, Tressel was handed a five-year show-cause penalty by the NCAA and banned from the game for 5 years.

Rather amazing though when you consider how inept and incompetent the NCAA regulatory arm truly is, took a decade to finally nail him, justice served.

Anyway, Slick Jimmy is a lying, cheating hypocrite of low repute, hell I bet even his own church wont trust him with the collection plate, to suggest otherwise given his countless character flaws is just plain mormonic.

[Rob F]

Anyway, Slick Jimmy is a lying, cheating hypocrite of low repute, hell I bet even his own church wont trust him with the collection plate, to suggest otherwise given his countless character flaws is just plain mormonic.

Nice placement by security of that hidden camera---they caught him in the act!

I think that's the first time I've ever seen the self-canonized "saint"/ senator without the sweatervest! Also surprising in that picture that he (with his holier-than-thou persona) hasn't placed himself in the front row, but then again, it would be more difficult in the front row to get away with scooping out a wad of cash rather than contributing, I suppose...

[Dr. Strangelove]

For those who mocked Urban and handing out rings for an undefeated season:

Mack Brown has rings made to commemorate a 9-4 season/Alamo Bowl championship

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/mack-brown-hands-rings-players-winning-alamo-bowl-133638030.html

And both Georgia and UNC handed out rings for divisional titles, UNC being ineligible for the ACC title game

[madootra]

Yeah......that makes us stop laughing.... :-/

LOL. Since they did it, it's OK!!!!