Buckeye Confidential

I was cleaning out some of my old drafts and found this that I never published last summer.  It's funny to read now a year later.  The month of August was a lot different last year.
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The past week has seen a flurry of articles that are positive about the Ohio State Buckeyes like this one at Theclevelandfan and this one at the Ozone.  Add to that the positive news from the BMV and the report from the board and this has been the best week since the whole thing started in March.  Add to that the fact that the NCAA has left campus and the fact that their has been no amendment to the NCAA's Letter of Allegations or a change in the August meeting date and Buckeye nation is positive that the pundits are going to be sadly disappointed when the ruling comes out this fall.

I am trying to keep an open mind but numerous allegations have been thrown at the school and been dis-proven time after time.  I'd bet most pundits don't realize this but the only allegations that we know are 100% true are the things that were disclosed in the initial report to the NCAA.  Those are Jim Tressel's coverup and the 6 players that sold items for tattoos.  Those are still serious allegations and as a result we have lost a coach / quarterback and will face sanctions from NCAA.  My personal opinion is we will see a reaffirmation of the 5 game suspension, a loss of the 2010 regular season, and a 2-3 year show cause penalty for Jim Tressel.  This thought is common by other Buckeye fans and while it could be a case of Buckeye mass delusion it has led to an increase in posts that the leaders at Ohio State are cowards and should have backed Jim Tressel.

I love Jim Tressel.  I respect Jim Tressel.  Jim Tressel made a huge mistake but I know he is an honorable man.  I'd love to have Jim Tressel at coach as he's taken the team to a height that few other programs reach.


https://web1.ncaa.org/LSDBi/exec/miSearch?miSearchSubmit=publicReport&key=691&publicTerms=THIS%20PHRASE%20WILL%20NOT%20BE%20REPEATED

But he made a mistake and he had to go.

Should Tressel still be the coach in 2011?

With the Buckeyes poor showing this season one of the topics that keeps showing up on the forums is 'What would have happened if Jim Tressel were still the coach in 2011?"  My feeling is we probably would have lost to Miami/Michigan State but beat Nebraska/Penn State/Purdue.  Jim Tressel had a way to make teams believe in themselves and his teams always finished strong.  Does anyone think he would have allowed Nebraska to score 21 points in the 4th quarter, not come up with something to shut down Purdue, or figured out a way to get another score vs Penn State?  He was a master of the close games and protecting a lead.  Unfortunately he isn't with the team anymore.

That has created quite a backlash on forums as fan anger is now blaming the board for the decision to let him go as the wrong move.  In truth, there have always been a few that have said this they are now just louder since the results of the season are so poor.  Here's a good example of a recent post:

2011 didn't need to be "The Lost Year"; the OSU BOD could have retained JT&forced the NCAA's hands. We gave up too much *

My response was:  "The price of not getting a FTM or LOIC charge for Tatgate was Tressel."

If the university backed Tressel the NCAA would have given us a harsher penalty probably similar to USC. Backing him said to the NCAA, "The institution agrees with Coach Tressel's actons" which would have given the critics of the Buckeyes in the NCAA enough to punish us like they did with Bush/Carrol/Garrett. Instead, Tressel fell on his sword to save the program from his mistake. IMO the mistake was minor but once it became public the events had to play out like they did.

I wish people would move on. I love the 10 great years we got from Jim Tressel and look forward to the day when the NCAA rules and we can welcome him back with open arms in the stadium. I have no doubt we'd be in the B1G championship game with him at the helm but the sooner we move on as a program the sooner things will be able to return to the greatness that Jim Tressel gave us during his tenure. The BoT realized this over the summer and did the right thing to protect the future of the program. They have gotten a ton of grief for their decision but the reality is the program will be better in the long run because of it.

The response was: Says who? Gene The Weak? We gave up way too much and they'll STILL pile on. The Roo, for once, is right. * -

My response: Gene is gone too. I personally wish we'd have gotten rid of him after he allowed scUM and OSU in separate divisions

He's gone within 6 months after the sanctions are given.

In any big enterprise there is a conservative playbook for damage control. We might not agree with the decisions but in crisis large organizations make Tresselball look like the run and shoot by comparison. They don't take risks and anything that could possibly damage the "organization" is addressed in order.

Tressel was the most public issue and he was the first to go. It wouldn't surprise me if the NCAA gave back channel information to the Buckeyes of their penalty with or without Jim Tressel. Even if that didn't happen, part of the reason the Compliance Group was hired was to give the Board long term scenarios. I guarantee projections were made of donations and ticket sales for the next decade for all the possible outcomes. After reviewing everything they came up with their plan and part of that was to get rid of JT.

Many people here pretend that the Board is incompetent but many of them are very successful business people that face situations like this on a daily basis. I have no doubt that if we had all the information they did, most would have made the same decision.

The main opposition to the decision are people that look to the past and not to the future. That is fine for fans but the Board doesn't have that luxury as they have bills to pay. To do otherwise would been just as shortsighted for the athletic department as was Jim Tressel's initial decision to protect Pryor/Posey at the expense of the rest of the team.

Anyone that has spent any time in a large organization knows that what happened to Tressel had to happen. He was only going to coach 5-6 more years and the potential benefit was less than the threat he posed to the organization.  Organizations always do what is in their perceived best interest.  Tressel was a danger and had to go -- it is as simple as that.

JT was a great coach in most every way but micromanagement was his biggest flaw

I just read this article and agree with it almost 100%.

Jim Tressel is a great man and should be remembered as one of the best coaches of all time.  Most of us were annoyed in the past 10 years with his micromanagement but we mostly overlooked it as he gave us wins.

The scary thing is we could have been better if he would have allowed more talented individuals into his inner circle.  During his era the talent level in the rest of the Big Ten declined while Ohio State's talent was as good as ever.  Tressel used that talent to win the surest way and while the results on the field weren't always pretty he won.  The thing is after many of Ohio State's games you were often left with the perception that we made the games a lot harder than we needed.  That was usually because we didn't adapt to what the other defense gave us and instead insisted on running into the strengths of the other team.  We won in spite of that because we outmanned the other team but it did little to prepare us for teams with speed that matched ours.

The fact that Jim Tressel won as many games as he did is a testiment to his ability to micromanage the team but in the end his decision to micromanage punishments were his downfall.  His departure has left a massive hole in the football program and as there is no one on the staff with Jim's ability the only way to fix it is to bring in a new coach and overhaul the whole thing.  The talent level at Ohio State is still great and assuming the NCAA sanctions are light it shouldn't take a decent coach very long to restart the recruiting pipeline that happened in the Tressel era.  Whether they can have the same success on gameday is the big question.

In hindsight that was probably inevitable but I'm sure most people would have never imagined at this time last year that the program would be in this state in a short 12 months.  I for one can't wait for the nightmare to end.

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.

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.
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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.

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.

More TAT5 news

If you read the article in the Dispatch blog we will be hearing soon about more players than mysterious player G.  Here's the link:

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/sports/stories/2011/04/28/0428-new-ncaa-information.html

The first half we already know about ... the TAT5 sold or traded items to Rife.

The second half of the article has my head spinning.  It says that Rife has a bunch of stuff he bought from Ebay but also received 6 items as gifts from current players whose names were withheld.  These were shoes, a Rose bowl plaque, a helmet, and other memorabilia.  It then states that NCAA rules don't prohibit athletes from giving items away for free.

Is Ohio State's position that these players gave someone a bunch of items as gifts with no consideration in return?  A man that other players on the team traded with for tatoos and cash.  Seriously?  Why would they do that?  Because they heard he was a good guy?

Then there's the bombshell about one of the unnamed players giving 4 passes to the 2010 Rose Bowl for a 2003 Tahoe.  Isn't trading tickets for a Tahoe worse than gold pants for cash?  Is it permissible for players to sell tickets for cash/items?  If it is then why is selling gold pants against the rules?   Was this Player G?

As I'm pretty sure the NCAA had this information in December so it makes me wonder how they only picked the 5 they did for suspension.

The next few days should be a lot of fun as the press has another go at the program.

((Anyone else feel that article was rushed?  Like they were trying to get it out quick to beat the competition instead of waiting until tomorrow's paper?))

Late addition - Just got this link for the actual document ... it reads a bit different than the implications in the  Dispatch article so perhaps everything is just rehashing old news.

http://media.cleveland.com/osu_impact/other/OhioStateDOJletter.pdf

The Tressel Situation

3 months ago it was unthinkable that Jim Tressel’s job could ever be in jeopardy but the way this thing has been handled has been abysmal from the start. It’s like every time there’s a choice to be made they go out of their way to make the wrong decision. My problem isn’t as much that he didn’t forward the email, it’s the way he handled it when the truth came out in December. He should have come forward at that point and didn’t. Rewatch this press conference:

http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=205069730

Tell me after watching this that you aren’t a little bit angry. Watching that makes me feel like my dad did something stupid then lied about it. No Buckeye wants to admit it because we were all in love with Coach Tressel but he lied to us. Not only lied but admonished us for how he was handling the situation. This quote is the one that bugs me the most,

“I’ve gotten lots of help with emails and opinions. It’s been an interesting lesson for me, so many of the opinions seem to revolve around what we would look like as opposed to a lesser number that would be what would be best for the student athletes involved. As I thought about that I hope that no one has the impression that when we visit hospitals it’s because of what we might look like … It’s been an interesting lesson. It’s my 36th season of coaching and it’s just a reminder that you learn lessons as you go and there’s not a whole bunch of what we can talk about in terms of these youngsters other than they are in the family, they’re on the trip, they want to be Buckeye in 2011, they’re obviously very remorseful for misjudgments made, and they’re anxious to have a great experience at the Sugar Bowl.”

I remember that quote specifically because I thought that press conference was a masterpiece and it shamed me as I was thinking more about image than the kids. 3 months later and I am amazed at the gall Jim Tressel had in admonishing Buckeye fans for not thinking of the kids while at the same time he was lying to the NCAA. His lie may cost future Buckeye kids a lot more than one game and it has tarnished Ohio State’s image more than selling 1000 trophies would ever have done.

Despite all that I still love Jim Tressel and feel he is a good man and coach. He made a mistake and I’m willing to forgive but he owes Buckeye nation a much better apology than we’ve received so far.

Has Pryor entered the Clarett zone at THE ohio sTATe university?

Yesterday, Terrell Pryor along with 4 other players were suspended for 5 games in the 2011 season.  The reason for this has been well documented on the ESPN site and you can read more about it here.  I'm angry about the suspension for a few reasons.

• I'm angry at players for selling memorabilia to for money.  I don't care if the NCAA says the players weren't properly advised as that seems like a poor excuse.  Every player is told you can't profit from your participation in NCAA sports and selling a trophy is profit - plain and simple - end of story.  The money aspect doesn't bother me as much as the fact that these players don't care enough about the team to at least keep the items until their playing days at the school is over.  
• Dear NCAA - 5 games?  Seriously?  This is worth 5 games after Cam Newton's dad was shopping him around and you worked with the SEC to make sure he didn't miss a single game?  I think the players should be punished but this seems to be a bit much and 2-3 games seems more fair.
• Dear NCAA part 2 - You are allowing these TAT5 to play in the Sugar Bowl?  Hypocrisy much?  Seriously?  How can anyone take this organization seriously as I'm guessing that at least 3 of the 5 will now go pro and the Buckeyes will appear to have gotten off scott free.  If you are going to penalize the players you do it immediately starting with the next game.  What's that?  It might hurt a BCS games ratings?  Too f'n bad. 

  Tress should do their job for them and suspend the players anyway.  Then the team might get earn back a bit of respect that these players lost.  In my mind, Pryor has now entered the rarified world of Maurice Clarett.  There is no doubt that both players have talent but both showed an increasing immaturity off the field that ended up costing them playing time.  Buckeye fans overlook a lot of things and they've had blinders for Pryor in the past.  While other fans belittled his accomplishments, the fans were in his corner.  That free ride has ended and if Pryor comes back he better play perfect football or he will get crucified.  Anyone else remember how the fans turned on Steve Bellisari?  It's going to be that bad.

My preference is that he goes pro so the Buckeye fans can move on the the Guiton/Miller era.  No matter what happens we will look back 20 years from now and think ... it's too bad Pryor didn't have more than a 5 cent brain to go with his million dollar athletic ability?