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

[lineygoblue]

sheesh ...

[WingsFan]

Wow, I knew Tressel had a very impressive record, didn't realize how dominating he really was as HC of osu. I can see why the buck nut fans will always love him (cheater/lair or not).

[Hannibal]

With the entire Pryor era vacated, he will be down considerably on that list.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The entire Yost era can be vacated as well due to his usage of ringers,minor-league baseball players, and other semi-pro players that'd he'd sneak into the unversity under the cover of night.

Also his raging, paranoid anti-Catholicism should put a huge asterisk by his record.

[Pasadena Blue]

The man is forever tarnished. His name on any list is no different than Sammy Sosa on a all time homers list.

O-state fans will always see him in a different light and it is not worth trying to convince them. We all know how the rest of country perceives him. Having said, as with all things, some of the negativity will fade over time, but this will forever be part of his legacy. Good Riddance.

[*JD*]

The New Vest

[Ghengis Jon]

Columbus - the center of the ethical universe...

The Columbus, Ohio, school board accepted principal Kimberly Jones' resignation in May following revelations by The Columbus Dispatch that she, though earning $90,000 a year, swore on federal forms that she made just $25,000 -- so that her own two children would qualify for reduced-price school lunches. [Columbus Dispatch, 5-4-2011]

[Optimus Prime]

Wow, I knew Tressel had a very impressive record, didn't realize how dominating he really was as HC of osu. I can see why the buck nut fans will always love him (cheater/lair or not).

I suppose crime really does pay Packy.

[Rocky Bleier]

Michigan's future is brighter than Schmucks:

http://insider.espn.go.com/ncf/blog?...26id%3d6728849

[Jeff Buchanan]

The link below detailing a recent visit by the NCAA to c-bus may not sound like much but one local observer writes about the revelation that Regan Koivisto, former general manager of the Scioto Reserve country club where pryor allegedly played golf, told jt's secretary about the pryor - memorabilia - Talbot connection along with cicero; that's two people now who have attested to NCAA officials that they warned tresell about possible NCAA violations regarding benefits:

"The issue is that JT signed a statement that there were no more violations known involving these players. Now they are hearing that there is yet another instance where he was notified of possible violations and said nothing. And lied to the NCAA yet again. They are establishing a pattern and it doesn't look good for OSU."

Demonstrating a pattern of behavior on tressel's part to establish a basis for both a show cause letter and LOIC is key for the NCAA. OSU has already been notified that the NCAA considers them a repeat offender, now it appears they are working to establish a pattern of willful non-compliance.

When appearing before the COI in August, osu/smith/gee will argue that osu self reports better than any institution and we have "the best procedures in the business." Too bad, that's not enough.

The following quote from the Principals of Institutional Control (prepared by the NCAA Committee on Infractions) tells you why its not enough:

"It is important that policies and procedures be established so as to deter violations and not merely to discover their existence after they have taken place."

OSU has two problems based on that statement: (1) They're not off the hook just because they self-reported and (2) the pattern being established shows a clear willingness to violate the rules.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6731624

[lineygoblue]

and (2) the pattern being established shows a clear willingness to violate the rules.

This appears to be where Tressel decided to roll the dice and take the chance that he wouldn't be caught. Tressel, in spite of what we believe about him here, is not a dummy, and he's not ignorant. He knows the NCAA rules about things like this, and he can't claim innocence thru misunderstanding or ignorance. He knew exactly what he was doing. This is why OLieO needs to be punished severely for all of this.

What if none of this had come to light? What if everyone kept their mouths shut, and Tressel/Pryor et al were still preparing for the season in Columbus? The message to Tressel would be that his gamble with the rules paid off. He rolled the dice, broke the rules, and it paid off big time.

And chances are, he's done similar things before, and got away with it. That's why he felt like he could do it again.

[Jamie H]

Oh, I NEVER accused Tressel of being dumb or ignorant. Far from it. It takes a lot of smarts to pull off the fake act he was always pulling off. I think he's a cold, calculating slimeball of the highest degree, but he's not dumb.

[Jeff Buchanan]

There are two things tempting misbehavior among big time CFB head coaches and the top CFB players:

(1) In the case of coaches, the power and money associated with the elite programs is corrupting for men who lack the integrity to deal with temptation; for players its playing the life of a high roller before you've signed an NFL contract and actually are one.

(2) That the NCAA, up until USC, hasn't done a very good job of enforcement (and there are a lot of reasons for that that have nothing to do with incompetence).

Like I've said at least three times here in different threads. This is not a difficult problem to solve ..... enforce the rules and hammer offenders.

Despite what M haters who have said, "it goes on at M and everywhere else .... open your eyes," I don't think it does go on at Michigan. The run of football coaches including and since Bo, during the time that cheating in CFB has been more profitable than risky, has had an iron fisted approach for those who get caught breaking team or NCAA rules.

Watching the shenanigans of Auburn, USC Oregon and osu get exposed and learning that many other elite programs stretch the gray areas to their limits, reading the NCAA charter and trying to understand compliance and enforcement, I now have a pretty good idea of what is expected of NCCA athletes involved in playing college football and athletic departments running those programs. Since Webber, I think Michigan stacks up pretty well in the compliance departmetn.

IMO, you are looking at the two extremes of both meeting the letter and the spirit of the rules when you look at Michigan and osu. Clearly, M learned a good deal when it got burned by Webber and Martin and PracticeGate shook things up in a good way. A decade of tressel was absolutely the worst thing that could have happend to what used to be a decent program with integirty.

osu, for all its astounding mea-culpas in this matter, is going to learn the hard way ...... tressel's lying, exchange of autographed equipment for benefits, what is appearing to be a pre-meditated cover-up of those events is going to be very costly.

...... and it should be for the reasons that I opened this post with. Enforce and hammer. Its just like Wall Street investing and banking in 2007/8. When the regulators were looking the other way, the bosses started cheating. That created organizational cultures in a large number of financial institutions, along with the industries that insured their activities, where one learns that stretching or even overtly and knowingly breaking the rules is profitable. Frankly, I don't think the foxes in the hen house have yet to be sufficiently dissuaded from their cheating ways but that's a separate discussion.

But CFB is at a similar crossroads. Some entity, hopefully the NCAA, or failing that something the college Presidents come up with outside the NCAA, has to crack the whip using substantial penalties both monetary and career limiting for rule breakers.

I think osu will make a fine example of a program who is the very first to experience the stinging lashes of that whip.

[*JD*]

I think you mean since Webber, Traylor, Taylor & Bullock or "since 1998".

[Hannibal]

I was pretty late to the "Tressel is a cheater" party. I was very skeptical for a long time, largely because I didn't like the fact that it gave Michigan a built in excuse for The Lost Decade. But the evidence has made it too obvious to ignore. Nobody with a sense of reason could look at the mountain of data surrounding Jim Tressel and the Ohio State program and possibly not come to the conclusions that:

A: For at least ten years, there have been large numbers of players receiving improper benefits

and

B: Coach Tressel knew all about it, and either never did anything or outright lied about it. i.e. he cheated.

All of the instances of Tressel/OSU's cheating have either

A: A public record

or

B: Multiple sources who were, in many cases, not anonymous

as evidence. Dennis Talbott has multiple sources. Tat hookups has multiple sources. Academic fraud had multiple sources. The dozens of players and their families who have bought vehicles through a shady Columbus dealer are public record (Oh but the Ohio BMV "cleared" OSU by making sure that sales taxes were paid LMAO). Jim Tressel's hooking up players with the shady boosters in question has multiple sources. The "loaner" vehicles has public records. Tressel's lies about the Tat 5 are public record. OSU's non-punishment of Tressel is public record.

It's not possible to ignore this massive amount of evidence without just being willfully ignorant, which many Buckeye fans are. Even Tony Gerdeman at o-zone (IMHO the best non-Michigan blogger who writes about Michigan) has his head in the clouds. Has anyone ever compiled a list of people who have to be lying or greatly exaggerating in order to OSU to be anything other than a dirty program? Has anyone compiled a list of all of the shady behavior that has to be explained? It's easier to chalk up 9/11 as a conspiracy than it is to argue that OSU is not a dirty cheating program.

Let's compare this to the hilarious claims by Buckeye fans that this kind of thing goes on at every program. Where's the evidence? How many witnesses have said that Michigan players sold memorabilia or got cash from shady boosters? How many Michigan players have gotten tickets in multiple "loaner" cars? How many Michigan football players went on the record to say that the coach actively cheated by hooking him up with rich boosters? What did Michigan do to Steve Fisher and what did they do to that grad assistant who lied to the NCAA? How many teaching assistants at Michigan have claimed academic fraud? I ask again -- where's the evidence that "this happens everywhere"?