Don’t Whine On Trojans: Nothing Unfair About How NCAA Handled Ohio State Compared to USC
by Tydides on Jul 22, 2011 3:20 PM PDT
in Football
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PrintBreaking news from the Columbus Dispatch:
The NCAA has notified Ohio State University that it will not face charges of failing to appropriately monitor its football team as part of a memorabilia-sales scandal that brought down former Coach Jim Tressel.
The NCAA has not uncovered any new, unreported violations during its investigation and agrees with Ohio State that Tressel was the only university official aware of violations by his players and that he failed to report them.
"Other than (two redacted player names) and (Ted) Sarniak, there is no indication that Tressel provided or discussed the information he received ... with anyone else, particularly athletics administrators," the NCAA reported in an enforcement staff case summary.
In the summary that was delivered to Ohio State yesterday and released today, the NCAA again stresses that Tressel failed in his duty to report the violations and knowingly fielded at least two ineligible players.
The NCAA will not hammer Ohio State with its worst-possible findings of loss of institutional control or failure to monitor, which would bring significant punishment.
The noise that you are hearing right now is all the (pin)heads that are currently exploding all around Heritage Hall and the USB Trogan Nation in headshaking but silly and illogical (roid) rage.
Now whether or not the NCAA should have inflicted more severe penalties on OSU is a reasonable point of discussion. We will let Michigan, Notre Dame and other fan bases handle that issue. What we will point out though is that there is a fundamental difference between the way OSU handled the serious allegations against them and what we saw out of Mike Garrett and (Ethical) Pat Haden's renegade athletic department.
Here is the picture. And, there have been a lot of posts here on BN over the years that establish this. OSU fired Jim Tressel – who at the time was a legendary head coach – in a matter of months to address the allegations concerning the program. Oh wait, I know, he wasn’t fired. He "resigned." Okay. Suuure thing. They fired the guy. They essentially burned down their program on their own and are in position to start from scratch. They also weren't defiant, obstructionist, obfuscating blowhards when dealing with NCAA inquiries.
In contrast over at USC, they glorified (or deified) one of the most corrupt and sleazy head coaches in the history of game as some kind of "winner" and attempted to throw their sorry and irrelevant basketball program under the bus (which unlike OSU was also under NCAA scope for serious violations such as stuffing their greatest player ever with cash) to save their corrupt program. Instead of taking steps towards accountability there was denial and delusion. There is also the history of Trojans taking the "we own the police" approach with NCAA’s COI. Always an endearing defense. And, there was Todd McNair unleashing Pandora’s box (read: litigious lawyers) by suing the NCAA. You can see here that there is no comparison between how the two programs handled their respective NCAA issues.
The simple fact for the bandwagon fans of Trojan nation is this: your minor league pro team of mercenaries and thugs could have saved itself like Ohio State, if it had fired its cheating head coach. Like it or not Carroll is a cheater. The tone deaf and arrogant management officials of your pro team did nothing towards establishing a culture of responsibility. Instead, it ended up hiring yet another notorious figure in Lane Kiffin, who is currently under investigation for serious NCAA violations.
Compared to what took place in Columbus, there is not much unfair about how NCAA handled USC. If anything, the argument should be about how NCAA took it easy on the Trojans as we have yet to hear anything about Joe McKnight and Lane Kiffin. There is no legitimate reason for the Trogans to Whine On.
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well...
there’s also a general perception that Ohio St has been intentionally obstructive, but less obvious about it. Essentially, the idea is that they:
1) Have repeatedly attempted to avoid consequences for their actions, most notably in their press conference (the joke “sweet spot” of a 2 game MAC suspension, only finally firing Tressel after SI told them about their soon to be published story [i.e. what they’ve actually admitted to clearly wasn’t enough to merit any real consequences; but of course OSU and NCAA would have us buy the story that there wasn’t any factual basis behind SI allegations, despite those same allegations being the final straw for Tressel] ).
2) Have attempted to bury the facts of who knew what when (a reasonable interpretation of: their stonewalling ESPN’s FOIA demand; their late-breaking “it’s all Tressel’s fault” approach; as well as Tressel’s apparent allegations that he actually DID report things in December AND that he had a list of untrustworthy people around OSU program which the AD decided to destroy).
3) Haven’t made bona fide investigations into various allegations (missing Tressel’s knowledge in December investigation [tough to think a legit investigation would have missed it, though apparently NCAA didn’t ask that question]; not investigating car allegations [state AG saying “nothing illegal here” was good enough, regardless of potential NCAA rule violations], the Auburn players’ allegations from the HBO special, etc. ).
Just because they didn’t have a incredibly stupid “we dare you to do anything to our awesome selves” public message to the NCAA doesn’t mean that they’ve done any better. If anything, their apparent game of “we’ll pretend to co-operate while actually stonewalling and obstructing” is (to me) much more disturbing. At least USC was open and honest about their disdain for the NCAA and the process. Ohio St having the same attitude while pretending to be compliant is, quite frankly, shocking in its hypocrisy.
All of which was true of the Trogans and then some
And then add a metric shit-ton of arrogance on the side and you have the USC investigation in a nutshell. I’ve made no comment on whether Ohio State should have been punished. What I am saying is that any Trogan that whines about how this is unfair because their situations are similar is full of crap and doesn’t have a leg to stand on, because the facts don’t bear that out.
And honestly, if you’re going to actually give them credit for being “open and honest about their disdain for the NCAA”, then this isn’t the place for you, because you are beyond help as a water carrying sycophant for Inheritance Hall.
I’m can’t help but laugh at the implication that u$c took the relative moral highground when dealing with the NCAA. Being blinded by arrogance and gross overconfidence does not equal being “open and honset”.
I'm not sure I'm laughing
As much as finding it disgusting, considering that this guy, aka “MrPacTen” has been slurping up the Trogans’ crap without even a second thought. I thought about trying to see it from his point of view, but I figured it’d be impossible to cram my head up my own ass, so I gave up.
by Tydides on Jul 22, 2011 3:58 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
When SC was aware of what happened after the Yahoo sports investigation
what did they do?
Hire lawyers and fight. No self imposed discipline, nobody fired, Todd McNair still on staff, nothing is wrong.
by silverlakebruin on Jul 22, 2011 3:55 PM PDT up reply actions
that's a fair point
though I find it interesting that Ohio St pretty much took the same tack with Tressel (2 games of MACrifice, then bumped to 5 after massive public outcry and denial of players’ appeals). It was only after the SI piece that they got him to quit… which suggests rather strongly (to me at least) that the allegations there were legit.
Ultimately, my really big issue (as well as most other peoples; see Dodd, Mandel, etc. twitter feeds) is with the apparent sham investigation the NCAA has done and signed off on. I wasn’t trying to argue that USC was better than Ohio St (I think that largely depends on how many of the other Ohio St allegations you believe are accurate) so much as being pissy about the fact that the NCAA doesn’t seem to care at all about Ohio St’s violations, even the ones they’ve admitted to. Or particularly inclined to seriously investigate everything else or ask tough questions based on known facts (i.e. wtf was up with compliance that they missed[or perhaps “missed”] Tressel knowledge back in December).
FWIW, I have the same $0.02 on Auburn/Newton and probably will get there on UNC if they largely get away with everything they’ve done. And I suppose you can argue that perhaps I’m a bit of a Pac-10 homer, since I’ve arguably been lighter on Oregon too (though that’s more of a “wait and see what actually comes out,” since if Oregon’s truly dirty I’d expect plenty of non-Lyles stuff to eventually come out of the woodwork).
T's post specifically states that the degree of OSU's punishment ..
… is a reasonable topic of discussion. However, that has nothing to do with USC having a legitimate gripe about being punished too hard. Compared to OSU, they acted like bunch of litgious punks with a sense of entitlement.
If you are going to keep defending with ridiculous arguments that at least “USC was being honest,” we suggest you take your Trojan homer talking points somewhere else. Oh and don’t call your self a “Pac-10” homer. You are not being a Pac-10 homer making that argument. You sound like a deluded Trojan shill pushing that nonsense.
I think
“too hard” depends on what everyone else gets. If Ohio St skates away with basically nothing despite substantial violations admitted and MAJOR violations that sure seem like they’ve committed, AND Auburn gets away with everything (presuming that there really was a “bag man” for Newton) AND UNC gets away with only minor penalties for an assistant coach being an agent runner plus academic fraud plus the seemingly blindingly obvious conclusion that the head coach at the very least knew… then yes, “too hard” is (IMO) reasonable.
But the fact remains that USC benefited greatly from Reggie Bush and did promote an atmosphere where it was easy to bend rules and probably had coaches (that’s plural btw) who knew what was going on. I certainly don’t think they deserved a wristslap. And if the NCAA is willing to hammer others for major violations, then I think it’s more or less fair what USC got.
My problem is that these days it feels like a pretty big “if.” Which, if you can’t tell, pisses me off. I essentially agree w/ Larry Scott’s “if you care about cheating, let’s go after everyone” position," as well as Emmert’s “we’re going to take a hard line” position, which is why it’s so frustrating to watch (IMO) obvious cheaters skate away with wristslaps.
As noted above, I may have gone a bit too far w/ the “at least USC…” language in the first response. As you can tell, I’m admittedly annoyed about how Ohio St seems to be getting away with everything with the seeming rubber-stamp of the NCAA.
Too soft on to$u does not equal too hard on *$c
$c got what it deserved, and is probably lucky it didn’t get more.
to$u deserves tons more than it looks like it will get. That doesn’t mean $c got screwed. It means the NCAA is a total freaking joke, and that to$u is extraordinarily lucky. They should get hammered, as should Auburn, UNC, and Oregon.
greg in denver, U.C.L.A. guy for life - BruinsNation.com
Open disdain for authority is cause for stiffer punishment
If the NCAA does not respond to a renegade school openly taking the position that it is too big to be ruled by the NCAA it sends a message: there are no rules – just suggestions.
Then the NCAA should just disband.
by KnudsenRockne on Jul 22, 2011 8:24 PM PDT up reply actions
Whether they did or not is not the point
You and I, as fans of teams that are playing by the rules, have every reason to be upset that they’re escaping punishment here. However, one of the loudest members of the peanut gallery are also the most guilty of OSU type transgressions and so much more. They do not get to talk about what’s fair, especially when the NCAA made it clear in their rationale that the Trogans’ intransigence, stonewalling, and confrontational behavior were factors in deciding their punishment.
I agree 100% they got away with murder, BUT
that does not make the case that *$c should have been punished more lightly.
It simply shows the NCAA is a pussy organization, or that to$u did a better job of hiding information implicating the AD, or to$u offered more money to the NCAA-holes to make them go away.
This makes the NCAA look even worse than normal. But it does not make *$c any less guity or less deserving of what they got.
greg in denver, U.C.L.A. guy for life - BruinsNation.com
Cooperation and contrition
These are the means by which a school avoids the hammer and suc was too arrogant to accomplish any of this. Given that the NCAA has limited powers to investigate and cannot subpoena witnesses, it makes perfect sense that they would be upset when a member, whose integrity in part is drawn from the NCAA and its rules, decides it is going to stonewall an investigation knowing it will probably work. If this is allowed (and other schools would have started using the tactic) it could bring the entire house of cards down.
The NCAA is sending a message here: All infractions are unique but when found a school must take steps to correct the problem and admit its mistakes—it must be contrite. Ohio St. fired a beloved and legendary coach and admitted it was wrong.
usc would not and elected to throw its unsung and unloved basketball team under the bus in order to protect its precious football team, the USB Trogans. They would never fire Peter the Cheater or let any action besmirch his good name by accepting responsibility for anything or making one change to that program.
And that’s the bottom-line. Teams and players violate rules. The NCAA WITH ITS MEMBER SCHOOLS exist for the integrity of college athletics. If one of those schools breaks the rules, takes advantage of the lack of investigation powers of the association, and then acts as if nothing happened, they are asking to be hammered by virtue of their actions in regard to the infraction and not for the infraction itself.
EGO TROIORUM MALLEUS SUM
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