It's been 4,573 days since OSU w/o car deals, free tats, and other improper benefits beat Michigan.
Lame.
That's loser-ish. No excuses for losing.
He has a point. It always helps when you can play guys who are ineligble and if some of the stories are true, really not even attending classes.
Don't be that guy...we aren't whiners.
Oh...and if we lose again this year, it looks twice as bad.
We lost those games. Let's not make dumb excuses.
I don't understand this argument. If OSU didn't think that this would give them a major competitive advantage, then why would they risk having it all blow up like this?
I'm all for the "suck it up - we lost" thing when we lose legitimately. These aren't legitimate losses. They also aren't legitimate wins. That's the really maddening thing for me in all of this. Tressel/OSU have essentially stolen the Michigan-OSU rivalry from us (and OSU fans) over the last decade. Given the importance of that game, they might have unfairly compromised the legacy of one great Michigan coach (e.g., who knows what would have happened in 2006) and compromised the ability of another Michigan coach to get his feet on the ground.
This isn't a dumb excuse. If the reality comes close to the rumors, then there's basically nothing that we can say about Michigan-OSU games over the last several years. They're too corrupted to make sense of with a simple "we lost those games."
If OSU didn't think that this would give them a major competitive advantage, then why would they risk having it all blow up like this?Is it possible that what went on at OSU is actually SOP at a major football school, and that they just happened to get caught? The NCAA is not the all-powerful institution fans seem to think it is. It doesn't have the legal authority to really pry into programs' dirty laundry. Basically, programs only get nailed when some fluky thing happens, like a guy getting in trouble with the FBI.
I don't know if it goes as far as free cars, but I think it's highly probable that players get various gifts and whatnot from people in the community at just about every school. When you have the phenomenon of largely impoverished players living in college towns (where the cost of living is often elevated) surrounded by adoring fans who feel sorry for them (and who often think the NCAA's rules are unfair), yes, I think it's likely that players get free things.
I'd love to make excuses-but besides good players they were well coached.
On the front page, you all may think it's "lame", but not too lame for this blog. I think it's kinda funny.
What a fucking puttz.
Go back to Scout with this shit. I believe this place still has a modicum of decent wit and intelligence.
Then you came along.
There is some validity to this argument. If a recruit is offered money and cars and women, who is to say it didn't affect his decision to attend OSU instead of some other school? Of course it did!
I agree that selling memorabilia didn't give them a competitive advantage, but you have to look at the big picture here. If they've been offering illegal benefits to recruits for nearly a decade, they obviously have a recruiting advantage and in turn a talent advantage.
Every one of their wins in the last decade is now in question. How good would OSU really have been without the recruits that were obtained illegally? No one will ever really know.
Doesn't pretty much every football player get women? Unless, of course, you're talking about hookers. Then I guess I look like the idiot.
I've oftened wondered this. Do the space eaters have a leg up on us regular Joes because they play football. Do punters not holding the title Space Emporer of Space?
It was only to get them from well below us to somewhat closer to us.
According to Rivals Rank (5*/4*) | Scout Rank (5*/4*)
2002
OSU: 5 (3/14) | 3 (3/13)
UM: 16 (1/11) | 19 (1/8)
2003
OSU: 41 (0/7) | 25 (1/6)
UM: 17 (2/11) | 8 (3/8)
2004
OSU: 9 (1/9) | 11 (1/7)
UM: 5 (1/12) | 5 (1/9)
2005
OSU: 12 (1/9) | 7 (3/8)
UM: 6 (1/10) | 2 (2/12)
2006
OSU: 12 (2/8) | 12 (3/9)
UM: 13 (2/9) | 9 (5/5)
2007
OSU: 15 (0/12) | 16 (1/10)
UM: 12 (2/5) | 10 (2/12)
Rivals Totals
OSU - Avg. Rank: 15.6 Total 5*: 7 Total 4*: 59
UM - Avg. Rank: 11.5 Total 5*: 8 Total 4*: 58
Scout Totals
OSU - Avg. Rank: 12.3 Total 5*: 12 Total 4*: 53
UM - Avg. Rank: 8.8 Total 5*: 14 Total 4*: 55
So if they really were bribing recruits, they didn't gain any kind of significant advantage according to the two premier recruiting websites.
I think we do have to face facts that on the field in both the Carr and Rodriguez years, Tressel outcoached our sideline.
Interesting, but this isn't really the point. Football games aren't decided purely by in-game coaching strategy.
What we need to know is what would have happened had OSU followed the rules. The only honest answer to that is "I don't know."
If OSU had followed the rules, would Troy Smith have gone elsewhere? If he did, would that have been enough for Michigan to win that 2006 game? Would Terrelle Pryor have gone to Michigan instead? Would that have been enough to give Rodriguez some momentum that he never really got in Ann Arbor?
I'm not saying that the answer to any of those questions is "yes." I just don't know. That's what is so frustrating about what Tressel & co. have been doing over this last decade.
But I'm pointing out that there seems to be this idea circulating that Ohio State kicked us to the curb in recruiting during the Tressel/Carr years. It wasn't the case and if anything we held a slight advantage. So if they were really bribing recruits to come to OSU, they did a poor job of it as they couldn't even manage to hold top spot in their own conference. Now, maybe certain players were lured in with the allure of cheap cars and cash, but even if this was the case, if we were running the clean program I hope we were, we still managed to top them.
Obviously, recruiting rankings aren't the gospel, but it would seem that both Scout and Rivals are in agreement that when it comes to players coming out of high school into college, Michigan held an edge over OSU, albeit a slight one.
So either
A. OSU lucked out and had more of their recruits pan out.
B. Tressel was better at developing players since OSU had more NFL draft picks in those years
C. We were simply outcoached.
Two problems with this count:
1. We don't know that they were any cleaner of a program under Cooper than they are now. In fact, Cooper was fired in part because he played an academically ineligible player in 2000. Why assume they were on the up-and-up in 1998?
2. We don't know that we are any cleaner of a program than they are. I hope we are, but I have no idea.
None of the allegations impact play on the field, its that simple. We lost those games, if we want to even the series then we beat them when they are down because of the punishment they recieve. If you eliminate these games wouldn't it be logical to eliminate the next few because michigan had an advantage over osu because of punishments? I know its a stupid argument to make in reality but its the same basic argument, games are won on and off the field. Players getting cars didn't make osu better in 2006, having a better coach made them win in 2006.
I can't believe the negative reaction this thread has triggered. If you don't think that systematic illegal benefits to players and recruits make a team more competitive on the field, then you have a serious deficiency in logical reasoning.
I'll wait for the SI article to come out, but I think that those of you who are claiming that we should take our losses to OSU this last decade like men are going to look foolish shortly.
why exactly are posts that try to reason out that osu wasn't more talented in the middle of the decade and we got outcoached getting negged into obscurity? For the past few years everybody has been bashing carr because he lost with talent and now suddenly he wasn't actually outcoached because of these benefits? I don't get the sudden change, either they were more talented the entire time or we are just looking for excuses, I'm gonna go with the excuses option.
I'd say it's something along the lines of this; the talent level was about the same for both teams, but it shouldn't have been. If they were playing ineligible players it's not really fair. Not making excuses. The team they fielded outplayed the team we fielded. However, the team they fielded had guys who shouldn't have been there, including their QB which is kind of a big deal.