What can Buckeye fans learn from Barry Switzer? (and for everyone else, why Buckeye fans still support Coach Tressel)

It's been over twenty years since he left the school but to a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s, Barry Switzer was and still is Oklahoma football.  He was big, brash, and always smiling.  It was like he knew a secret and wasn't going to tell you about about it.  As an adolescent Ohio State fan, I hated every school except my beloved Buckeyes but Oklahoma held a special place in my hate.  It wasn't because of Eve Von Schamann's kick in  1977 or Brian Bozworth stealing Chris Spielman's Butkus Award in 1987.  It was more primal than that.  In hindsight I probably hated them because of their success.  Switzer became coach in 1973 at the young age of 36 and was the head coach for the next 16 years until he resigned in 1989.  During his tenure the Sooners had a record of 157-29-4 or a winning percentage of 83.7% and won 3 national titles.  Switzer also had the fortune (or misfortune) to coach in an era when payoffs and scandals occurred that make the Reggie Bush scandal look like child's play.  No doubt some schools were more aggressive than others but to be successful things like this happened at every school.  Oklahoma was always at the top of the hit list because somehow every year they seemed to attract the best recruits.  Everything for Switzer and the Sooners came to a crashing halt in 1988 when the NCAA put them on a 3 year probation with reduction in scholarships, TV exposure, and bowl visits.  Switzer escaped direct blame in the matter but 6 months after the penalty was announced he decided to resign at the young age of 51.  


The reason I decided to write about this was after I saw this article in the USA Today.  A few things in the article stick out to me the most.  First, most people were surprised/upset that Switzer would resign as most fans wanted him to stay as coach.  He felt otherwise and this particular quote was telling,

"Coaches pay a tremendous price for the actions and behavior of their athletes. We are held accountable for their actions. That's what the media and administration do. Is that fair? You judge it."

and this one when talking about Bob Stoops and how the program fell on hard times when he left,

"That was where the program always should have been," Switzer said. "We were doing what should have been done. The '90s were a disaster. If I had lasted, it never would have happened."

The 3 coaches that followed Switzer had a combined 61-50-3 record until Stoops was hired in 2000.
____________________

On the surface you couldn't find two men any more different than Jim Tressel and Barry Switzer.  Switzer is flamboyant, loud, and aggressive while Tressel is quiet, reserved, and conservative.  In fact, I'd wager the only thing they have in common is that they are both amazingly successful football coaches.  Jim Tressel's record in his ten years at Ohio State is 106-22 or 82.8% with 1 national championship.  Like Switzer before him, Tressel's university is under investigation by the NCAA with the current expectation of further NCAA penalties after the two sides meet in August.

Buckeye fans are growing tired as it seems every week another rumor pops up in the media and as it makes its way across the internet there are thousands upon thousands of posts either calling for Jim Tressel to be fired or conversely (from a shrinking section of  Buckeye fans) calling for him to remain as head coach.  For me the answer is simple and can be answered with one simple question to all Buckeye fans (other fans need not bother -- we don't care what you think):

"Do you think Jim Tressel is a man of integrity and one that is trustworthy to lead the program through whatever penalties the NCAA gives us and does so in the manner which we all expect?"

It's a simple question and not as easy to answer as some cynics might think.  Being the head coach at Ohio State means more than just wins and Jim Tressel himself said it best when he was first hired that, "you will be proud of our young men, in the classroom, in the community, and"... well you know the rest.  I was always impressed that he put them in that order.  Ohio State fans want success on the field but they also want to be proud of the players and they want someone at the helm to make sure they are winning the right way.  Is Jim Tressel still the man to do this?

At this point we know he lied to cover up a stupid actions by his players.  This mistake will haunt him for the rest of his life and let's not kid ourselves, a mistake by a coach is much more egregious than a mistake by a player because coaches are the leaders.  Jim Tressel decided to take care of this violation in house and he was wrong.

On the other hand we look at the long history Coach Tressel has of selfless community service, improving graduation rates, and yes winning.  So we have to ask ourselves -- Is one mistake worth termination?  Do we feel Jim Tressel can live up to the standard he set when he first accepted the job?

My feeling all along has been if this is limited this one mistake we'd be stupid let him go.  Look at Switzer's comment about the media using coaches as scapegoats.  It is certainly true in this instance.  Every week another article pops up about the football team and instead of focusing on the player doing something he shouldn't, the media focuses on Jim Tressel.  I make no apologies for his mistake but does it invalidate all the good he's done?  As a fan of the program I am looking for an indication of something bigger.  Is there a pattern of cheating?  So far I'm not convinced though the negative press would have me believe I am being naive.  My question to them is -- if cheating is so rampant at Ohio State why haven't you been able to find anything concrete in the 3 months since the story first broke?  You know everyone in the country has reporters here (I hope I'm not tempting fate with the alleged SI article coming out soon).   To damn the man, I want concrete proof of more wrongdoing.

For me, it all goes back to the simple question above and I just don't see enough proof that he is corrupt.  That brings me to the second Switzer comment about the 90s being a disaster.  There is no guarantee that a new coach will be able to perform on the field at the same level as Coach Tressel.  In fact I'd find it highly unlikely that the next coach will be able to duplicate his success.  So the question goes back to integrity and do I trust Jim Tressel to lead the program with integrity.

At this point, I do.

7n7 & Oversigning complaint that the current SEC proposal is too weak

His complaint is that the rule doesn't address the 85 and only moves the annual number from 28 to 25.

My response:

In some ways isn't a per year limit better than an 85 limit? I think the annual number should be lower than 25 though.

If the main worry of oversigning is that kids are being pushed out of programs unfairly then isn't the 85 limit part of the problem?

My thought would be to get rid of the 85 limit altogether and just set annual limits.  25 per year is too high so perhaps each school should only get around 23 per year which gives schools no incentive to push a player out the door unless they were a serious problem. Under that scenario if a coach kicked a player from a team, you'd know it was because of cause and not to make room to get under the 85 cap.

If you assume that a team uses all 25 signees in every class along with 50% redshirts that gives you 113 potential players without any attrition ((25 x 4) + (25 x 50%)). That means to stay at 85, schools in the SEC couldn't have an attrition any higher than 25% (1 - 85/113) or they'd run into Houston Nutt's current problem. I looked at most of the top 20 FCS teams last year and the average attrition was around 25% with the SEC higher so is the SEC proposal that bad?

In other words, if this rule passes most of the schools in the SEC couldn't afford to actively cut players since they will struggle to stay at 85 if they continue their past practice of recruiting borderline students and players with questionable character.  Mississippi can't even do that today.

Some quick math at different per year limits:

28: 34% (28x4)+(28x50%) = 128 -> 85/128
24: 22% (24x4)+(24x50%) = 108 -> 85/108
23: 19% (23x4)+(23x50%) = 104 -> 85/104
22: 15% (22x4)+(22x50%) =   99 -> 85/ 99

FWIW Ohio State is one of the best in the country at about 13% attrition (including players leaving early).  Most SEC school are over 25% with LSU/Mississippi leading the way closer to 35% and only Georgia unaffected though admittedly I didn't look at every school (I'd assume Vandy won't be affected by this either).

In a perfect world I'd prefer it if the NCAA changed their rule to an annual limit of 23 signee's with no roster cap as well as the ability to reward 2 players every August that have paid their own way for at least 2 years with a "walk-on" scholarship. Until then I don't think the SEC proposal is all that bad because it will make "cutting" players that much tougher and because it closes the 2/1-5/1 signing period loophole that many are exploiting.

No doubt I'd prefer they'd made the bill stronger and I'm sure the coaches in the SEC will find loopholes.  Ultimately the NCAA will need to come up with something more comprehensive so keep fighting the fight 7n7!

Cargate

In the last week I’ve heard many fans say something to the effect that, “We should fire Tressel and get this over with”. They are ignoring the fact that the car situation has very little to do with Jim Tressel and this is totally the compliance department’s responsibility. Ohio State has proudly stated in the past that they have one of the biggest compliance departments in the country. One of compliance’s biggest responsibilities is to look into vehicle purchases to make sure they are legitimate. That’s one of the great things about coaching at a large school like Ohio State because having resources like this means you can focus on coaching and your only responsibility is to forward things to them if you get information that things look out of line (like getting an email about selling gold pants for $$$).

The reason this is so big is that throughout the TAT5 situation, compliance has been portrayed as the model the NCAA wants every school to use as they’ve promptly reported issues. That means all violations were due to the actions of one man and therefore the penalties more than likely would be limited to him. If compliance is found to have not done their job in the “Cargate” situation then we are looking at the dreaded “lack of institutional control” penalty and can expect scholarship reductions and bowl bans similar to what USC received.

I still have hope that there is reasonable explanations for all of this. For instance, the school receives the bill of sale and not the title information so if those numbers are different that really is out of the school’s area of responsibility and not an NCAA violation. I do imagine the players, the dealers, and the salesmen will be hearing from the State of Ohio on this very soon as committing fraud on property value is a serious offense. The signed memorabilia at the dealership isn’t proof of anything either as most businesses in Central Ohio have similar items and even if the players signed for things while buying the car it proves nothing . The keys are were 1) the cars sold for fair value? (which is very subjective) and 2) was the salesmen given tickets/memorabilia by the players to get some service in return? These are all very gray areas and one that Doug Archie must have been concerned about since he eventually banned the salesman from getting tickets. The scary thing for me is when the story first surfaced that Pryor had gotten tickets 3 times and had a loaner car each time it didn’t feel right. Ohio State’s compliance department looked into this and quickly determined that no wrongdoing occurred. At the time it seemed odd to me that Pryor would only have gotten loaners just on those occasions that he got traffic tickets and even odder that the compliance department would be able to rule that quickly that no wrongdoing occurred. It leads many to believe that there is a lot more to this story than we’ve heard so far. The bottom line is while I have hope that this is much ado about nothing I do fear that compliance is acting as little more than a coverup agency and if that is true then the Buckeyes deserve everything they get and a long dark winter is approaching for Ohio State athletics.