Wednesday, July 27, 2011

NCAA Disbelief? I'm NOT Buying It....Yet....

I can't believe this is happening, and my brain refuses to accept the reports at face value. In case you HAVEN'T heard, click the link for a detailed Maize and Brew report in addition to the various links at the right.

Can we look at the facts and arguments for and against again just so were all clear? Thanks.

1. Jim Tressel was the "Head Coach" of OSU when ALL of the crap was going down with Tat-gate, Pryor-Gate, and Troy Smith getting $500. That is clearly repeated offenses and a pattern of non-compliance. But tOSU will offer up that it was all Tressel and he's gone.
2. Not to mention a litany of other infractions that have been summarized by Genuinely Sarcastic in "Dotting the Lie". More infractions and additional support of the non-compliance arguments that tOSU will point at and say, "Tressel".
3. Just because Tressel is no longer part of the institution, he was a big piece of it when he was coaching, no? How does that not qualify as lack of institutional control? tOSU will point to it again and say, "Hey, how could we possibly know?"
4. IF the NCAA doesn't cut at least 5 scholarships for at least 1 year in addition to a 1 year bowl ban, then USC is going to shit a trojan horse. I mean, they are going to be pissed. In the USC situation, coaches could not even be implicated in the deeds of Bush and Mayo. Those were just players and this was the head coach.

I'm patiently waiting for August 12th and hoping that the latest was just a bone that the NCAA threw to the rabid fans that I'm sure are filling the NCAA mailboxes with hate mail, threatening letters and who knows what else. But if the NCAA compliance committee doesn't come down hard on these guys, Michigan should go back and tell the NCAA to shove the 2nd year of probation up their collective asses and say thanks for all the support.

Yes, I'm a little ticked right now, but I do believe that the NCAA will do the right thing. Vacating wins and a bowl victory means crap. Everyone knows who won the game on the field, whether they cheated or not. Tressel resigning/firing was a sacrifice on the NCAA altar of justice, but in my mind, that isn't nearly enough. Pete Carrol also saw some writing on the wall and took the easy way out to the NFL. tOSU needs to suffer a similar fate.

And while they have taken a beating on the recruiting trail, it still needs to be re-inforced by a rules committee that shows a little backbone and does what they know to be right, even though without supboena power, it's a little unclear what really happened in every case.