2011 OSU Football-Will Tressel Survive?

[Brutus]

The "flawed" system...the evil "rule" that took Jim Tressel down was this:

When you know or suspect wrongdoing within your program, you must report it to the NCAA.

The Jim Tressel-Era wasn't brought down by his lack of knowledge, it was brought down by his failure to bring his knowledge to his superiors and to the NCAA. Any attempt to pain the man as a martyr because of things that were going on "behind his back" and claiming that he's being held to some impossible standard of knowledge and control is missing the point here entirely.

That's his point though. Say he reports it, what is it really doing? It's not doing anything to stop the system from running amok. Boosters will just find more players to pay as the ones that accept money are suspended and ultimately replaced. Programs will simply bring in more players and the system will continue replicating itself. So what is Tressel going to accomplish by turning those players in?

I'm not saying he shouldn't turn them in, but Whitlock's point is that the problem is NOT the coaches turning players in or not, but rather that it's well beyond the scope of what a coach can control. The rule itself is not even realistic. It might make fans feel better when another program is caught cheating, but realistically it doesn't change anything. It's still going to happen both at the place that cheated and their own favorite institution that hasn't been caught.

As far as Tressel, it's still a fair argument that he wasn't trying to cover anything up. It's not an unfair stance that he thought the information would surface at some point, so perhaps he'd abide by the requested confidentiality and let the legal system play out. After all, whether you believe him or not, the emails do show that he was asked for an expectation of privacy in the matter, and it's not hard to see how that would be a predicament for some people that respect the legal system too. I believe you've worked in the legal system, as you've stated in the past if I'm not mistaken, so couldn't you see how it might be a reasonable concern he had? Whether that was his true intention or not, we'll probably never know. But that wasn't a decision you or I was faced with.

[Caveat Emperor]

I just can't believe that OSU fans continually make excuses for him. It makes me sick. I get that it's pretty painful to turn on the head football coach of your favorite team. This is a man that did a lot of good things for your program, your community and the university as a whole. But, this is also the same man that is now dragging your favorite university through the mud because of his actions. Aren't there any OSU fans that are pissed off about that? I would be if it was my team and my head coach. And please don't even tell me that Jim Tressel didn't know of any violations prior to receiving the third party emails. He knew and what he didn't know, he chose not to know.

I've read this entire thread (and twitter, Buckeye message boards, etc.) and wondered if this wouldn't be the same type of reaction and response the Pete Rose story would have generated had the internet existed back then.

Tressel, in 24 hours, has turned into Ohio State's version of Pete.

[Brutus]

I agree with you about the future of OSU football...it will move forward without Tressel. I think its impossible to know how OSU will do this year. The investigations aren't even complete. I'd be willing to guess that Pryor will never play at OSU again. How many others will join him? We don't know if any will be at this point, but its possible. How much will these investigations and penalties hurt them short and long term? Not sure about that either. I certainly think this will affect recruiting and player retention in the short term. Appointing an interim lame duck coach for 1 year won't help matters either. Who wants to sign up to play at a school without knowing who your coach will be (or, until August at the earliest, what the penalties could be). I don't think OSU will be "fine" in the short term or the long term. I think it's going to be a very long road to get back to the success they've been used to the past 10 years. I think OSU is more than capable of overcoming those "obstacles", and being successful in the long term, but I don't think that it'll be easy by any means.

I think what makes me mad about all of this is reading OSU fans continually make excuses for Tressel...he was protecting his players, he lied to the media not the NCAA, he notified compliance and compliance threw him under the bus. BULLCRAP!! Jim Tressel's character has been exposed. He is a cheater and a liar. If this was a "weak" moment for him, or an out of character time for him, I'm sorry, but I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt. The investigations turning up infractions back to 2002 as well as the mess he managed to avoid at Youngstown St. tell me otherwise. He is a liar and a cheater and always has been. I just can't believe that OSU fans continually make excuses for him. It makes me sick. I get that it's pretty painful to turn on the head football coach of your favorite team. This is a man that did a lot of good things for your program, your community and the university as a whole. But, this is also the same man that is now dragging your favorite university through the mud because of his actions. Aren't there any OSU fans that are pissed off about that? I would be if it was my team and my head coach. And please don't even tell me that Jim Tressel didn't know of any violations prior to receiving the third party emails. He knew and what he didn't know, he chose not to know.

He didn't report his own players selling their own belongings.

In the grand scheme of things, do you really think that rises to the level of being turned on?

He committed an NCAA violation. I don't think anyone denies that. But goodness, when we really discuss the scope of what he did, people are acting like he flogged some 80-year old lady, stole her purse and used the money to start a child pornography ring.

At the end of the day he didn't report his players selling what was legally theirs. That's the extent of it. He frankly doesn't deserve the attention this is getting, to be honest. Does he deserve a punishment? Yes. Does Ohio State deserve a punishment? Yes again. Rules would be meaningless if there weren't consequences for breaking them. But I think reasonably if people actually examine what happened, there's no reason to turn on him.

What he did was tame.

[Captain Hook]

OSU has survived the horrors of an 8-4 season before. They'll be fine. There's still plenty of kids in Ohio who grew up wanting to play in Ohio Stadium no matter who the coach is. And OSU still has more resources than any other program in the country.

Wow.I guess I could've just said this and then I wouldn't have been called a naive,snobbish,osu homer living in denial.

[BuckeyeRed27]

This thread is hilarious. I get it. No one is really objective about OSU Football. It is a love it or hate it subject. I guess I just never realized it was to this degree.

[Captain Hook]

This thread is hilarious. I get it. No one is really objective about OSU Football. It is a love it or hate it subject. I guess I just never realized it was to this degree.

I agree.I really wanted to start a new thread regarding a new era in OSU football beginning so this upcoming season could be discussed along with the future of the program but I figured there would be no way to keep that conversation and the conversation in this thread separate.

[Red Leader]

He didn't report his own players selling their own belongings.

In the grand scheme of things, do you really think that rises to the level of being turned on?

At the end of the day he didn't report his players selling what was legally theirs. That's the extent of it. He frankly doesn't deserve the attention this is getting, to be honest. Does he deserve a punishment? Yes. Does Ohio State deserve a punishment? Yes again. Rules would be meaningless if there weren't consequences for breaking them. But I think reasonably if people actually examine what happened, there's no reason to turn on him.

What he did was tame.

If that's what you choose to believe, then that's fine, I can understand your position, I guess.

I believe that future investigations and reports will significantly add to the weight of this whole mess and will further reveal the wrong doings of Jim Tressel. The two things that have been confirmed and are truth right now are that 5 players sold their own merchandise for discounts on tattoos and Jim Tressel failed to report those violations to the NCAA when he knew about them. That's it. For now. There is an investigation going on about Terrelle Pryor and his car purchases (or lack thereof), along with as many as 40+ other players. Also keep in mind that there was a federal drug trafficing investigation very close to this situation, and former players throwing OSU under the bus saying this has always been allowed and tolerated by OSU and Jim Tressel during his whole time at OSU. I think when all is said and done, there will be more revealed than just "he didn't report his players selling what was legally theirs."

[Captain Hook]

Maybe because Tressel was still coach when those were released. Probably because no ruling has been made agains OSU. Most likely because early preseason ranking mean very little. You can pretty much take it to the bank that OSU will not be ranked as highly as they were in the very early preseason rankings.

Your assumption is probably right.Still, I follow the Big 10 very closely and I can promis that you won't find more talent on another team in league.It will be much harder this year then it has been but the Buckeyes still will be in the mix.There's five or six teams that are long shots to win the conference this year and the Buckeyes aren't one of them.

[Redsfaithful]

There's still plenty of kids in Ohio who grew up wanting to play in Ohio Stadium no matter who the coach is. And OSU still has more resources than any other program in the country.

While it's not Florida, Ohio is deeper in talent than just about anywhere. I really don't see the school ever falling as far as Michigan has lately, for that reason. But it will be ugly this year, more than likely.

The entire system is flawed, and anyone getting worked up over kids getting discounts when they make millions of dollars for their university is just wrong. College degrees are borderline worthless so don't feed me the crap that they are getting the opportunity to get a degree, I don't care.

I agree with Thom Brennaman, Tressel could coach my two sons any time. I hope Tressel is viewed in as similarly a heroic fashion as Woody Hayes going forward in Columbus, and I think he will be.

The NCAA is a bizarre system that nobody would create from scratch, and it's all just ridiculous. I believed it with USC, I believed it with Cam Newton and Auburn, and I believe it now. People just love to get on a moral high horse about something, and NCAA sports provides them with that opportunity in spades.

[nmculbreth]

I've read this entire thread (and twitter, Buckeye message boards, etc.) and wondered if this wouldn't be the same type of reaction and response the Pete Rose story would have generated had the internet existed back then.

Tressel, in 24 hours, has turned into Ohio State's version of Pete.

I think the response would be pretty much the same.

The fact of the matter is that fans have a tough time reacting rationally when it comes to the bad behavior of their favorite teams / players / coaches. They'll find ways to marginalize the offense or find a way to justify the behavior in order to reconcile the situation with their preconceived notions rather than coming to the painful conclusion that their favorite team / player / coach was in the wrong.

This isn't exclusive to the OSU fan base, if the same thing would have happened to another program I would expect pretty much the exact same response... though I have a funny feeling that some of the OSU apologists wouldn't be quite so understanding had this all gone down in Ann Arbor.

[WVRed]

I think what makes me mad about all of this is reading OSU fans continually make excuses for Tressel...he was protecting his players, he lied to the media not the NCAA, he notified compliance and compliance threw him under the bus. BULLCRAP!! Jim Tressel's character has been exposed. He is a cheater and a liar. If this was a "weak" moment for him, or an out of character time for him, I'm sorry, but I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt. The investigations turning up infractions back to 2002 as well as the mess he managed to avoid at Youngstown St. tell me otherwise. He is a liar and a cheater and always has been. I just can't believe that OSU fans continually make excuses for him. It makes me sick. I get that it's pretty painful to turn on the head football coach of your favorite team. This is a man that did a lot of good things for your program, your community and the university as a whole. But, this is also the same man that is now dragging your favorite university through the mud because of his actions. Aren't there any OSU fans that are pissed off about that? I would be if it was my team and my head coach. And please don't even tell me that Jim Tressel didn't know of any violations prior to receiving the third party emails. He knew and what he didn't know, he chose not to know.

I don't think I could have put it any better if I tried.

What turned me against Tressel was how he told the Tat 5 that they were not allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl unless they all decided to "own up to their mistakes" and return the following season instead of going pro. To me it's the equivalent of a family who has a son or daughter (the 5) who has done something to "shame the family". The family is devastated and the father (Tressel) lashes out, all the meanwhile he is cheating with the maid. I've said before if I was one of the players and had one foot out the door before given the speech about coming back and owning up to the responsibility, I would have probably punched him.

I'm sorry, but what makes Tressel even more of a target is using the choir boy image and promoting Christian self-help books. The Bible even says to "Submit yourselves unto authority" and Tressel clearly did not do that with the NCAA.

I am a Kentucky fan and we have had our shake with the NCAA during the Eddie Sutton fiasco and Hal Mumme in football. We also have a head coach in John Calipari who has had two final four appearances vacated at other schools. If Cal is ever caught at Kentucky for something along the lines of what Tressel is doing, I don't have the same sympathy. I won't defend Cal the way some Buckeye fans have placed Tressel on a pedestal.

[Roy Tucker]

That's his point though. Say he reports it, what is it really doing? It's not doing anything to stop the system from running amok. Boosters will just find more players to pay as the ones that accept money are suspended and ultimately replaced. Programs will simply bring in more players and the system will continue replicating itself. So what is Tressel going to accomplish by turning those players in?

I'm not saying he shouldn't turn them in, but Whitlock's point is that the problem is NOT the coaches turning players in or not, but rather that it's well beyond the scope of what a coach can control. The rule itself is not even realistic. It might make fans feel better when another program is caught cheating, but realistically it doesn't change anything. It's still going to happen both at the place that cheated and their own favorite institution that hasn't been caught.

As far as Tressel, it's still a fair argument that he wasn't trying to cover anything up. It's not an unfair stance that he thought the information would surface at some point, so perhaps he'd abide by the requested confidentiality and let the legal system play out. After all, whether you believe him or not, the emails do show that he was asked for an expectation of privacy in the matter, and it's not hard to see how that would be a predicament for some people that respect the legal system too. I believe you've worked in the legal system, as you've stated in the past if I'm not mistaken, so couldn't you see how it might be a reasonable concern he had? Whether that was his true intention or not, we'll probably never know. But that wasn't a decision you or I was faced with.

Perhaps I'm just an idiot and thick-skulled, but this all seems like a lot of hair-splitting and equivocating.

I'd sure as heck like for Tressel to come out of this as being right all along and to be vindicated, but I'm really not going to hold my breath for that to happen.

[hebroncougar]

I am as guilty as the next guy, but I'm learning not to rejoice over someone else's misfortune because I might be next. And that includes when someone has held themselves out as being a paragon of virtue or of vice.

I've also learned that the more one rejoices, the more likely it is that they might be next.

This is all comical to me. I realized sometime last year what a joke college athletics has become. I idolized Pitino growing up, and realized what a sham he was (with his books and such) after what he went though last year. I don't even root for a team, but what I hope happens is it all gets cleaned up. I know it won't, it's a sad state of affairs.

[Brutus]

If that's what you choose to believe, then that's fine, I can understand your position, I guess.

I believe that future investigations and reports will significantly add to the weight of this whole mess and will further reveal the wrong doings of Jim Tressel. The two things that have been confirmed and are truth right now are that 5 players sold their own merchandise for discounts on tattoos and Jim Tressel failed to report those violations to the NCAA when he knew about them. That's it. For now. There is an investigation going on about Terrelle Pryor and his car purchases (or lack thereof), along with as many as 40+ other players. Also keep in mind that there was a federal drug trafficing investigation very close to this situation, and former players throwing OSU under the bus saying this has always been allowed and tolerated by OSU and Jim Tressel during his whole time at OSU. I think when all is said and done, there will be more revealed than just "he didn't report his players selling what was legally theirs."

My position is, and actually has always been, that players have been getting benefits, and sometimes money, for years and years at Ohio State (and everywhere athletics mean a lick for that matter). So there will always be "more" ready to come out at Ohio State from here until the end of time. And you know what? Make no mistake I think Jim Tressel knew, at least indirectly, about a lot more than we'll ever hear of.

But that doesn't change my opinion one iota as my contention is that a coach, in the grand scheme of things, is really powerless to stop it. If a coach reported anything and everything he heard might be happening in the slightest, there'd be no players (or coaches) left to compete. I don't think the solution to the problem is coaches turning in a report everytime he hears a player may have been the recipient of a benefit. I don't think it's practical nor does it really do anything to change the system.

That said, I can say with complete confidence no matter how much digging is done, it's very unlikely you'll see Tressel's hands dirty performing these kinds of acts or being complicit in them. His players... sure. As with any 18-22 year old, they're not going to turn down all the forbidden fruits that are served their direction when they're high-profile athletes. Sad, but true.

That a Pulitzer Prize winner spent a few months digging around, hoping to find dirt on Tressel, and the best he could come up with is folklore about a raffle in 1983 and allegations from a convicted felon regarding trading belongings for tats & weed tells me Tressel didn't have a lot to directly implicate him about.

If I ever hear of something that directly ties him to something serious, as in he was endorsing, engineering or performing it, my reverence for the person I've gotten to know will change. But I've been privileged to spend time inside the program, and that's not the guy I've known. Even his colleagues and rivals have said the same. Rich Rodriguez said as much.

This is what Rodriguez said in March about Tressel on Colin Cowherd:

"If you run a program at Ohio State or at Michigan or something like that, so much of what you do is public," Rodriguez said. "There's not all this crazy cheating and things like that going on that people think. There are some guys out there that bend the rules a little bit or they get around the rules and try to get a competitive advantage. I don't think that was the case in this at all. There were five guys who sold items who shouldn't have sold it. And they were wrong for doing it. Did that give Ohio State a competitive advantage? I don't think so."

"There's coaches out there that are trying to get a competitive advantage the wrong way, a handful, and they seem to get away with it. And there are other coaches that are really trying as hard as they can, doing everything in good faith, and they seem to get nailed. I think that's the thing that frustrates coaches, like, 'Geez look at what these guys did, and they're winning and they did all that.'

"How do we fix that?"

http://content.usatoday.com/communit...-jim-tressel/1

[Captain Hook]

I think the response would be pretty much the same.

The fact of the matter is that fans have a tough time reacting rationally when it comes to the bad behavior of their favorite teams / players / coaches. They'll find ways to marginalize the offense or find a way to justify the behavior in order to reconcile the situation with their preconceived notions rather than coming to the painful conclusion that their favorite team / player / coach was in the wrong.

This isn't exclusive to the OSU fan base, if the same thing would have happened to another program I would expect pretty much the exact same response... though I have a funny feeling that some of the OSU apologists wouldn't be quite so understanding had this all gone down in Ann Arbor.

Your probably right but it works both ways.There are plenty of people running with anything they see printed acting as if they're talking about proven violations and going on to use that information in an argument about how dirty Ohio State is just because they hate Buckeyes.How much less rational are those people?Personally I don't know why they take the time.I know I don't get into other schools problems when they have issues.