Why did Smith's opinion of Tressel change.

The editor of the Ozone wrote an open letter to Gene Smith that basically were calling him out for not getting invited to last week's press conference.  You can read it here.  My thoughts?

 There are legitimate reasons to be upset at the handling of the situation since the beginning but you write an open letter because of an impromptu press conference?  Seriously?

Despite being a bit frivolous, the article does ask a few good questions, most notably, why did Smith's opinion of Tressel change?

I've always assumed that Gene Smith's initial issue with Jim Tressel was that JT never apologized.  You know that Tressel had to promise this before March's press conference or it wouldn't have been included in the NCAA filing.  Keep in mind that Smith spoke first then Gee and finally Tressel.  Once they both unequivocally endorsed Tressel it was really too late to take it back when Tressel gave his rambling speech that had nothing resembling an apology.  I know Smith and Tressel sat down a few days after the press conference so Smith could instruct Tressel on what he was expecting in an apology but what I saw over the following weeks wasn't any better.*

The apology request disappeared afterward so I always assumed that Smith told Tressel to hold off for the August meetings for a firm statement of responsibility.  About 6 weeks after the March press conference, Smith had an odd conversation with a member of the press that made it obvious that he and JT weren't seeing eye to eye.  In hindsight my suspicion is that time passed the gulf between the two widened from not agreeing about an apology to not agreeing about compliance.

Why would it widen?

One constant of most high level managers is they all have large ego's and people with ego's have a high opinion of their own ideas.  Another constant is the longer someone has been in an organization, the tougher it is for that person to change.  As change is constant in any organization, turf wars are the inevitable result.

When the Compliance Group came back with their recommendations my suspicion is their proposal included a lot of things that would take away a lot of the free reign that Jim Tressel had grown used to over his last 20+ years of coaching.  I know Andy Geiger recommended changes to football compliance so this isn't exactly a new idea.  His long tenure would have allowed that to happen pretty easily but his abrupt departure left the job undone.  When Gene Smith arrived he was in a weak position to implement change in the football program.  Some might say -- well he's the boss and it is his call.  You need to keep in mind that any change in policy still needs to have approval from Smith's bosses and he really was in a weak position to implement change in a program that was winning league championships every year.  All it would have taken was a phone call from Tressel to a few of the football friendly board members and any changes would have been tabled.  I have no doubt that Smith saw the TAT5 situation as an opportunity to improve compliance and when they were told to Jim Tressel he pushed back hard.  At some point Smith insisted and Tressel declined to comply so it went to Gordon Gee and the board. 

Of course all that is conjecture and  all we know is Smith supported Jim Tressel in March then asked for his resignation in May.  One hint we do know is when recently asked how long Smith felt he had spoken too strongly in Tressel's defense, he gave a one word answer - "Days".

I do know the answer to one question from the article - Why has Gene Smith never publicly spoken as to why he changed his mind?  The answer is simple - There is nothing to be gained from airing dirty laundry inside the program.

* "I'm sorry for what Buckeye fans are going through" is not an apology for the act.