Question about vacated wins, Tressel era in general
This should probably wait till the SI article comes out, but I figured we can speculate about it till then.
Assuming everything BILG states is true, how far back can Tressel's record be erased?
Are we talking about a possible full 10 years wiped clean from the books or is that impossible?
Just 2010?
Or considering Ginn Sr. is involved, could it somewhere in the middle, perhaps a 4-5 year scrubbing?
Can they pick and choose years that they have evidence for? say 2006 and 2010?
If someone with a little more knowledge on NCAA rules could elaborate that would be great.
I don't know the answer, but, come on, they still played the games and won.
Yeah, but if some of those players weren't eligible to be in those games then it wasn't quite fair.
every year wouldn't have changed the outcomes IMO, especially the last three years
But where does the 2-4 number come from?
I said the same thing below, but if OSU didn't believe that this gave them a major competitive advantage, then why would the risk getting what they're getting now? Plus, if they played so loose with these rules, why shouldn't we believe that they played loose with every other rule on the books.
My feeling on Michigan-OSU in the Tressel era: thanks to OSU, it's been a complete waste. They can't legitimately be called the winners of those games, we can't legitimately be called the winners of those games, and that's really frustrating. Tressel and co. essentially stole those games from all of the Michigan and OSU fans out there.
This is going too far. Or do you believe that the Fab Five years were a waste of time, too?
The problem with your line of reasoning is the implication that most programs are clean and that there are just a few renegades like OSU. That's not likely. It's more likely that college athletics is pretty dirty in general. When you have impoverished athletes not getting paid and living in an environment where they are adulated, there are going to be people who offer to "help them out," and there isn't a whole lot the coaches can do about it.
OSU deserves to be punished, because they've been caught red-handed. At the same time, I pretty much agree that this likely goes at many schools. And really, anyone who thinks a Michigan player has never gotten a discount or freebie from anyone is being pretty naive. It's just a matter of the smoking gun coming up, since the NCAA does not have subpoena power.
Are you crazy? You think the 2006 team would have been nearly as good say if, Troy Smith and Beanie Wells were ineligible and weren't allowed to play? I like our chances in that game.
I'm not advocating for or against erasing records, but saying 2-4 players can't be the difference in a game is not correct.
over 10? Nope.
Is made up by ten individual given years.
That boxing kitten sure didn't last long as an avatar.
Right, just like the Fab5. We all know how that turned out.
he used were not legal. How about we do the same thing and recuit some washed up NFL players and CFL players. "But we won on the field"
Illegal is illegal. period. The rules are there for a reason. We got hammered for Bill Martin so should OSU get hit with 4 bowl game ban.
I agree that Bill Martin's hiring of RR was quite hammering... and lets not forget Ed Martin, either.
But its the principle of the thing. It shows that there is punishment for cheating.
You erase four or five of those wins from the record books, thats a 4-5 game cushion that Michigan earns back in the series.
This argument doesn't make sense to me.
Let's say you're playing Monopoly and every time your friend looks away, you grab a few thousand dollars from the bank. If you win the game - and you probably will - would you just say "a win's a win" and deny any claims that an asterisk belongs there?
If this stuff didn't give OSU a major competitive advantage, then why would they do it?
Tressel cheated at TSIO since he got there. He deserves for all of his "wins" to be erased. I think there is a loophole on the Statute of Limitations if dishonesty was involved. They still haven't paid for the Clarett era.
What we hope happens, though, is seldom what actually does happen, especially when the NCAA is involved. I am encouraged by Brent Musberger's take on SC, when he said he felt it is "obvious" that the NCAA is going to clean some things up. I would love for TSIO to be THE scapegoat and poster child for cleaning up the NCAA.
I believe there's a four-year statute of limitations on NCAA actions. Ohio State might be able to vacate wins from earlier on their own though. In 2002 Michigan vacated wins as far back as 1992 after the Ed Martin affair. OSU might be well advised to follow that precedent.
I know...
But, my best friend is an OSU fan and we make a bet every year and now I'm wondering what the protocol will be.
Does he owe me the money back?
Do I win the bets?
I don't think you win the bets, just like Michigan won't have won those games, but I think you deserve your money back.
my best friend is an OSU fan
haha, we went to high school together...I swear I didn't know, he never showed any signs of that kind of treachery.
Keep your enemies closer or something?
Sneaky to the end. Sounds like he'd fit right in with Tressel at hiding things.
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<br>Glad you took it for the tongue in cheek tease it was, after some arguments we've had. I almost didn't post the comment because I was afraid you might take it too seriously (which wasn't my intent, but it's the Internet, Jake, the Internet).
Those days are behind us, much like a certain ex-Ohio State football coach.
you don't care? Doesn't the context of how they beat us matter? It matters to me a great deal which is why I don't see 9-1, I see 0-1. Winning the right way matters, especially here where we hold ourselves to a higher standard than most, and If your rival has an unfair recruiting advantage because recuits know they will get "paid" at OSU but not at UM, that changes the game.
Because really, if it doesn't matter, then we should be paying our players too.
I don't care what the NCAA says because they aren't going to go back in time and take Troy Smith off of the 2004-2006 OSU teams. I sat through all of those games and remember very clearly how they ended. I'm deriving some satisfaction from this, but the games happened--no matter what happens in the next year or two.
I am only confident that the 2010 season will be vacated, anything beyond that would be nice though
The Tressel era is now history!!!!!!!
There is a 4-year statute of limitations on NCAA violations. There is a seldom-invoked exception if you can show a continuing pattern of the identical illegal behavior. It is unlikely to be used in this case. There is a difference between having the general sense that Tressel must have been cheating all along, and being able to prove it.
But say the stuff about Ginn Sr. is true. If Teddy Ginn Jr. was what, a 2003 recruit, and his dad was funneling players into the program from then on, couldn't that be a pattern of identical illegal behavior?
There's talk of an investigation of a pay-for-play scheme involving Michigan Boosters, RR & Lloyd Carr. Allegedly, for the past decade they have been making payments to coach Wilcher to funnel Cass Tech players to Ann Arbor.
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<br>This rumor started on a sports blog, so it must be true.
Have the exception that liability past 4 yrs is possible if it was part of systemic behavior. So, yes, they can "go back"
I think we win one of the last four years - the games before then (and there were five of them - I am not counting the first year) we had a chance to win in every one of those games. I think we can make the argument that a fair distribution of talent would have led to a different result.
Then again maybe not - we will never know...
But Troy Smith should not have been the QB back in 2004. It was found out later that he should have been ineligible by taking benefits before The Game that year.
We don't get the win either... but we should not have to hear about how they are 9 and 1 against us any more... probably more like 5 and 1 in the last 10 seasons... still sucks until we start kicking their butts again.
I posted a few weeks ago that the NCAA should absolutely hammer Ohio State because of their arrogant mishandling of this situation from the get go. Gee should be fired, Gene Smith should be fired, and it should definitely be looked at as to whether the entire coaching staff/ compliance office should be dismissed. The press conferences, the lack of actual investigation into violations (supposing that they didn't actually know all this was going on and chose themselves to ignore it...which is probably more likely in my mind), It would behoove the Ohio State board to hire a private firm to do a complete investigation of the past 10 years, put everything out in the open, and put themselves at the mercy of the NCAA. If I am the NCAA right now I am looking for blood, they have been made to look like fools how many times now because they trusted that Ohio State was being forthright with information...Clarett, Troy Smith, tatgate, etc. Their cheating has possible changed the outcomes of 3 BCS championship games, 1 for sure and 2 others that we will never know about.
Their fans will always cling to 9-1 on the field, but the wins shouldn't, and can't be recognized for obvious reasons. Their cheating has affected every team in the B1G and others as well. We now have an understanding on how they pull so many 5 star recruits year in and year out.
I think it is pretty evident that this has been going on since the Tressel era began. Its no wonder they have self-reported so many minor violations...because they didn't want someone snooping into one of those and finding out what was really going on.
If Jim Tressel is the man of character his players are now trying to portray him to be, he will come clean with everything. If he doesn't do that... he is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
so would we have beaten Florida in the Championship game? We lost two games that season -- to two proven cheaters!
The boys stchomped them the following year with a team that was not as talented on either side of the football. Obviously they beat Ohio State like a drum, but I would venture to say that if Lloyd Carr came up with a similar game plan to the one he came up with the following year, it would have been a much better game than the effort Ohio State put up. If Carr had a similar game plan to USC where they knew what play we were running prior to the snap, I am pretty sure GMatt would have shut us down too. Its likely that Carr got more aggressive in play calling in '07because of the talk of how predictable his play calling had become. Coulda, shoulda, woulda though.
But I think it would have been a good game. More motivation, and better match-ups. For whatever reason we seem to match up better with SEC teams than we did with USC, and better than OSU has.
What kind of compliance office do they have there in Columbus? Here they have the highest number of self reported violations over the past 10 years and they couldn't discover any of the current allegations? Pathetic.
Of course from the sound of things I think they thought it work this time too when they self reported Tressel's indiscretions AFTER the Yahoo Sports article came out.