Gene Smith - Should he stay or should he go?

Someone posted on the Ozone yesterday that it was rumored that Ohio State's athletic director was getting a contract extension.  That set off a firestorm of protest on the forum from most of the posters who think he should be fired.  I include myself in that group but sometimes it amazes me how far some posters go in their blame of the man.  The following was a typical response:

First - the violations happened on his watch.

• December 2010, he assured everyone that he investigated and the original Tat5 was it. Nothing else.

• Then, in January 2011, he discovers that Tressel knew about all this back in April 2010. Whoops. Missed that in his "investigation". 

• He had two months until the rest of the world knew what he knew in January.  Story breaks in early March 2011. Ohio State hastily calls a news conference where it looks to everyone like they got caught with their pants down. They decide to retain Tressel. 

• Memorial Day - Ohio State fires Tressel. Why? Because between that press conference and Memorial Day, the rest of the CFB world finds out what Gene Smith already knew. And Gene Smith BADLY miscalculated how much pressure he could endure with his original decision to retain Tressel. 

• Summer 2011 - more NCAA violations are committed - again under his watch. 

• Fall 2011 - Gene Smith tells the world we'll forfeit the 2010 season but the NCAA won't levy a bowl ban. 

• December 2011 - Decides to accept the Gator Bowl bid. Shortly thereafter, the NCAA levies...a bowl ban.

I might have missed a mistake along the way. I apologize. Its so hard to keep up with Gene's screw-ups.

This is a typical refrain about Gene Smith and this poster along with most Buckeye fans really miss the point of where he fails.

When Gene Smith came to Ohio State in 2005 there were two facts that greatly has affected subsequent events.  1) he came into a situation where the previous AD was pressured to quit due to NCAA violations and the expectation was that the new AD would tighten things and 2) the Ohio State football team had recently won the national championship and its coach was extremely popular with fans, alumni, and boosters.

The first point is a bit harsh to the previous AD, Andy Geiger, as he had done a lot to make Ohio State's compliance department one of the best in the country.  Many outsiders scoff at that notion but it is something that Ohio State fans expect as it allows us to hold our head high and know we won the right way (that's also what makes the recent violations more painful).  Geiger made a statement last year that

"The setup that we had (when he was director of athletics) was extremely proactive," Geiger said. "It's my understanding that the current compliance people went to the car dealers, they are all over those kinds of things, they were doing their best to try to keep up with it, but there is, in Columbus, a very large community with a nationally prominent program, the Ohio State football program, that is just over the top in importance, in not only Columbus but in the state. That attracts all kinds of things to it, some of which is very, very difficult to control. There isn't any way that a compliance department, an Athletic Director or a football coach or whole staff of football coaches can be with people in a program 24/7. There are going to be influences, there are going to be relationships that built over time that can turn out to be negative and be very damaging. I experienced that, and it has been experienced one more time."

 Some may look at this as excuse making but there is a lot of truth in it.  Any organization that has to manage hundreds of people are going to find that a small percentage will always break the rules no matter how many times you educate them.  In this situation the only thing that a compliance department can do is put procedures into place that are designed to catch offenders.  This has a two fold purpose which first is to punish the offenders but it also is a deterrent to others so these acts aren't repeated.

Jim Tressel is a great man and a great coach.  He is not a perfect man.  Every good coach develops a style that works for them and is usually based on their personality.  Coach Tressel's system was a family atmosphere combined with micromanagement and there was very little that got by his notice in the locker room.  His style was also that he liked to take care of things in house with his usual punishment a fatherly mixture of harshness, suspensions, and forgiveness.  I believe his motives were pure but this had the unfortunate side effect of lessening compliance.

Andy Geiger made mention of this in Jim Tressel's annual reviews that he was unsatisfactory in self reporting violations in a timely manner.  The statements by Geiger make it clear that Jim Tressel's habit of not reporting violations wasn't a one time thing.

When a manager is hired into a job they have a few decisions that need to be made immediately.  The most important is what to do with their direct reports.  It is human nature that a manager wants someone on their staff that is "their" person.  Some immediately reorganize and some take years.  The key is a manager has to take charge and a good example is what Urban Meyer did in the football program by retaining only 3 coaches from Jim Tressel.  Actions like these make sure you have loyal people in your organization and ensures that their is little time wasted in conversations like - "But we used to do it this way..."

Contrast that with the Gene Smith's situation -- he needed to make changes and he had a popular coach with alumni/board support that like the way he was doing things.  It was a situation tailor made for disaster as Smith really didn't have the power to make changes in the football program.  That's why most of the charges against him are invalid.  Let's look at the charges listed above:

December 2010, he assured everyone that he investigated and the original Tat5 was it. Nothing else. - Jim Tressel lied to Gene Smith's investigators.  At the time this statement was correct and he can't be expected to be a mind reader.

January 2011, he discovers that Tressel knew about all this back in April 2010. - This was part of an annual audit the compliance department does and is proof that they are doing their job.  The sad truth is this wouldn't have been discovered at most other schools because they don't have the number of resources used at Ohio State to be able to conduct audits.

Story breaks in early March 2011. Ohio State hastily calls a news conference where it looks to everyone like they got caught with their pants down. They decide to retain Tressel. - They did get caught with their pants down but only because information was leaked to a reporter from the NCAA.  They were investigating and had notified the NCAA when it occurred.  They were about a week away from filing when the story broke.  The press conference was a disaster but not because of Gene Smith.  His best work of the year was done at that press conference but it was overshadowed by Gee's "I hope he doesn't fire me" and Tressel's incoherent ramblings that said nothing when he needed to say a lot.  He could get away with that approach in a press conference after a gameday victory but his habit of stonewalling made everyone involved look stupid on this day.

Memorial Day - Ohio State fires Tressel. Why? Because between that press conference and Memorial Day, the rest of the CFB world finds out what Gene Smith already knew. And Gene Smith BADLY miscalculated how much pressure he could endure with his original decision to retain Tressel. - This statement couldn't be further from the truth.  I have no doubt that Gene Smith believed that Tressel's actions warranted firing but realized that the coach's popularity made that difficult.  The thing is a situation of this magnitude wasn't made by Gee/Smith but when the board of trustees met as there's no way they didn't know about this before the end of February.  At this meeting the Tressel supporters won out and it was decided to keep him.  At the time they had the assurance from Tressel that he would make a public apology for his actions.  When Tressel didn't do this (and he still hasn't) it became tougher and tougher to support him.  The clincher was that fans started to turn on him.  I think that surprised the board because initially Buckeye fans were almost unanimously in their support to keep the coach but it slowly became apparent that this support was waning quickly.  Add to the additional NCAA violations if the Buckeyes kept Tressel and you have a situation where the board realized that Tressel had to go.  Gene Smith was merely the messenger in all this.

Summer 2011 - more NCAA violations are committed - again under his watch. - The violations actually occurred earlier but once again an AD should not be held accountable for players committing violations.  Discovering a violation is actually showing that an AD is doing their job.

Fall 2011 - Gene Smith tells the world we'll forfeit the 2010 season but the NCAA won't levy a bowl ban.  - The first part was a no brainer as when it was realized that Jim Tressel knowingly played ineligible players, that season had to be forfeit.  The second part is a bit of a problem and I will address it later.  The interesting thing this person doesn't mention is that in the fall, due to the BobbyD allegations, a "failure to monitor" charge is added to Ohio State's violations.  This is the only thing that occurred in the NCAA reports that can be attributed to Gene Smith and his staff.  The interesting part of this is Bobby D has been a close part of Ohio State since the 80s but there is no doubt a few paperwork items occurred on Gene Smith's watch.

December 2011 - Decides to accept the Gator Bowl bid. Shortly thereafter, the NCAA levies...a bowl ban. - In this long list this is the only accurate charge.  Gene Smith should have self penalized the school the 2011 Gator Bowl if there was any possibility of a bowl ban in 2012.  He didn't do this and it was a major failing on his part.

Gene Smith gets a lot of grief from fans.  I want him gone too and my reasons are simple:

1. He doesn't protect Ohio State tradition - He willingly went along with the plan to separate Ohio State and Michigan in the new divisional structure and was OK with moving The Game to a spot earlier in the season.  The Big Ten is built on the Ohio State - Michigan game and the rest of the league profits from it.  To sell out that tradition to get a few more dollars from the television networks is unpardonable and shows that he doesn't have fans interest at heart.
2. He is out of his depth at times - While it was nice that he was the president of the NCAA basketball tournament selection committee last season, anyone that watched the selection show saw a man that couldn't explain the rankings.  I'm sure he was a bit preoccupied as this occurred at the height of the Tressel scandal but he should have resigned if that was the case.  This wasn't the only time this has happened and it is a far cry from what we got from Andy Geiger and what Ohio State deserves.
3. His bowl decision - I've wanted him gone since he tried to move "The Game" but this was no doubt his worst decision since becoming the Ohio State AD.  Some have said that the NCAA would have just made it a two year bowl ban if he self accessed one last year but as someone on the Ozone said, "We don't know that for sure and it certainly couldn't have hurt."

I'm sure there would be other things that Gene Smith has done that I'd include on this list if I were privy to the information.  The truth is we don't see the whole picture so it is hard for fans to judge.  However, I know the 3 reasons I've listed are true and that's enough for me.  I really hope the recent rumors that he's gotten an extension aren't true as it would really make me question the leadership at the school.