tOSU Excuse Bingo

Submitted by CRex on

Because I am a horrible and petty person who enjoys schadenfreude I decided to cruise some tOSU sites. This is by far the best one from the Along the Olentangy blog. With the the first few comments:

1. Tressel was screwed by greedy players, he's really a good person. (lets just ignore who recruited them and what went down at Youngstown State).

2. tOSU will bounce back.

3. Fickell will coach for one year and then we'll hire Urban Meyer! (I'm shocked that searching the page for "Stoops" returns zero results).

4. Everything is going to be fine and we're going to keep beating Michigan.

5. Yes we tried to bury it, but everyone does it. Also: This is shocking because it shows how broken the college football system it, it isn't Tressel's fault he had to cheat to survive.

Never underestimate the power of denial I guess. Anyone else find any good reads?

CRex

May 30th, 2011 at 2:03 PM ^

I tried but I was only able to fill up half the board.  If you give me ideas I'll finish it off.

 

I have the 5 above, along with "blame the AD" and "Tressel didn't know / it was all the boosters".

It's Memorial Day and I'm lazy, so I'm going to 'crowd source'.

KBLOW

May 30th, 2011 at 2:04 PM ^

Also don't forget: 

It's the fault of the media.

and

Tressel was only trying to help the players he loved like his own children...it had NOTHING to do with cheating.

turtleboy

May 30th, 2011 at 2:15 PM ^

is going Krakatoa on ESPN right now. "It's too bad that THIS HAPPENED to Tressel," "All he was doing was protecting his players," "This ONE TIME his kids broke the rules and he just didn't tell anyone," "Urban Meyer," and the funniest one of all "Tressel resigned." 

yoopergoblue

May 30th, 2011 at 2:27 PM ^

I actually kind of agree with #1.  Tressel did have some greedy players like Pryor, Holmes, ect.  It was his fault that he recruited them though and that he kept the information from the NCAA.  I also mostly agree with #2.  I don't beleive that sanctions will hurt OSU that much.  They just have too much talent in their state and the worse I see them being in all this mess is between 7-5 and 8-4.  

Farnn

May 30th, 2011 at 2:43 PM ^

I was reading one of the OSU blogs, and it seemed everyone was saying the B1G is gonna regret OSU getting rid of Tressel, because he actually took his foot off the pedal when OSU was up.  And supposedly their next coach won't be so nice and will run up the score.

Tater

May 30th, 2011 at 2:50 PM ^

TSIO is one of Urban Meyer's three "dream jobs."  While his family wanted him around, they will get sick of him after one year and tell him to go find a job and get out of their hair.  The results would be terrible for Michigan fans. 

Our best hope is that the sanctions are so bad that Meyer doesn't want the job.

SWFLWolverine

May 30th, 2011 at 3:13 PM ^

Without Dan Mullen/Charlie Strong/Greg Mattison/Tim Tebow? Besides, I am fairly certain that Michigan defeated an Urban Meyer team that had access to a higher concentration of exceptional athletes than Ohio State has to pull from. That and the Cleveland pipeline may get shut down. Urban Meyer is only as good as his assistants, and his loyalty to Addazio does not suggest that he has many more top notch coordinators to pull from. Finally, if living in a town like Gainesville was too stressful for his health, what is it going to be like walking into a city like Columbus dealing with the impending sanctions, a family that has been outspoken against his returning to coaching, one daughter is playing college volleyball in Ft. Myers (Florida Gulf Coast Univ.) etc. Finally, what is Meyer going to say to recruits when they ask him to guarantee that he is going to be there for their entire careers? He quit twice from UF in two years!

BILG

May 30th, 2011 at 2:54 PM ^

The levels of apologism and rationalization circulating the OSU blogosphere are nothing short of spectacular.....If these yocals put as much time and creativity into writing a book as they are in creating a positive narrative about thier fallen angel, they could win a pulitzer. 

meghan

May 30th, 2011 at 3:10 PM ^

From Deadspin comments:
<br>
<br>Jim Tressel, Chief Financial Officer with The Ohio State Corporation announced his resignation Monday in the wake of a bonus scandal in the company's Football Division. Tressel had been instrumental in raising The Ohio State Corp. stock price during his 10+ year tenure. Under his reign the profitable Football Division was greatly expanded. He also eliminated a number of unprofitable divisions such as English, Art, Philosophy, Life Science, Psychology, Sociology, Medicine, Journalism, Engineering, Religious Studies, Computer Science and Veterinary Studies. Tressel also streamlined company operations by merging the Law and Football Divisions in 2002 in a bid to eliminate redundancies.

bluebyyou

May 30th, 2011 at 3:21 PM ^

I think those who attempt justification of Tressel's actions are a vocal segment, but only a part of the overall picture.  My experience, from spending about half of my year in the Columbus area, is very different inthat most of my OSU alum friends, , in large part support the resignation. Remember, when the story about Tressel's lying broke, tOSU student newspaper called for Tressel to be fired. If you actually attend a university and care about your degree, it means something when your school is constantly in the crosshairs of negativity which, I suspect, after tomorrow's SI story, won't be getting any better.

For what it is worth, per the Columbus Dispatch, the fans are voting 60/40 in favor of the resignation.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/sports/stories/2011/05/30/hotissue_30.html

treetown

May 30th, 2011 at 3:24 PM ^

Right now the Kubler Ross five stages of grief apply to fans of tOSU football

 

1. Denial - "nothing happened", "there is no to see here... move along"

2. Anger - "Why us?" "We didn't do nuthin" "Everybody else is doing the same thing"

3. Bargaining - "OK, we'll suspend the players 5 games and make Tressl give up some bucks." "OK, we'll suspend Tressl 5 games as well."

4. Depression - "Why now" "What now" "Youngstown, Maurice Clarett and now this"

5. Acceptance - "OK, we'll have to fix things and prevent things from getting this bad in the future"

These stages do not occur to all sufferers and do not always follow this sequence. Most experience at least two and typically oscillate between two, i.e. anger and denial.

Emarcy

May 30th, 2011 at 3:28 PM ^

When Tress said he would "keep pounding the kids" he didn't really want to hurt the players because he is all about the players and that statement should in no way be interpreted as a desire to hit one of his students, nor should it be understood as an admission of performing sodomy on his players. 

jmblue

May 30th, 2011 at 3:31 PM ^

Yes we tried to bury it, but everyone does it. Also: This is shocking because it shows how broken the college football system it, it isn't Tressel's fault he had to cheat to survive.

While this doesn't excuse their behavior, I pretty much agree with this. College football is likely far more corrupt than anyone wants to believe. Its saving grace is that the NCAA doesn't have subpoena power, which means that players can just refuse to participate in an investigation. Because of that, it's often not hard for programs to cover their tracks.

I think most coaches really want to run a clean program, but don't really know how to get all the shadiness out. It probably takes an extremely strong-willed coach - a guy like Bobby Knight - to frighten his players (and the community) into total compliance. Most coaches probably don't have that in them, so the corruption sets in. I look at Tressel as being similar to Steve Fisher - probably a well-intentioned guy who just doesn't have it in him to drop the hammer on all the hangers-on.

thisiscmd

May 30th, 2011 at 4:21 PM ^

Eleven Warriors: 

"What infractions? Forgetting to report that some kids sold their own shit to keep them safe? Unless there is more that we have yet to hear about I call bullshit! It's hard for me to believe that this is what's best. I can see why, I guess, but it still pisses me off."

Ah yes, he forgot. I mean he had all that laundry that day and his favorite show was on TV. Shoot, slipped his mind. And he wasn't covering for them, he was keeping them safe. Awesome choice of words.