Ohio State's Jim Tressel suddenly resigned today as head coach of the Buckeyes. Wow. This has absolutely stunned the world of college football as Tressel, who has always been sold as the squeaky clean coach, is resigning right before publication of a Sports Illustrated investigation into Tressel and the Ohio State football program. It is apparently full of bombshells that show Tressel to be anything BUT a squeaky clean coach. The reporter, George Dohrmann says he's been told his story could hit si.com as early as later today or tonight (Monday, 5-30-11). The Columbus Dispatch is also reporting that rumors are all over that administrators at Ohio State were given a "sneak peak" at the upcoming story and actually fired Tressel.

Here's a link to an NBC Sports story on the resignation.
http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/05/30/tressel-encouraged-to-resign-for-good-of-the-program/related

Wow...Guess we are to the point that possibly all of the highly successful programs are dirty...All but Stoops of course...Wink wink

Arrogant disregard for the rules? Happens a lot when these people are treated like deities.

I was just reading one of the dozens of stories in the Columbus Dispatch about Tressel and reading the comments, this one stuck out:

"Recruiting in a secular drug cultured world and expecting to experience morality and integrity is unrealistic unless you live in a dream world. Pressure to win at all costs has consequences that can be expected. This is what faces college coaches today."

It's easy to push the fault on to the players, but the buck stops with the coach. However, the comment above is also true - the culture that they recruit out of is not what it once was.

Not. Surprised. At. All. Don't let the sweater vest and calm midwest demeanor fool you. Tressel was a sleazeball back when he was at Youngstown State.

Also, there are rumors that he and OSU are tangled up in what is an increasingly large federal investigation over some stuff discovered during tatoo-gate but not released. What authority the feds have, I don't know, but it does show how serious some things are getting in Columbus.

So now thats Pete Carrol and Jim Tressel gone under the cloud of infractions. Who's next?

Lots of coaches get in trouble with the NCAA over the various rules as it's very hard to control 100 college kids 24/7. (Believe me, I know... I was president of my fraternity for a year and I couldn't begin to count all the incidences I had to deal with. One even involved the FBI!)

However, his fatal error was lying and covering up things he knew about. That's inexcusable and that's why his head had to roll.

Lots of coaches get in trouble with the NCAA over the various rules as it's very hard to control 100 college kids 24/7. (Believe me, I know... I was president of my fraternity for a year and I couldn't begin to count all the incidences I had to deal with. One even involved the FBI!)

However, his fatal error was lying and covering up things he knew about. That's inexcusable and that's why his head had to roll.

Exactly, Pete. It's the same thing that brought down Tricky Dick.

Here it is. The full investigative story by George Dohrmann.......link under the cover below. Wow. Really, it's long --- and tawdry.

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/7693/tressel.jpg

A Sports Illustrated Investigation (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/magazine/05/30/jim.tressel/index.html)

Anybody read that whole thing? This should sober up all the big-time coaches real quick. The lesson is simple: recruiting talent means dealing many (maybe most) times with families and players that come from a completely different culture - different planets -and when these things come along, and they will, don't even think about just deleting that email, or tell someone, "I didn't hear that," or any number of ways of pretending to be out of the loop. Soon enough, it's out of control. It means saying goodbye to Heisman Trophy candidates if necessary, it means that...well...things are different now. Too many great football players today are nothing but thugs in a football jersey and it's clearly so permeated the culture in college football, it may mean a wholesale cleansing of players who probably don't even belong in a university in the first place. It used to be covering up someone sliding a quick hundred to a player, now it's covering up the actions of untold numbers of criminals to preserve a full stadium on Saturday. Not any more. This will shake some programs to the core when it's all said and done.

Oh, and get ready for it, the investigation clearly shows the NCAA will have to seriously consider the death penalty. Too many covered up infractions over a four-year period. If you don't know what the death penalty is in college football, here's a good overview (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_penalty_%28NCAA%29) and pay close attention to "current criteria."

Anybody read that whole thing? This should sober up all the big-time coaches real quick. The lesson is simple: recruiting talent means dealing many (maybe most) times with families and players that come from a completely different culture - different planets -and when these things come along, and they will, don't even think about just deleting that email, or tell someone, "I didn't hear that," or any number of ways of pretending to be out of the loop. Soon enough, it's out of control. It means saying goodbye to Heisman Trophy candidates if necessary, it means that...well...things are different now. Too many great football players today are nothing but thugs in a football jersey and it's clearly so permeated the culture in college football, it may mean a wholesale cleansing of players who probably don't even belong in a university in the first place. It used to be covering up someone sliding a quick hundred to a player, now it's covering up the actions of untold numbers of criminals to preserve a full stadium on Saturday. Not any more. This will shake some programs to the core when it's all said and done.

Oh, and get ready for it, the investigation clearly shows the NCAA will have to seriously consider the death penalty. Too many covered up infractions over a four-year period. If you don't know what the death penalty is in college football, here's a good overview (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_penalty_%28NCAA%29) and pay close attention to "current criteria."

The "Death Penalty" won't happen. The main criteria is "repeat offender" within a certain period of being on probation for another violation which won't apply here.

Its a good story to focus on in the middle of a long drawn out NFL legal battle. It might just make college football the the premier fall sport this year!

Its a good story to focus on in the middle of a long drawn out NFL legal battle. It might just make college football the the premier fall sport this year!

I suspect that the good people in Ohio would prefer to focus NFL problems.

Okay i just read the whole article. There was drugs, and money, and tattoos, but not much sex. Good story all in all. I'm sure the SI's and yahoos and espn's of the world have stubs ready to go for all of the top college football programs, rhett bomar and that other guy from 200x and whatnot. I'd be interested to read the ones on OU of course, but i hope its not for many many years! I used to hang out at bars in Norman and there were reporters who would talk about what they knew and what they were trying to dig up, its not surprising. Adrian Peterson used to drive some fancy Lexus and his mom had a house near campus they were trying to figure that one out.

they could make a hit piece on stoops or any coach I'm sure of it. Just not yet

The "Death Penalty" won't happen. The main criteria is "repeat offender" within a certain period of being on probation for another violation which won't apply here.

That's true. However, here's the kicker: "The death penalty can be given to any school who has previously been on probation, yet still commits major NCAA violations within five years of that probationary period. It doesn’t matter which sport the second violation comes from."

Ohio State's basketball program is still under the 5-year probation.....here....I just found this:


According to WBNS-10TV out of Columbus the violations of the basketball program and now the football program could deem the Ohio State Athletic Department as a repeat violator.

WBNS writes that the NCAA bylaws state that “an institution shall be considered a repeat violator if a major violation has occurred within five years of the starting date of a major penalty.”

Now those same bylaws state that that in addition to normal penalties, a school given repeat violator status could lose up to two full seasons of play, scholarships for athletes, and recruiting privileges for two years.

OSU officials would not comment on whether or not they expect to be considered a repeat violator, but sports attorney and agent Brett Adams says that Ohio State can definitely be considered a repeat violator but is still unsure on whether or not the NCAA would hand down it’s harshest punishments.

“I don’t think there’s any question from a technical standpoint they fall under a repeat violator status,” Adams said. “I don’t think there’s any chance that will happen no matter what additional facts come out because Ohio State is a huge business.”

The unfortunate thing for Ohio State is that it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s a huge business because if anymore major violations are found during an investigation the NCAA will not hesitate (and may have not choice in the matter) to drop the hammer on Ohio State. USC is a perfect example a big business school that the NCAA really didn’t spare.

They should lay it down on them, but they won't. However, it would be a definite wake up call to help clean up college sports.

The end of the SI article suggests that they might lose a few scholarships. My personal thought is that it makes sense to prosecute this to the greatest possible extent because we know now that there was a ton of stuff (now surfacing) that is beyond the NCAA's 4-year statute of limitations and because it is very true that they worked Jim Tressel's choirboy image to their maximum benefit, milking everything they could out of it.

I don't see how they can avoid giving it the death penalty, but I know that will absolutely not happen. I expect it will be similar to USC even though this is way bigger. This is linked to many federal investigations, tattoo parlor beatings, drug deals, sports paraphernalia racketeering, and much more. If anything, it sounds like the feds could probably use the RICO statute to shut this athletic program down.

But let's not pretend we haven't had our own coach at OU who had to step down out of controversy, somewhat similar to this, and who is still close to the program. And anyone who isn't nervous about Adrian Peterson's former rides should be, it is still within 4 years.

It would have to be well beyond the scope of what SMU did (blatant, out in the open payoffs and such) for them to invoke the death penalty on a school of tOSU or USC. In fact the one that came closest to getting the death penalty since SMU was OSU during the Hart Lee Dykes era, Pat Jones has mentioned that several times in different media in recent years talking about the various rulings that have come down.

The main violation Tressel did was playing ineligible players, then lying. It doesn't compare to SMU's blatant paying of players. Trinkets, tattoos, small payments from boosters, borrowing cars, etc doesn't measure up to SMU either. The USC Bush case involved a lot more money than tOSU but was way outside USC's monitoring control. I don't think a death penalty will come down. Probably same penalty as USC (scholarship losses and forbidden from bowls) .