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

[lineygoblue]

If Meyer thought he had pressure in Florida ... wait until he accepts the job in Columbus.

[geo weidl]

Well liney, I hope you get your birthday wish today and the hammer comes down on o-lie-o!

Happy birthday!

[Dr. Strangelove]

If there is a bowl ban it'll be no more than one season. There's no LOIC being alleged. They aren't going to give OSU the same punishment as USC without that. My guess is scholarship reductions and a one-year postseason ban. Oh and Tressel survives. And if Fickell or Meyer takes over in 2012, well, Michigan will continue to be owned in this series.

[lineygoblue]

But will the administration at Ohio State take the proper steps to insure that in the future such events will be reported accurately, truthfully and promptly?

You might not think so now, Strangelove .. but that's the more important question going forward, rather than your "continued owning of Michigan" ...

Then again, maybe its not. Maybe all that matters in Columbus is winning ...

.... Tressel seems to think so.

[JRB]

I don't see much in the notice of allegations that leads me to think OSU might face a bowl ban, and loathsome as this is to say, I agree with DSL that if one is forthcoming, it won't be for more than a single season. As long as there isn't a failure to monitor or lack of institutional control charge in the allegations, Ohio State ought to avoid serious institutional penalties. I'd think they'll get something along the lines three years probation, no more than 10 scholarships(and that's probably stretching it), and vacation of wins from the 2010 season.

Tressel, though, is another matter. The timing of the hearing (Aug. 12th) suggests to me that the NCAA COI is going to rule on this before Tressel's five-game school-issued suspension is over. The ruling should come more quickly than it did in Michigan's infractions case because as best I can tell, there's no allegation OSU will substantively dispute here, while in Michigan's case, the COI had to consider Michigan's ultimately successful argument against the "failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance" charge against Rich Rodriguez. I strongly suspect that the COI will at the very least increase Tressel's suspension to a full season, and may try to force Ohio State's hand with a show-cause penalty. If that penalty is handed down, Jim Tressel is done at Ohio State. If Ohio State is given reason to suspect that penalty is coming, Tressel has to be fired before the season starts.

It may be time for Jim Tressel to consider resigning for the good of his program. That may be the price the COI is willing to accept and the price OSU has to pay to avoid more serious sanctions. Setting aside my abiding distaste for Ohio State for a moment, I have to say that college football doesn't need any more stories like this, especially right now, and it needs the people involved in stories like this to remember how much the game has given them and to do the right thing. I don't think Jim Tressel is necessarily a bad guy-- on the contrary, I think he probably has been a great mentor to many of his players and a positive force in his community-- but I think successful people can often mistakenly convince themselves of their own infallibility, and when they're surrounded by people who are similarly convinced that they can do no wrong, when they finally slip up, their mistakes will be that much more egregious in their arrogance. A coach knowingly playing ineligible players for an entire season is not something college football can tolerate. The whole situation is a shame, and I hope the Buckeyes and college football can put this situation to rest in short order. I'm not sure that's possible if Jim Tressel remains the head coach at Ohio State.

[Dr. Strangelove]

He may say to heck with all this and resign/retire. I've never thought he was of the Paterno/Bowden "coach till yer dead" mold to begin with and he'd be quitting only a couple years before what I imagine he already had planned.

[Ghengis Jon]

JB, if Tressel becomes persona non grata at osu, then I believe it will because The Senator decides so. And solely his decision. You give the osu institution/administration far more credit for scruples and ethics than I do. With a 15-1 record against Big Ten schools 'up north', there is no way those craven Jim-Bots will fire him. Ever. It took a physical, unprovoked assault on an opposing player for osu to ask Woody to retire. Shucks, that twernt a lie, that was a simple mis-under-standing, no matter what the NCAA finds in their witch hunt agin us.

Tressel might stand down for his own reasons. But osu will never push him aside. Like a two dollar crack whore, that school will do anything to get what they want. What they want is to continue winning. They'll never get rid of their icon.

With all the money he has in the bank, Tressel may just decide he'll ride off into the sunset.

[Dr. Strangelove]

JB, if Tressel becomes persona non grata at osu, then I believe it will because The Senator decides so. And solely his decision. You give the osu institution/administration far more credit for scruples and ethics than I do. With a 15-1 record against Big Ten schools 'up north', there is no way those craven Jim-Bots will fire him. Ever. It took a physical, unprovoked assault on an opposing player for osu to ask Woody to retire. Shucks, that twernt a lie, that was a simple mis-under-standing, no matter what the NCAA finds in their witch hunt agin us.

Tressel might stand down for his own reasons. But osu will never push him aside. Like a two dollar crack whore, that school will do anything to get what they want. What they want is to continue winning. They'll never get rid of their icon.

With all the money he has in the bank, Tressel may just decide he'll ride off into the sunset.

Exactly what cause was there to fire Woody BEFORE that? Because he yelled at refs and once threw a pylon? Give me a break. Saint Bo was no shrinking violet when it came to chewing out the refs. He was a Woody disciple after all.

Woody actually DID come close to being fired in '66-'67 but it was because of mediocre teams the previous few years.

[JRB]

You give the osu institution/administration far more credit for scruples and ethics than I do.

I have no special faith in OSU's administration-- Gee's public pronouncements have often been dippy at best, and the athletic department's tone-deaf press conference indicated that the powers that be in the department were either arrogant or stupid enough not to understand how serious these allegations were. But I will give them credit enough to assume they have a degree of common sense. If it becomes a matter of saving Tressel or saving their football program, they'll do what any other school would do and save their program. That's not an especially difficult decision. It remains to be seen if the NCAA will put them in that position, but should that time come, they're not dumb enough to cripple their program for years just to fight an unwinnable battle.

[SeanB]

In fact, dismissing Tressel may be the way that they avoid all that. The NCAA would likely consider that "enough" punishment, and let it go.

I think they will do just that, as they (the NCAA) have given osu the opportunity to save face and fire Tressel by not including the lack of institutional control or failure to promote compliance charges. Without those, osu can continue to claim Tressel acted of his own accord and therefore doesn't have to go down with the ship...he can just get off of it and move on. The ship will keep sailing with someone else at the helm.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I don't think Jim Tressel is necessarily a bad guy-- on the contrary, I think he probably has been a great mentor to many of his players and a positive force in his community

This is bullshit.

Does the priest who has molested children in his care who look up to him and trust him get a pass? How about the hundreds of Wall Street brokers, investors and financiers who benefited on the backs of the poor or unwise in the financial crisis of 2008/9? Was Bernie Maddoff "not a bad guy" because he was affable and charismatic?

Men who are in positions to influence other young men in their charge deserve our support when they conduct themselves with integrity ..... all the time not just some of the time and when it suits them for the purposes of advancing themselves or their personal interests ..... something jim tressel has done unabashedly as osu's HC while lying through his teeth to gain competitive advantage.

jim tressel is a man deserving none of the praise you assign to him. I don't think his behavior in the case of the tat5 is isolated; I think it is reflective of a dark side that places winning above integrity and has gone on for years going back to his days at YSU.

When we wake up in this society and start rejecting instead of accepting, promoting or rationalizing the disgraceful kinds of human behavior we have seen of late in sports, religion, business and politics, we will be a lot better off.

[Jamie H]

The issue I have that won't really be addressed by the NCAA in this investigation is that Tressell has been dirtier than **** since day 1. And day 1 was before he even got to OSU. This is just the first time he failed to completely cover his tracks and happened to get caught.

[Jeff Buchanan]

ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit has called for tressle's dismissal.

The national sports press is on this and I suspect will remain on it for a while.

gordon gee is getting his share of criticism in this matter as well. As long as the heat stays on, as long as the NCAA is portrayed as weak and ineffective, the greater the chance that osu faces USC like sanctions ... sorry DSL, I'm hoping osu goes down but I also recognize there is a chance they won't, as slim as that chance is getting under the circumstances.

Paul Finebaum, on his radio show today with CBS's Tim Brando, answered questions from callers, including those who had the balls to identify themselves as osu fans, overwhelmingly supported tressel's firing. Finebaum offered that the timing of the NCAA NOA to osu suggests that they're giving gee an opportunity to act and fire tressel before August when osu goes before the COI. Holding out suggests USC like conduct - the kind that AD Mike Garrett did that can only be described as thumbing their noses at the NCAA. USC got hammered for doing that.

One can only assume that gee and osu will be smart enough to sacrifice tressel before they will sacrifice the revenue driver of all of osu's non-rev sports.

[lineygoblue]

I would make book on this. They are burning the midnight oil in the OSU athletic department tonight, huddled with advisers from the school's legal department, trying to find a way to keep Tressel. We'll know shortly, if OSU has enough slick lawyers to pull this thing off.

My guess is that there's an 80% chance he will be OSU's head coach next year at this time. I think he survives. Not sure how, but he will.

You guys think I'm kidding when I say all that matters in Columbus is winning. I am totally serious. Nothing else matters to these people, especially when it comes to Michigan.

Ethics don't matter. Rules don't matter. Winning with honor and dignity does not matter. Win, and you make the rules, and you don't even have to obey the rules that you like.

When you've got the most successful coach versus Michigan in OSU history on the payroll, you don't just dismiss him without exhausting every possible angle, at saving his job. They will do everything possible to keep this guy. They don't care about any other skeletons in his closet that may rear their ugly heads one day. All they want is to win, and beat Michigan. Tressel was hired for that sole purpose, and he has delivered.

They will not let Tressel go without a huge fight. They're going to dig in on this one.

[Jeff Buchanan]

They will not let Tressel go without a huge fight. They're going to dig in on this one.

I hear ya, Liney .... but the enemy is at the gates. I don't think gee can avoid firing tressel and it seems to me the NCAA has given him time to do it and avoid deliverance of a show cause letter in August which would be a huge embarrassment for the highest paid college president in the US, gordon gee, after he uttered his fateful words, "I hope tressel doesn't fire me."

gee, if he doesn't act to fire tressel soon, will face mounting questions from a hostile press looking for a bigger story such as, who's in charge hear of this University and is integrity important? These kinds of questions will dog osu and the football program and drag it down as long as tressel stays (which is fine with me no matter how f'ing stupid that would be for osu).

What's cool about this is that the osu case and how the NCAA handles it is a defining moment for them. They either work to clean up college sports by hammering osu (and probably Auburn although it looks like osu is going to be their fall guy for all that is wrong with CFB ... heh, heh) or they are going to get trashed, further weakening their already questionable strength in stopping the kind of shit that jt's action represent in all that is bad about CFB.

Oh, sweet justice!