Jim Tressel: Your Only "Fear" Was Getting Caught—Period

Listen, full disclosure here, this post is not an attempt at being fair or balanced. No, the approach here is simple: to call a spade a spade. 

Upon reading Jim Tressel's "apology" for failing to report the violations of his players—which, by the way, if you're buying that whole "feared for their safety argument", then I have a wonderful piece of sandy real estate in the north pole to sell you—I only have two observations: 1) Tressel is only sorry he got caught, and 2) Tressel is about as honest as an Amway salesperson if he tries to spin it any other way.

While I won't profess to know all of Tressel's intentions, his decision to withhold information about  the impermissible activities of his players cannot be accepted as an omission prompted by any so-called "fear" of restitution by any third-party. On the contrary, based on the emails exchanged between Tressel and the informant, his players engaged in the behavior, willingly, on multiple occasions—at some points even soliciting Mr. Rife via cell phone contact—and Tressel's response didn't seem to elicit anything more than a passing curiosity as to how he might curb their behavior.

At the press conference, Tressel stated "I have had a player murdered. I've had a player incarcerated. I've had a player get taken into the drug culture and lose his opportunity for a productive life...it was obviously tremendously concerning. Quite honestly, I was scared."

Well, not to sound insensitive, but there are more than a handful of coaches in the college football ranks who share in that experience with Tressel—it explains nothing.

And, even if anyone was naive enough to buy Tressel's stab at emotional sympathy, those same persons would be smart to ask the following question: why not blow the whistle on the whole enchilada once the shady dealings were finally exposed in January? Surely if there were ever a time to let the information highway flow freely, it was then because, well, the cat was out of the bag. Yet, instead, he continued to keep the information to himself—why?

I'll tell you why, he kept it a secret for the same reason then as he did in April of 2010,  he knew he was in deep crapola if any one found out. He was simply trying to protect his and his players backsides—nothing more.

However, the more appalling behavior, in my opinion, comes not from Tressel (unfortunately, dirty coaches appear to be in fashion right now), but from the Ohio State administration in general. Do they honestly believe that a two game suspension coupled with a $250,000 fine is enough?...Seriously?

First of all, the Buckeyes play scrub one and scrub two in the first two games, so it's not like Tressel would have done much coaching in the first place and, furthermore, university president, Gordon Gee, sounds like he's just moments away from grabbing a set of knee pads for ol' Jimmy (good grief, Mr. Gee, could you BE anymore of a sniffer, "I'm just hoping the coach doesn't dismiss me."...is this guy for real?), so it wouldn't surprise me if the $250,000 fine doesn't come out of Tressel's pockets—per se.

NCAA President, Marc Emmert, has already proven to be a complete moron in the way he handles such blatant violations as this one (see Cam Newton as well as the Ohio State Five), so all eyes will be on him again with this latest turn of events and, for his sake, I hope he finds some intelligence in making a ruling on a real punishment for The Ohio State University.

They should be forced to forfeit the entire 2010 season and Jim Tressel should, in my homer humble opinion, be required to sit out more than just a couple of meaningless football games in 2011. The stuff should hit the fan for Ohio State and, if it doesn't, expect most of hell to not only break loose, but to take up permanent residence in Indianapolis—starting with the office of the president. 

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With TCU Accepting a Big East Invite, Boise State Is Back At Square One

Boise State could not have imagined that their decision to leave the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) for the Mountain West Conference (MWC) would have been met by such an utter upheaval.

In the time since the Broncos made said decision to leave the "Little Sisters of the Poor" (AKA Gordon Gee's description of Boise's conference mates) behind, the strongest members of the MWC (BYU, Utah, and TCU) have all jumped ship.

Utah accepted an invite in mid-June to join the Pac-10. Shortly thereafter, BYU decided to become an independent in football—with all their other sports joining the West Coast Conference. Now, today, TCU has accepted an invitation to join the Big East conference.

The latter action has to have the powers that be at Boise State scratching their collective heads—essentially, the MWC just became the WAC.

Boise is no longer adding it's strong record and television appeal to a major, non-BCS, conference in the hopes of making it legitimate but, rather, joining a conference that will now be looking to them for any form of legitimacy—talk about getting the short end.

While you can hardly blame Utah, BYU, or TCU for trying to get their shot at an automatic qualifying (AQ) bid in a BCS conference, you have to feel a little sorry for Boise State because they just seem to keep missing out on acceptance.

Seriously, what can they possibly do now? They will be in no better a position in 2011 than they were in 2010.

Of course the MWC will add more teams, but with BYU and Utah now gone,  and TCU exiting in 2012, how many advertisers will be chomping at the bit to see MWC games on national television—in primetime? Better still, what does this mean for the Mountain West's network? Boise might be a media darling, but they aren't a huge draw all by themselves—and no one is going to be lining up to see them play Colorado State, New Mexico, or Wyoming.

Boise State can't seem to catch a break. They're either damned if they do, or damned if they don't and they have to be feeling a bit piled on by this point. Perhaps they've been right all along—no teams want to play them.