DiaBuckeye;1886061; said:
That was what, $300,000 in gifts? This is what, $5,000 total - max? Along with the fact that the stuff they sold was THEIRS.
Yeah, it's a rather different situation there, Tommy Trojan.
As for JT, yeah he made a bad decision, but let's be for real on this, it was nowhere near as bad as a USC or Auburn decision. If I found out my buckeyes were buying recruits or treating our players like celebrity superstars with free gifts here and there, then I would be thoroughly embarrassed. But this? I lose ZERO respect for JT from this. Hell, it's probably what many of you or I would have done in the same situation. Sure, that's why we aren't the HC, but that doesn't mean a HC can always be a master of human emotion and decision making, even if said coach generally is.
etc. etc.
First, thanks for not taking too much offense to my comment. (And thanks to Gatorubet for his comment as well). I'm not here to trash you guys, just giving my perspective on the issue.
I'm definitely not saying this is the same situation as with USC. There are a lot of differences. However, what the rule was about doesn't matter -- it's the fact that the rule was broken. And I think the thing that is going to really hurt is that JT knew about this for so long and covered it up. From an outside perspective, it looks really shady and speaks to a "win at any cost" mentality that you don't normally associate with JT.
So, contrasting with USC is the issue of deceit. USC (allegedly) didn't know about what was going on, and the NCAA couldn't provide any evidence that the USC staff knew about Reggie's benefits, so the NCAA basically just said "well, you should have known" and hit USC with massive sanctions. But to be clear, USC got hammered for the actions of a single player acting outside the school and an ex-con turned wannabe agent, not due to the staff buying players or anything like that. But I digress.
In this situation, if I'm reading it right, you have the head coach who clearly knew about it going on and then proceeded to cover it up, and to be deceitful about it. There's clear evidence of him knowing about it. Sure, Ohio State is self-reporting, but they're self-reporting a long time after discovering the problem. Consider that, iirc, JT also signed a Certificate of Compliance saying he had told the university of any possible violations. Was that a lie?
Then when the news came out about knowing about the players selling their stuff, do we assume JT still didn't tell the university? Or did he tell the university and the university decided not to pass it along? Either one is bad. Of course, that handling led to the very suspicious arrangement to still let TP and the others play in their bowl game.
So consider the NCAA already was lenient in letting the guys play their bowl game and they received a LOT of flak for it at the time. And now they find out that JT/OSU was lying to them about it as well?
It doesn't look good, and I can't imagine the NCAA will be happy about being made to look worse than they already have after an already very rough year for them.
So no, I'm not saying the scenarios are exactly the same. But in my eyes, and I think the eyes of a lot of people, what happened here warrants a lot worse punishment than what Ohio State is trying to skate by with here. Considering how long JT knew about this, I'd expect vacated wins and a longer suspension at least.
) What if TP had won the Heismann, and this had just come out? There are worse things.
