Jaxbuck;1897904; said:
I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that OSU has been going on the straight and narrow with this deal but I think Jakes post below addresses the second part.
This mess is well beyond the rule the kids broke. Tressel is in deep [Mark May] because it is becoming more and more obvious he knew about it, tried to cover it up and has been less than transparent about the attempted cover up since.
Its similar to the government going after Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. The Feds don't give a [Mark May] about the steroid use, they have a hard on because those guys lied about it. The NCAA could very well get the same type of hard on for Tressel.
To echo Jake, its a damn shame because it looks like one moment of weakness, one lapse in judgment has spiraled completely out of control and it could have so easily been avoided. Then again the argument could be made that perhaps this wasn't an isolated case of bad judgment, that there was a pattern of this type of behavior and he just finally got caught.
Truth probably lies somewhere in between the two extremes.
I guess the fact that he even had to lie about something as ridiculous as this is why I don't hold this too high against Tressel's head. To see your season possibly go down the drain, in a time when people are already calling for your head for not dropping 70 pts on lesser teams all the time despite bringing a NC to Columbus for the first time in over 30 years, over a victimless probably didn't sit to well with Tressel.
As for the straight and narrow part, I was referring to how much we cooperate with the NCAA much more readily then most big time programs.
cincibuck;1897946; said:
As a proud grad, life member of the alumni association and regular giver to the College of Education and the scholarship fund, I've always been a believer in the integrity of the school. I believed that OSU played the game at another level, that they did not indulge in the kind of buying of players I believed to be rampant at places such as USC or Alabama. That faith has been rattled.
If you honestly believed OSU was a completely clean program then I have sweet $10 million penthouse in Florida I'd like to sell you. Think about this if you were a recruit: Would you really turn down the "benefits" that an Alabama or LSU would offer to go play at OSU just because you were a fan growing up? Fuck no. Sure there's the chance you could get caught but really, how likely is that? It's only been just recently that the NCAA has started cracking down.
Keep in mind that I don't believe OSU is
NEARLY as dirty as, say, an SEC school. I believe the program is run with as much dignity as humanly possible while still allowing for the unprecedented success we've been enjoying. This whole mess hasn't changed my perception of Tressel or OSU one bit because I know this level of success doesn't come without a price.
If you're willing to settle for multiple 8-5 seasons with losses to Michigan every other year, then yeah you could probably run a completely clean program here at OSU. Buckeye Nation isn't willing to settle for that though, nor a 5-3 BCS bowl record, 8 seasons with ten or more wins, one Heisman Trophy winner, 3 NC appearance, or a share of the Big Ten conference almost every freaking year WHILE beating Michigan 9 times in 10 years.
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