The Sanctions

I was all set to sit down and write a blog entry about the differences between Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel when I received a message via Facebook from a friend of mine who tends to have the scoop on the latest OSU happenings. He said the sanctions from the NCAA would be released Tuesday. And since I am not held to any sort of strict deadlines (just the demands of my avid readers, lol), I decided to wait for those to make my next post.

At roughly 2 p.m. Tuesday, I got another message from aforementioned friend, saying that it had been confirmed and would soon be made public that OSU would get a 1-year bowl ban to be enforced in the 2012 season. Among the other penalties (in case you live under a rock or anywhere outside of Columbus, Ohio), a 3-year probation, loss of 9 scholarships over a 3-year period, and a 5-year show-cause penalty for former head coach Jim Tressel.

So I have sat back and listened (because occasionally I do listen and not talk) to all the backlash. Some people want to blame the NCAA, saying the penalties are too harsh or unfair. Some people blame Gene Smith, OSU's athletic director. Some people blame the players involved in the original incident, others blame the players involved in the second incident, and some people blame Jim Tressel.

I am not sure you can single out any one person for the sanctions, but I do know you can't blame the NCAA. The punishment may not seem fair, but it was definitely appropriate. Look, I am as big a homer as they come. I love my Buckeyes. But some of the players broke the rules. It may be a DUMB rule, but a rule is a rule and they chose to violate it. Jim Tressel chose not to report it in the manner fitting with the rules. To top it off, after the rule was broken, two of the players who chose to break the first rule decided they were going to go ahead and break ANOTHER rule.

So a 1-year bowl ban is an appropriate punishment.

Now, I will say that I wish the NCAA had acted in swifter fashion so that the ban could be enforced this season rather than next. It isn't just that this season has been lackluster as a whole and that the Gator bowl isn't as high-profile as we are used to attending. It is that the "unfair" term can be applied to the fact that the bowl ban will not affect the players who chose to break those rules. The two in question (DeVier Posey and Boom Herron) are gone after this season. So essentially you are punishing the school only, and the ones who suffer most are next season's seniors, should they choose to stay for their last season.

Next on the blame list is Gene Smith. Where do I start with Gene Smith? When he initially held the press conference in March, I liked the guy. He stood behind Tressel, he was no-nonsense, and he seemed confident that OSU would straighten out the mess in quick fashion with little repercussions. But soon that confidence morphed into some sort of arrogance, and as more and more information leaked out, I really started to dislike Gene Smith. When Tressel was let go, I think that was the clincher for me. (I will address Tressel's departure in another post, but let me just say for the record that he deserved to be fired for his actions.) Gene Smith has handled this situation in all the wrong ways, even from the first press conference where he impressed me.

Let me elaborate:

When you were a kid and your class got in trouble with your teacher, did you (a) say I am sorry and will be happy to serve out any punishment my teacher deems appropriate, or (b) claim no one in the class really did anything wrong, then claim that it was only one person in your class who did the wrongdoing and no one else knew about it, then kick that kid out of the class, then impose your own punishment and claim that it was the appropriate punishment and that your teacher shouldn't give you any additional punishment based on past punishments that have been given? Which do you think would make your teacher satisfied?

Perhaps that is overly simplistic, but the level of arrogance Gene Smith has shown as this situation has progressed has irritated me, so I can't imagine how those at the National Collegiate Athletic Association feel about it. He had the chance to impose a 1-year bowl ban to try to appease the NCAA, and he kept insisting that the measures they had self-imposed were appropriate given the precedents they had researched. Yet all along, we have heard how the NCAA is really going to start to crack down more on these violations, so how would precedent play into a punishment when they are trying to be MORE strict than they have in the past? I feel like Gene Smith slapped the NCAA in the face, so they slapped him right back. Maybe they would have imposed a 1-year bowl ban in addition to this year's self-imposed ban. I don't think so, but I know a lot of people think they just wanted to make a point. But had Smith handled the situation differently, maybe they wouldn't have felt the need to "make a point."

Moving on the players themselves, I find myself conflicted. I want to blame the Tattoo 5. I want to blame DeVier Posey and Boom Herron (especially since they had the gall to commit a SECOND violation after already being punished for the FIRST!). But ultimately, they served their suspensions and "did their time," so it is hard to say they deserve more blame. But now, as the punishment falls to the next senior class, and the entire team is put on probation for three seasons, how can you not place some more blame on them for their part? I find myself repeating what many have said over the past 2 days -- it isn't FAIR.

And for those of you who want to blame Terrelle Pryor, be thankful he left when he did. Had he chosen to stay, he would have been forced to testify, and I have a feeling we wouldn't have liked what he had to say.

And how will these sanctions impact our team? Let's start with the post-season ban. We cannot participate in next season's Big 10 Championship game. Think about that for a second. I don't know about you, but even after we lost that game to MSU and I figured we probably wouldn't make it to the B10 Championship, I still held out hope until the very last minute. That was the inaugural Big 10 Championship, and Ohio State has at least shared a piece of the Big 10 Title for almost the last decade. And we didn't get to represent our division, despite the fact that we beat Wisconsin. And now, in our first year under our new head coach, with all the hope and promise he brings, we still don't get to play in that game.

Now think about it if you are Jon Simon or Nathan Williams. You are a junior. You are teetering between going into the NFL or returning for one more season of glory. One more chance at a title. Now, the best you can do is play spoiler to all the other teams in your conference and maybe get the best of TTUN one more time. You won't be playing into December or January. Is it worth the risk to come back?

Outside of the post-season ban, which has the most tangible impact, we are now on probation for 3 years and have 3 fewer scholarships to hand out each year for the next 3 years. Do not, for a minute, think that a post-season ban is the most serious punishment handed down to OSU. I don't know if you have heard (and if you read my blog regularly, you have), but Urban Meyer is out there recruiting coaches and players like crazy right now. He just confirmed Mike Vrabel's return. Future players love him. But being on probation for 3 years is no joke. With the NCAA cracking down on repeat offenders, if OSU even steps out of line by a hair, the NCAA might cut them off entirely. Would you want to risk being on a team where your future is determined by the actions of others? And what happens when we run out of scholarships to offer these amazing athletes? Do we cut existing players in the hope that the prospect coming in will be better (as is popular in the SEC, by the way)? Is that how we want OSU to function?

I don't think Urban Meyer is going anywhere. He is committed to The Ohio State University. These sanctions will impact him in recruiting for sure, and it might change the game (no pun intended) for some of the existing players as well.

Now we get to sit back and see if the NCAA is really going to hold true to its mission and crack down on some of the other schools with outstanding violations, such as Miami (FL), Oregon, North Carolina...

Because if these are the sanctions we got for what we did, Miami is in BIG trouble.

The Dream Team?

From the moment it was "official" that Urban Meyer would be the next head football coach at The Ohio State University, he promised to assemble to best possible coaching staff in an attempt to rival any other school in the nation. Gene Smith confirmed (in contradiction to his previous affirmations) that he would make available the necessary resources for Coach Meyer to spend SEC-type money to pay assistant coaches at OSU (read: ticket prices are going up again). I guess that a 6-6 record can do that to you.

And so, it has been entertaining in the past month to watch not only the football player recruits sign (and, as in the case of Brionte Dunn, re-sign) but also to watch the movements of Meyer in recruiting the "Dream Team" of college football coaches. Meyer has even interviewed former head coaches to be coordinators and assistants at OSU. There has been talk of Mike Stoops as a co-defensive coordinator, Tim Brewster as a recruiting coach, and an assortment of former Florida coaches coming in to coach with Meyer again at OSU.

And this week has produced a flurry of official hirings. First, Tom Herman from Iowa State has been hired as offensive coodinator and quarterbacks coach. Formerly an offensive coordinator at Rice, Herman oversaw an offense that ranked in the top 10 nationally in passing offense, total offense, and scoring offense. I am excited to see what improvements he will bring to the technical play of Braxton Miller, who showed vast improvement in decision-making (with the exception of a questionable spike of the ball on 3rd down against TTUN) throughout last season, often keeping the Buckeyes in games late and even producing a dramatic last-minute win versus Big 10 Champion Wisconsin.

And not all of the "hires" are new to OSU. Stan Drayton, the current OSU receivers coach, is expected to move to running backs coach, a position he held under Meyer at Florida in 2010. This is interesting. Why the heck were we using a running backs coach as a receivers coach, I wonder? Apparently Meyer wonders the same thing...

To add to the list of coaches, Meyer has announced that the still-titleless Luke Fickell will call the defensive plays for the Buckeyes next season. I am not sure why Meyer has yet to give Fickell a formal title. Perhaps it is because he wants to assemble the rest of his staff first? Meyer seems to think a coaching title doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, and he feels Fickell agrees with him.
And titles aside, I think allowing Fickell to slip into the role of quasi-defensive coordinator is a good move. He has OSU ties, passion for the university and football in general, and the players already identify with him as one of the coaches. Though being a head coach at OSU wasn't a successful endeavor for Fickell right now, I think allowing him to go back to focusing on defense alone will strengthen our defensive scheme, which has usually been our strong suit. Let's face it, defense kept us in some of the games we played earlier this season! But we will talk more about Fickell in a moment...

The "co"-defensive coordinator position has been granted to Everett Withers.

Um...Who?


Oh yeah, Withers is interim coach at North Carolina, having taken the place of Butch Davis, who was fired earlier this season in the wake of all-too-familiar NCAA violations. Meyer hired Withers over a much more well-known Mike Stoops, apparently because Withers' mentality more closely resembles that of Meyer.
I have to say, I would have preferred Mike Stoops if I was choosing from name recognition. But I also wouldn't have hired anyone named Jim Tressel 11 seasons ago, probably opting for the more familiar Glen Mason...so maybe name recognition isn't always best.

The rest of the defensive staff should be comprised of current defensive backs coach Taver Johnson and possibly linebackers coach Mike Vrabel. And honestly, though the defensive went downhill beginning in the 3rd quarter versus Nebraska, I don't have a ton of complaints about them over the last several seasons, so I think Fickell and Withers and all the defensive recruits we have stolen..er...wooed away from other schools should be on pace to rebound dramatically next season.

But now there is news of Fickell being interviewed for the head coaching job at Pitt. Look, I know you eventually aim to be a head coach Luke, but are you sure you want to coach at a school that has been through FIVE head coaches in 12 months? There has to be something to that, right? As much as I complained about Fickell this season, I am hopeful he sticks it out for at least one season at OSU.

Maybe titles do matter to Fickell. Let's think of what we could call him. Something like Coordinator of Defensive Coordination? Head Coordinator?

Apples to Oranges

As my husband sat down to watch last night's OSU men's basketball game, he made a comment that I should pay close attention so I could make an informed blog entry. It was an odd statement, but I could see his point. My passion for basketball is a lot different from my passion for football.
To explain this, let me explain my passion for football. If you were to sit in front of me at an Ohio State football game, I would apologize to you before the game. I wouldn't be apologizing for cursing, flashing, drinking, or puking on you. I would be apologizing because I have been told I have a knack for making someone's ears ring with my constant yelling.
I don't sit down much during football games. I bought my ticket to go to the game, stand up, yell at the team, yell at the refs, and just generally make a spectacle of myself. I am pure entertainment, but I take exception when I am compared to the crazy obnoxious guy who is just yelling incoherently at the blurry figures on the field. No, I know what I am talking about when I yell. I just really get into the game. It takes me a while to wind down afterward, and I am sure my mom has wished on more than one occasion that I didn't chew her ear off about game play and strategy all the way back to the car.
Now, when I go to a basketball game, you will meet a completely different type of fan. I like to sit at basketball games. I take in the court, the players, the back-and-forth. Perhaps I can't sustain the type of energy I have at a football game for all the constant action in a basketball game. Perhaps I just haven't found the passion I need to have for basketball yet. I am not really sure why, but I just find myself much more reserved when I watch a basketball game. As I learn more about the strategy, I open up a little more throughout the game, but there is just way too much scoring for me to cheer as loudly for 40 minutes.
But I am sure many ear drums in Columbus are thankful for that!

Update: As far as my opinions on last night's game versus USC Upstate -- well, it wasn't too exciting, was it? Though my husband was screaming at the TV for 15 minutes of the first half, I wasn't really worried at any point. It was nice to see Sully ease back in. Hope his back is feeling better.

Blog Inception

As with my everyday blog, the idea for this blog was inspired by a friend of mine. As you might surmise by the name of the blog, this blog is sports-related--more specifically, it is OSU sports-related.

For many years, I have followed all things OSU football. Most recently, I have also started following OSU basketball. And while I may enjoy my rantings and ravings about football, I have always felt that people (specifically of the male persuasion) roll their eyes at my opinions on the sport. I am not alone. It seems a common perception that women would rather sit around and talk about purses and shoes than follow the game of football with any real sincerity.

I have seen it in action for years. While a lot of the guys I know will acknowledge my opinion, the most guilty men seem to be of the older generation. I will never forget being completely dismissed by one of my parents' friends when I began talking about OSU football. Unfortunately, I wasn't there when my "opinion" came to pass weeks later to see whether he remembered how quickly he dismissed me.

So when another of their friends called me one evening and asked me for my opinion on Ohio State, I was almost at a loss for words. He went on to say how he often bases his own conversation on my opinions, and he enjoys my facebook posts throughout the season. He said I should start a blog.

"A blog? Who would care what I have to say about it?"

Apparently, he would.

And even if he is my ONLY reader, this gives me a healthy outlet to express my opinion on Ohio State football and basketball. And perhaps it will spare some of my friends and family some eye-rolling at having to listen to me drone on for the 100th time.

So here we go with...


The NUTTY Buckeye!!