Yesterday Was A Good Day

Friday began with an internet report that threatened Ohio State's entire NCAA defense, and then ended with the best news Buckeye fans have received since the Sugar Bowl. At 2:44 p.m., 10TV posted an article on their website containing the salacious headline, "Tressel Alerted OSU Officials To Tattoo Scandal TIp As Early As December."

Tressel, the article states, actually informed two Ohio State administrators of his prior knowledge of player violations in December, including compliance director Doug Archie, thereby implicating the entire university in an elaborate lie designed to preserve a Sugar Bowl appearance now vacated. If true, it was a huge story that made Ohio State both corrupt and stupid, a rather unflattering combination. Of course, it wasn't true.

10TV cited multiple anonymous sources claiming access to the NCAA's interview with Tressel in February, which should have alerted us to the stupidity of the article much earlier. If the NCAA had Tressel on tape admitting that other Ohio State administrators knew of unreported player violations, then they would have charged Ohio State with Lack of Institutional Control and we'd all be mourning the untimely death of the Ohio State athletic program right now.

The article's plausibility only lasted two hours before a scheduled meeting between media members and Ohio State's Board of Trustees took place and the real 139-page interview transcript was revealed, containing no mention of the claim. So, either 10TV's multiple sources all came up with the same incorrect story, or 10TV gambled on an angle, threw a bunch of shit together, and then attributed the conspiracy tale to anonymous sources for validity. I believe the kids call this an epic fail.

Amusing as 10TV's latest attempt to manufacture controversy was, good news soon replaced it by way of the NCAA, who sent Ohio State an official notice informing the program that it would not receive a "Failure to Monitor" charge and that no new violations were found. This effectively signals the end of the NCAA's investigation into Ohio State and leads us back to where we started before Ray Small, Mark Titus, and George Dohrmann muddied up the situation with unsubstantiated claims and wild accusations. Where is that, precisely?

By limiting the charges to Jim Tressel, the NCAA has signaled to the university that they do not have a case against the compliance department or oversight process at Ohio State. Any penalties applied to Ohio State, then, will come solely from the specific violations Jim Tressel committed-- lying to the NCAA and playing ineligible players. Penalties assessed to the program, we can reasonably be assured, will not be anything like those applied in the USC case. USC was found guilty of systemic failures and was charged as an institution; Ohio State avoided this because Jim Tressel did not forward the information to his boss.

Written by your host in the unfortunately mistitled article, "Jim Tressel Is Safe and Bruce Feldman Is Wrong," I think my original take on the situation has proved accurate, minus the Tressel being safe part. With no new allegations coming, this situation returns to what it's always been about: one person making a poor choice, and not an institution corrupted to the bone.

In the past ten years, at least 30 violations cases were designated as "major" by the NCAA without involving Bylaw 2.8.1, the bylaw pertaining to an institution's responsibility. In only two cases did the institution receive a post-season ban, and both cases involved boosters purchasing recruits for a school. Ohio State did not violate Bylaw 2.8.1 and there is no booster involvement in this case,  which indicates that a bowl ban is not coming, despite the predictions and pleas from national media types and frequent Along the Olentangy visitors with different rooting interests.

Even the good national writers, like Bruce Feldman and Matt Hinton, continually promoted this idea that Jim Tressel was synonymous with Ohio State and that Ohio State was somehow culpable for his every action. Following yesterday's news, Hinton, who runs the excellent Dr. Saturday blog for Yahoo!, returned to this idea and lambasted the NCAA's decision:

From the moment the NCAA's official notice of allegations landed on its doorstep in April, Ohio State had one card to play in its defense, and one card only: Blame Jim Tressel. The university couldn't deny the charges, but it could put them all on one man, and set that man adrift on the nearest iceberg....

It (Ohio State) won't face further consequences for allegations that Terrelle Pryor and possibly dozens of other players accepted preferential treatment from car dealerships and other local businesses. It won't be forced to answer for the allegation that Pryor pocketed tens of thousands of dollars throughout his college career by selling his signature to a local memorabilia dealer. Unlike USC in the Reggie Bush Affair, Ohio State won't be called to answer for lax oversight or fostering a permissive environment; in fact, the NCAA's response applauded the OSU compliance department for its efforts to educate players of NCAA rules, track university-issued awards, shut down websites selling unauthorized memorabilia and, yes, follow up on tips it received.

He's right, clearly, that Ohio State framed the issues around Jim Tressel. From initially supporting Tressel to abandoning him once the media attention became too hot, Ohio State's defense has always been Tressel-centric, as it should since, you know, Tressel committed the only violation that reflects on the institution.

Whether you think Ohio State's administration is cowardly-- there's certainly evidence to indicate it-- or that Tressel's error forced a firing, it doesn't really matter. All these reflections dance around the fact that Tressel's violation was the only one that had evidence supporting it. Hinton can display outrage over Pryor "skating" over allegations that he received improper benefits from a booster, or he could maybe acknowledge that the sole source for those improper benefits claims came from the brother of Antonio Henton, who transferred after losing his spot on the depth chart to Pryor in 2008.

I mean, who knows, Pryor could have received more improper benefits during his time in Columbus; in fact, I'd be shocked if he didn't at one time or another. But it will be a pretty sad day when the NCAA indicts an entire program over the assumptions of one writer, or even an entire nation of them. Claims require evidence, after all, and there just wasn't any to justify another Notice of Allegations from the NCAA. If that's not a strong counterpoint against the collective hearsay and questionable sources we've had to suffer through the past five months, I don't know what is.

On August 12th, Ohio State and Jim Tressel will meet with the NCAA, and some weeks later the verdict will be final on this painful matter. The drama is not yet played out, but yesterday was a significant step in pulling the curtain shut.