http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/f ... l.resigns/

Senator Jim Tressel resigns as head coach of The Ohio State University Football team.
SI is allegedly releasing a scathing piece tomorrow, and they sent an advanced copy to the OSU this weekend.
The Buckeyes are now facing a serious beatdown by the NCAA.

I had a feeling this might happen. It seemed like every piece of news coming out of Columbus was progressively worse.

So he takes a year off, does some TV and lands...where? USC? UGA?

It seems like the framing of this story is aiming to out him as massive fraud and a black eye upon the sport/business of CFB.

I feel like he might be forced into some kind of exile and only have a George Leary style "permanent assistant" comeback available to him. But, America loves a good boom and bust and boom again story.

FWIW, there have been stories about OSU being dirty as hell going back to their MNC season under Tressel.

If John Caliapari can keep getting jobs, anyone can. College athletics is a cesspool.

I think Rick Neuihesal is a more apt comparison.

But I think there's no rhyme or reason to who gets outcasted and who doesn't. Leary and Leach seem to not be able to pay for a second chance. Yet Houston Nutt and Lane Kiffin have jobs.

Liar, liar, vest on fire.

Perhaps OSU will now bring in The Denim Vest as a replacement (Kevin McDonald could probably use the work these days)...

Yeah, and Tressel had accusations of cheating when he coached Youngstown State. I also think he tried to frame himself as a Mark Richt style God and Guns and Wins coach, and I think he's going to A) be crucified for it or B). Brought in as a cruel fixer who knows how to bring in the good shit players want like Cheap Tattoos or C) land a high profile job where he's under a microscope and suck fucking eggs because his real talent is as an overseer in the modern day slave trade and not Xs and Os.

And again, I'm taking about the narrative framework via the media, which is as good as reality any way since it's all your gonna get.

On Wisconsin!

Of all that's said there, and I agree with the greater part, the sad thing is that Mike Leach is still hanging out. I'm really upset with Tressel portraying himself as super Christian. Just more fodder for the leftists.

Well hmmm... call me dim but I was never hip to how much Tressel painted himself as a man of God. Always thought he was trying to play the John Wooden 2000 role, but I guess that's splitting hairs when you get right down to it.

That SI piece is pretty amazing, mostly for how widespread the merch-for-profit culture was and for how long, and there was no other move but out the door once it all came to light. Either he'd been incredibly oblivious and ignorant to what was going on with his athletes for going on a decade (unacceptable) or he'd been lying/turning a blind eye to it for just as long (ditto).

Aside; my old college newspaper homeboy Charles Robinson at Yahoo! was the one who back in March connected the dots about Tressel knowing about tattoo-gate for a year. He's also got Reggie Bush and Pete Carroll's heads mounted on his wall since he fired the first mortars on that fiasco years ago. Dude's the Seymour Hersh of the sports world.

Yeah I never got that impression either. Certainly not at a Mark Richt level but then again, I don't follow the day to day of OSU's program. That said, you can't fuck it up so bad that you have to leave one of the Top 5 jobs in the country and then invoke the "God has a plan for me" without expecting a fair amount of criticism.

If anything, I think he'll now be painted as just another win at all costs coach that has been the narrative in one of the dirtiest years for big time college football in recent memory.

All that said, I can't say I'm not enjoying all of this after all of Buckeye nation's bluster over the years and looking down their noses at the SEC.

Agree on all counts, but the purposeful double-negative in your last sentence drives me to fits. I've just run into a bunch of them lately and they're maddening since they wind up taking eight words to say two.

Sorry, I'm touchy today.

And can someone cut Jason Whitlock's Prozac dose down to 1/3 of whatever he's on? His raving on Twitter (I don't follow him, but friends have RT'd) about "taking his corners back" with his OSU/Tressel/SI column is close to impossible to take. Dude makes Donald Trump seem staid by comparison.

Who are you to judge my poetry, my art?

I almost made a Don King comparison, but that'd be profiling.

Also, wasn't there an Ohio reporter fired over comments (or was it an actual article) he made early on in this story?

I can't remember the details but I'm pretty sure pressure from OSU alumni led to his dismissal and everything he said at the time turned out to be true.

Anyone remember this? I couldn't find the details.

That attorney should probably be looking into the witness protection program.

My friends and fellow WVU fans that live out on the WV/Ohio border are loving this. He'll go underground for a little and pop up at a mid-major or someplace as an assistant. I agree with whoever said that people love a good down n' out to acclaim story.

Nevermind. It was a guy named Bruce Hooley who apparently hosted "The Big Show", the #1 sports talk show in Columbus. He had some scathing comments about Tressel when all of this started leaking out. Problem is, the station is also the flagship station for the Ohio State Buckeye Radio Network and has an exclusive deal. The night before OSU had their presser about the NCAA rulings the station informed him his services were no longer needed. This is a show that once had this guy, Kirk Herbstreit, and Chris Spielman. None of which are there anymore and Herbstreit has moved out of state.


For kicks I checked out some of the OSU message boards and some of it is pure comedy. Some realists but a LOT of people saying Tressel is just the fall guy, scapegoat, etc.

speaking of, did anyone see last week's South Park that covered this exact subject?

There's a sizable part of me that would love to see something of this magnitude go down here at UT, just to observe it impartially and with no stake from the middle of the cyclone, since I work at the newspaper. And because the lot of Longhorn fans could stand to get knocked down a couple pegs.

I don't ever see that happening. I'm not saying Texas is clean, but they seem to do a good job of covering up various player arrest during the season or getting the felony charges dropped before any court proceedings take place. I think it would take a few losing seasons or a National Title run by one of their instate rivals to get all the politicians with a vested interest in the Longhorns to throw the current coaching staff under the bus.

p.s.
My Huskers certainly picked a great time to join the Big Ten. Michigan is just starting to deal with the failures of the Rich Rod era and Ohio State is facing massive NCAA sanctions. I don't expect them to win the title this year, but they definitely have a good shot at bringing the Buckeyes down a notch or two this season.

Your Huskers will still have Wisconsin, Iowa, and MSU to deal with.