Yeah, I’ve heard this spin and it leaves out one pretty big aspect of the show cause penalty. Any school hiring Tressel in the next five years would find itself in double trouble if he so much as steps on a crack in the sidewalk. Any violation he commits at the new school — any violation — would be met with harsh penalties and not what might otherwise be considered first-offender status penalties.

Folks are looking for a spin. But the fact is, this five-year penalty make Tressel toxic to any program with sense. He won’t be hired anytime soon… unless a school wants to get bombed in the press and put itself in the sites of the NCAA.

Bruce Pearl will return to college coaching before Jim Tressel will.

Thanks for reading,

John

Please take a closer look at the so called show cause handed down to Tressel. There’s one huge difference. Tressel can recruit. Basically, he has a 5 game ban. That’s about it.

The difference — according to the NCAA — was Ohio State’s administration being more helpful behind the scenes than Southern Cal. Mike Garrett — USC’s AD — was blown up soon after the NCAA weighed in because he’d not done a good job of handling the school’s internal investigation.

Thanks for reading,

John

Ah, yes, the old faithful — “You hate our school/fans” routine.

Nope. Even though I hear that from 12 fanbases a week, it’s not true.

What I do hate are those fans who are so blind to their own prejudices that they truly believe that the NCAA, every media member in the country, and the heavens above are out to get them. Every fanbase has some of those. (Usually they’re the ones who post 15 comments under one story.)

I’m simply pointing out to those type fans in the Vol Nation — those who peppered us with that nonsense about OSU/UT — that in reality, the NCAA smacked OSU harder than it did UT after all… just as we said it would.

We thought the violations were much different, but that didn’t stop the emails from rollin’ in.

John

Glad you liked it. And I tell you what… you get peppered with hundreds of emails on the same topic for more than half a year and we’ll see if you don’t point out that what you said did occur.

Merry Christmas!

John

You miss the point. Regardless of what UT and OSU did, this site received hundreds of emails from Vol fans saying OSU would walk after UT got smacked. We pointed out that OSU would get hit harder. We still got more emails.

John

That’s not really the point. We stated time and again that OSU would get smacked worse than UT because of what OSU and Tressel did. Hundreds of Vol fans emailed this site to claim their school would be hit harder because the NCAA would take it easy on the Buckeyes and their coach.

This post is basically a “told ya so.”

John

I’ve always felt murder was a helluva’n accusation. Suggesting that some of the national columnists would scream that Ohio State didn’t get hit hard enough — something they scream whenever any school is penalized — is hardly an accusation at all… especially since many were already doing just that on Twitter.

As for The Knoxville News Sentinel’s Mike Strange, no, I don’t include him in that. He’s not a national columnist for a major publication… those are the guys who chum the waters often times.

John

I got a ton of email from Vol fans even after Tennessee’s penalties suggesting that Ohio State and Jim Tressel would get off easy because the NCAA was anti-UT and pro-OSU. Hundreds of them.

I thought I made that clear in the piece.

John

I think the more interesting comparison (though I grant you it is outside your coverage area of the SEC) is between OSU and USC.

They probably knew the NCAA was going to add something on their own, so they didn’t ban themselves. I suspect it turned out just like they hoped. No proof, just my opinion.

That’s one helluva accusation against columnists, John. I assume you must include Mike Strange in that group.