Around the 'Shoe

there's a lot of investigating and information to go through. They'll get theirs.

It's widely known that the nc2a can hear a mouse piss on a cotton ball in Columbus, but not the sledgehammer dropping on any other campus.

In other news, e$pn has a 'hit' piece (pun intended) on rampant weed smoking in Eugene. While not at all earth shattering because it's as common as Gatorade in college athletics, it still sounds bad when the unnamed player burns one while he props his undoubtedly neon piss yellow cleats on a Rose Bowl duffle bag.

Yeah, but if you notice, the reporters: the Yahoo boys, Dohrmann, Outside the Lines aren't doing any digging. The digging is, of course, the investigative work reporters do when there's blood in the water. Where's there's smoke there's fire! Selective head turning on both the Oregon, Miami, and Auburn shitte too is what's going on, but Urban played favorites at Florida. Give me a fucking break!

What I don't get is OSU been punished severly for lesser infractions than either Miami or Oregon and I get this queazy feeling that both will get off with a slap on the wrist. It's a sure thing they won't get the penalties OSU got. Mark it down. That's why they're taking so long - so everyone will forget the seriousnes of their violations. OSU was forthcoming and self-punishing and what did it get us?

Oregon and Miami don't have near the alumni that care or want to buy subscriptions to read up on. There is still an investigation going on but it won't hit the mainstream because no one is really interested.

You did'nt have to live in Ohio to see Espn hammer on The Bucks at every opportunity,along with Yahoo, SI,and The Sporting News,and its still happening(the resent "hit piece" on coach Meyer),their bias is obvious.Let the rest of NCAA football do what ever they want ,lets jump on Ohio St.

anyone - Buckeye fan or not - who makes the statement that ESPiN did not railroad Ohio State and Jim Tressel is completly LOST. They made a mountain out of a mole hill. They put that story in the sheeples face's every day from morning till night & told them how wrong Ohio State was for allowing jim Tressel to remain the head coach - in short - ESPiN fired Tressel. Every story on ESPiN web page concerning tOSU had 10k + comments from sheeple demanding the death penalty ect. On the flip side - Miami / Oregon / Alabama / LSU has received a blip of coverage - especially when compared to what was dished out at tOSU. Apparently it is much worse for a kid to trade his own belongings for a tattoo then it is for a head coach to pay for the services of a potential recruit (Oregon / Bama / LSU) or for the school's administration to allow a booster to buy recruits & players (Miami)

wouldn't neccessarily call it bias, but if you check out those articles they all hit 5000+ comments, Ohio State is THE most polarizing team in College Football, and they are taking that to the bank. Thats why our players need to be ultra careful, if someone buys our player lunch it would be breaking news on espn

But OSU wasnt punished for the student-athletes' misdeeds. We got hit because our coach choose not to be truthful on multiple occasions. If Tress turns them in, there is a short Troy Smith type story, the athletes are suspended and the train keeps rolling.

A lesson learned, hopefully. Auburn got investigated & clammed up & laughed at the NCAA's lack of subpoena power. Subsequently, no punishment. Pretty much the same will happen with Miami and Oregon.. you can take that to the bank. So the lesson is learned. In the future, don't comply with the NCAA and don't self-report things. What did that get us? NOTHING. We got the same exact punishment we would have gotten had we made them dig all this stuff up themselves - if they could have even done so. So what's the point?

Well that's just it. The ALLEGATIONS are bad. The Cam Newton camp trying to embezzle money out of schools was a bad allegation. But you know what, these schools now seem to be taking the approach of "Ok NCAA.... prove it". The allegations are bad, but if the NCAA can't prove it.. what can they really do? That said... "Gene Smith being Gene Smith" has GOT to stop. Not only that, but I'm sick of a lot of these players skating away with basically nothing while universities & coaching staffs get hammered. Rather than self-reporting, it's time to start kicking kids off football teams and wiping your hands clean of kids who don't want to behave properly. Start making an example out of some of these knuckleheads, and a lot (not all) of this crap starts going away.

Think of it this way. How shocked would everyone have been if back when Tressel first found out about this.. he called these 5 knuckleheads into his office and said "You guys did WHAT??? Traded championship memorabilia for tattoos? You guys obviously don't value this team or the opportunity you have been given here, you are all dismissed from this football team". Sure, fans would have been outraged at first, but I think they ultimately would have been fine with it considering the fact that they actually sold sacred memorabilia to obtain freaking tats. And you know what else... had it been handled that way we would have never gotten a Bowl Ban and Tressel is still the coach here. Don't get me wrong.. I'm not trying to sympathize with Tressel.. it was the cover up that was worse than the crime here.. and I believe Urban Meyer is an upgrade so no complaints out of me. I'm just saying... THIS is the way things should be handled going forward. Kick these knuckleheads off some of these teams and start sending a message Nationwide. If we need to be at the forefront of that here at OSU.. so be it. I was glad to see Storm Klein booted off the team. Urban is sending the right message here... and I think he's basically taking the approach that I laid out.. but time will tell..

No worries man, I'm with ya on Gene Smith. He basically did the NCAA's job for them and it did nothing but hurt Ohio State.

Would love it if what you suggested about booting kids off teams, etc. were an across the board thing at all schools. Unfortunately, playing hide and seek is the name of the game in the SEC with most rules (the obvious exception being their NCAA-allowed on-field competitive advantage so named "oversigning").