Dear Diary Predicts the Past: D-Lineation Comment Count

Seth

grahamforthor

This is exactly how I imagined it would go down, except for the part where Roh is lining up behind them. I mean, that would be silly!

Dear Diary,

Before I get into the historical journey, a word on OSU's idea of appropriate sanctions (pdf): I must be really biased. I mean, I know as a Michigan fan I am not going to be impartial when it comes to Ohio State anything. My understanding of NCAA's "sweet spot" for penalties is to take the perceived benefit of the violation and double it as a negative. If five guys played ineligibly, 10 schollies amortized. If a bowl game was involved, 2-year bowl ban. Here's Gene Smith's latest sweet spot:

In its response to the NCAA, the university addresses the NCAA’s specific allegations and also highlights steps the university has already taken, including:

• Suspending five players for the first five games of next season;

• Accepting Tressel’s resignation;

• Vacating the football program’s wins in the 2010 season, including its Sugar Bowl victory in January 2011;

• Self-imposing a two-year NCAA probation; and

• Implementing additional measures to enhance the university’s already extensive monitoring, educational and compliance programs.

Gene-Smith nixon

Notice how nothing from the above will have any long-term effect on the program. The suspended players were already suspended. Tressel already resigned (and having him promise not to coach anyone else just gives OSU exclusivity on his legacy). The probation and fixing the oversight problem by raising their monitoring of players' cars all the way up to the level of a sleepy MAC school are givens. As for vacating wins, to this History baccalaureate that's an empty gesture which creates more William1problems for historians than the school. If you never see this:

The Queen of England has admitted that William the Conqueror provided improper benefits to Norman knights when seizing the throne of England in 1066, therefore the monarchy is hereby striking the Battle of Hastings from the History books, and removing the Bayeux Tapestry.*

…then why do teams get to cross out history? If the Final Four banners from the '90s still hung at Crisler, wouldn't that just be a greater reminder of their tarnishing?

Through my very biased eyes, it looks like they're asking to walk away with less than Michigan got for clerical errors on practice time. Other than the duh parts, there is nothing here that's substantive.

If I understand this correctly, OSU is basically responding just to the original notice of allegations, and leaving it to the NCAA to prove anything beyond the Original Tat Five and Tressel's e-mail cover-up campaign. Now it's the NCAA's turn: if they don't reschedule the Aug. 12 meeting with the Committee of Infractions it means they don't think they can make the bigger case. Everyone who doesn't live in Ohio knows there's something funky with the borrowed cars, but Ohio State's betting the NCAA can't prove it now that Pryor can't be forced to testify. It's a hardball move, a mobster's move, and puts the NCAA Committee of Infractions in the tough spot of either choosing to respond with the heartless indignation they used on USC, or the wilt. I honestly couldn't tell you what they'll do.

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* Yes, I know Bayeux is in France. It's a metaphor.

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Defensive Line

From 2007 to 2010 the offense was deconstructed and rebuilt, the secondary was nuked, and the linebackers plinked along with terrible coaching. Faced with replacing Woodley and Branch (plus consummate other-guy Rondell Biggs), the 2007 outlook for defensive line might have been scary had the next generation not been there ready to rock. Well the next generation was there, and they were ready to rock, and as a result Michigan's defensive line churned along through the Dark Times.

Not that everything was rosy. By 2010 the depth beyond the starters was a trio of senior disappointments who, while not disastrous in the way that various walk-ons and freshmen were in the secondary, were a pretty big drop-off from the regulars.

Re-Stating the Premise:

Why are we 'Predicting the Past' again? This series is meant to be a long reply to those board posts that pop up a lot between Spring and Fall practices where we list the young guys and recruits on the depth chart and predict wonderful things for the future. The idea is to take our collective DeLoreans back to 2007 and get a sense of how those expectations turn out. Are the alarmists justified when they see highly regarded juniors backed up by just a smattering of guys who got a 3rd star with their Michigan offers? What happens to the "studs" versus the 4-stars? Next week is a summary piece where I'll try to find any common threads. Bonus: some of the situations that characterized '07 are relevant today. Double-bonus: walk down memory lane.

Depth Charts:

MIKE-MARTIN-112109-1-thumb-320x389-17091Ends: Brandon Graham (So/So), Tim Jamison (Jr/Jr), Adam Patterson (Fr/So), Greg Banks(Fr/So), Ryan Van Bergen (RS/Fr)

Tackles: Terrance Taylor (Jr/Sr), Will Johnson (Jr/Sr), Marques Slocum (Fr/So), Jason Kates (Fr/So), John Ferrara (Fr/So), Renaldo Sagesse (Fr/Fr)

Attrition: Alan Branch (2004), Chris McLaurin, James McKinney and Eugene Germany (2005), Quintin Woods (2006)

Incoming: Mike Martin

Expected:

LaMarr Woodley and Alan Branch made Michigan's defense one of the best in the country. Looking to open up opportunities for these two (and cover the loss of space-eating DT Gabe Watson), M in '06 moved back to a 4-man front with now-ready Terrance Taylor as 1-tech and Rondell Biggs as other-guy DE. The setup was not so different from Mattison's 4-3 over, and played to the team's strengths. Taylor could sit home and clog, Biggs could hold up his edge, and this left Woodley to scream in from 2011 Roh's spot while Branch feasted upon single-blocking guards from the 3-tech spot.

Opposing offenses were left with the choice of using more backs and ends as blockers, or leaving one of Michigan's monsters one-on-one with some mortal likely to require extensive therapy afterwards. When feeling particularly maniacal, Crable could blitz from the SAM. If an opposing quarterback was lucky, he might be able to launch a back-foot prayer before his respiratory system collapses. Yes, this is a setup for that picture.

That picture.

After '06, Woodley graduated and Branch rode those single-teams to an early NFL departure. The other DE spot was losing its two-deep, graduating Biggs as well as fellow "solid" DE (and RVB Dutch-acronymical predecessor) Jeremy Van Alstyne. Except for Branch, a post-'06 exodus was expected, and the staff had been hard at work building the next generation.

Going into 2007 with one returning starter, the line was young and expected to take a step back as the sophomores took over. DL recruiting was a big thing for M for both '05 and '06, though attrition had already done a lot of damage to that. The '05 group had the highly rated Taylor from Muskegon, plus winter enrollee high-4 Eugene Germany, 4-star 3-tech James McKinney, and a sleeper rush end in Carson Butler. The '06 class, already having lost some of the oh-five-ers, had the high-4 star Adam Patterson, 5-star in-stater Brandon Graham (considered an LB but a move to DE was expected), and four depth dudes in space-eating 1-tech Jason Kates plus three middly 3-star types in Greg Banks (SDE), Quintin Woods (WDE) and John Ferrara (3-tech).terrance_taylor

Then those classes got thwacked by most of the Decimated Defense's Carr-era attrition. Germany was a 4.5-star '04 USC recruit who got squeezed out by Carroll's oversigning and ended up enrolling at Michigan in winter as an '05 guy. In March '07 he was kicked off the team for taking part in the St. Patrick's Day Nerd Massacre, an incident quite similar to the annual Dantonio Dorm Raids at MSU except involving 17% less of the team (other culprits: DB Chris Richards, and Manbearfreak). He ended up at Minn-Duluth and was the best player on a team that made a surprising run to the DII Top 10. McKinney had some medical issues early on, and groused after the '07 spring game about his depth chart spot. By this point in '07 insiders were on to what became an Aug. 12 transfer; he was later dismissed from Louisville. McLaurin left in '06 due to health issues. Quintin Woods didn't qualify. Butler had moved to TE, earned the moniker of 'Manbearfreak,' and was thought to be following Richards and Germany out the door for the Nerd Massacre.

Despite that attrition, and just two DLs in the 2007 class, the immediate future had Michigan stacked at DE and serviceable inside on the 1-deep, but thin on the 2-deep with a major 2008 haul expected to shore that up. The key players all had time logged in previous DL rotations, promising a step back but a smooth transition nonetheless. Tim Jamison had earned playing time as a true freshman in '04 – before Branch did actually – but lost that season and much of '05 to injury. Brian in his 2007 preview:

Tim Jamison is finally the weakside defensive end after three years of nonstop hype interrupted by injury and Rondell Biggs. It is time to step up, as they say. Jamison's featured as a pass rush specialist for the last few years and has done well. Last year five of his thirteen tackles were sacks. Given the constant torrent of practice hype, Jamison's recruiting rankings, and his evident ability in small doses, Jamison should also be an instant star.

With his RS junior and senior years ahead of him, the WDE spot was set through '08. Opposite him, 5-star sophomore Brandon Graham earned time as a true freshman in '06, but as a flabby 290-lb. tackle. Graham slimmed to 262 for '07, and was expected to end in SDE competence with a chance of greatness down the line.

Adam Patterson was supposed to be a big deal. A high 4-star, Patterson was tagged as Woodley's heir apparent in '05, despite a (in retrospect important) quiet senior season in high school. He was a Lloyd Carr Inexplicable Burned Redshirt in '06 and saw erratic garbage snaps.

At DT, Taylor had established himself as a strong, compact, but not very mobile DT, basically what we want Quinton Washington to be (though that's wrong because Q is pretty mobile). The lone returning starter on the D-line, Taylor was expected to be rather close to his ceiling as a super-strong but no athletic redshirt junior, though that ceiling was All-Big Ten. Will Johnson had earned extensive playing time as a freshman and sophomore, even in place of Branch. The coaches loved him and while not Branch, Johnson was expected to more than ably fill Branch's 3-tech spot through 2008.

slocumj

Depth-wise, Marques Slocum was finally past a two-year, FCK LION-enhanced qualifying odyssey. An OL recruit before, now Slocum was a backup DT with freshman eligibility.

The depth guys were all recruited as depth guys and expected to be depth guys. Among them Greg Banks seemed to be the closest to something that could draw in regularly to the lineup. Ferrara was the hard-working DT-type who invariably brings up comparisons to Grant Bowman. Kates as a 400-pound thing you put in the middle of the defense because nobody can move 400 pounds anywhere it doesn't want to go. In true freshmen, Renaldo Sagesse was a big Canadian who was already in his 20s as a true freshman and thus drew into the lineup immediately. Ryan Van Bergen was a 4-starry 4-star, ranked about even or just above the committed 2012 DEs. Or Anthony Zettel maybe.

For 2008, Novi's Mike Martin (fringe 150 and rumored strongman) had signed on June 5, and M was fighting Ohio State for similarly rated Garrett Goebel. Recruiting hype on Martin:

Out of high school he’s a smaller version of Terrance Taylor, a shortish but stocky NT sort who was a state champion wrestler and powerlifter. A true freshman at DT would normally be cause for concern but Martin is reputed to be a gym rat much better prepared for the rigors of a college weight program than most. His highlight film is pretty impressive, as he shoots through the line and drags down ballcarriers like he’s a middle linebacker.

Detroit Martin Luther King HS's 5-star Nick Perry, a rush DT, visited Ann Arbor on July 2 and named Michigan his leader over USC, Miami (YTM) and MSU, though Dantonio was hard after him.

All told the D-line was set for 2007-'08. After that it would be up to the next generation, meaning one of the 3-stars has to pan out inside or the '08 class provides.

How Did That Work Out?

For awhile, meh. Then came Barwis and…

D-Line is a little different than the other positions. Typically (unless GERG is running a 3-3-5) it's four guys versus five OLs. If you have a weak point and three solids, the offense can double-team your weak link and the rest look more pedestrian. If the offense has to throw two OLs at one star to save their backs' lives, it gives the other DLs more chances to blow up the play. It was hard to judge any DLs for much of 2010 as GERG put them into 3-man rushes so often.

This is most evident when you look at Terrance Taylor next to Alan Branch, versus Terrance Taylor next to Will Johnson. Taylor was exactly what we said he would be. He was no Suh and shouldn't have been the main guy inside, but as a second guy who does his job he didn't disappoint. I've never been able to find it again but at some point Carr called Taylor the "fullback of the defense," which if he actually said that and it wasn't my mind making it up would be apropos.

In 2007 I got down on Will Johnson – my snide nickname for him was the "Yellow Brick Road." This was mostly because I wanted to blame someone for Michigan being unable to stop a shotgun zone running game, which usually seemed to run right by Johnson. His UFRs were usually okay-ish (5+, 3-) but he got splinched often against Wisconsin (mixed in with some great plays) and was ineffective against Ohio State. Versus bad interiors (Minnesota, Penn State) he was spectacular. In the Horror and against Oregon he was victimized by doubles. Less Barwicized than the other linemen in '08 he nonetheless progressed to graduate as a totally acceptable interior player.

Ferrara played the younger-Bowman role of workmanlike backup okay, but in '08 he was called upon to (not terribly) fill the depleted offensive line when neither Tim McAvoy nor the recycling bin he was competing with proved effective.

On the ends, Jamison was not made for spread defending. Then he exploded against Ohio State in 2007, the only thing about that game that's not worth forgetting. He lost a lot of "bad" weight between his junior and senior years and was a plus guy on the 2008 team.

Brandon Graham in summary:

Graham(+3) slants past his guy, explodes into the backfield, and crushes this play singlehandedly. Huge; a play that will go on his NFL highlight reel. Tackling +1, too.

Graham missed the first two games of 2007 (you know how those went) but when he was inserted in Game 4 the defense all of a sudden could stop the run. However Graham was still a bit out of shape and this showed when MSU ran him ragged in the 2nd half with double teams. Then Barwis came in, deconstructed B-Grammy into small parts, and chose the most Woodley-esque to rebuild him. The result: by mid-way through '08 teams were staying away from Graham's side of the field with Woodson-esque regularity. In 2008 and 2009 Brandon Graham was probably one of the best players in college football; a dark horse Heisman campaign for Brandon (then and now I believe Suh should have won that one) appeared on M boards in late 2009. By the time he left as a fringe Top 10 draft pick (he went 13th overall), Brandon had gone from vague hope of another Woodley to winning a head-to-head comparison with a Lombardi winner.

Other wonderful news: Mike Martin = The Incredible Hulk. And Ryan Van Bergen, whether at DT or DE, has proven an effective starter since his redshirt freshman year (and the consummate likeable team guy to boot). You know these guys, and Brian's about to go into detail on the 2011 preview so I'll leave it there. Here's a mid-2010 season eval on RVB:

Van Bergen has also checked in around expectations. He wouldn't look out of place on Michigan defensive lines of yore when the defense was actually good. He's not making a ton of tackles (just twelve) but has two sacks and four of Michigan's eleven QB hurries on the season. He's been hovering around the +4/+5 area that's a decent to good day for a 4-3 DE, and since he's not a 4-3 DE those numbers point towards an above-average player. He was even an impact player against MSU with a drive-killing sack and solid play against the run. He tied Martin's numbers on the day.

RVB is also reportedly the only living human to actually catch and sack Denard Robinson in 3 out of 3 attempts, though this is disputed by Robinson. [EDIT: embedding disabled. Fast forward to RVB's number]:

Samara Pearlstein totally wants to hug them now.

Adam Patterson was the real disappointment, football-wise. A Top-100 recruit in his day, Patterson's quiet senior year of high school now seems a portent. Adam finally played regularly at DT in 2010 after receiving a 5th year for an injury redshirt in '09, and he was not so good. Best guess on him is the speed and size that came before his classmates and made Patterson so devastating as a junior in high school did not mature beyond that. His frame never filled out, and that made him eminently moveable by doubles. When Martin was knocked out/hobbled for the latter part of last year by a late MSU cheapshot, Patterson got to play extensively (he found out minutes before the Purdue game he would start) and Michigan was ripped by teams doubling up on the inside. That said Patterson stuck it out through the transition, and was always good for positive quotes about his teammates – how many Top 100 players can you think of who will stick it out for his teammates after all of that?

Neither Banks nor Sagesse were any better than their quiet recruiting profiles, which that's not their fault either. Coaching might have been wanting here too – Banks had a tendency to not work down the line of scrimmage when the play went away from him, which further exposed the young secondary and linebackers. Both were behind walk-on wee wittle guy Will Heininger in '09, and would have been again perhaps if Heininger hadn't missed 2010 for injury.

craig-roh-crazy-ninja-stanceOther than that it was basically what could be gathered in 2009 and 2010 recruiting. Rodriguez & Co. picked up certifiable crab person Craig Roh (right), rated only moderately shirtless because of his size but otherwise a Ryan Kerrigan-level guy. Michigan also picked up a 5-star 2009 in-state Gabe Watson-like guy in William Campbell, but to date Campbell's technique has never managed to catch up to his talent. Whether the new, DL-oriented staff can turn Campbell into a effective (3-tech) DT this year could determine the fate of the 2011 line.

Nick Perry turned out not to be among them* – the 2008 class ended with just Martin on the line, and two 2009 DT recruits chose to back out of their verbals on Signing Day. M whiffed on an SDE-type in Anthony LoLata (since transferred), and have let in-state 4-stars slip away to Penn State in consecutive years. But brought in a smattering of 3-star guys in 2010 and 2011 who run the gambit from promising borderline 4-stars who probably just needs to add weight (Jibreel Black, Richard Ash) to lots of depth-y fellas. In other words, it looks a lot like 2007 all over again.

Ultimately your defensive line from 2007 to 2010 was saved by several extraordinary gentlemen, all recruited under Carr: Super All Star Brandon Graham, Mike Martin, and RVB, and when those guys weren't available the line suffered. Craig Roh is the most likely star to emerge from the Rich Rod classes, especially as he returns from being miscast as a linebacker in a 3-3-5 to the terrorizing edge rusher in a 4-3 under so like where he was most effective as an underclassman.

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* This pissed me off so much at the time that my friends used to call out "Nick Perry!" to psyche me out of disc/darts tosses. This has now morphed into "Steve Perry!" because you try throwing a dart with this in your head.

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A Diary

Rescue_Dawn has updated his recruiting map. Behold the Mighty Midwest Kingdom of Hoke the Magnificent:

Since we don't count republished press releases and TomVH can't win it, this is your default Diary of the Week. Not that he doesn't deserve it.

Comments

R.I.P. Bo

July 10th, 2011 at 11:01 PM ^

Aug. 12 is rapidly approaching. Worried that if the Committee of Infractions were to push back the date they would have done so by now. Could it be that OSU will slip through the cracks again? I would like to think that there would be a great deal of media fallout if that were to occur.

TrppWlbrnID

July 10th, 2011 at 11:30 PM ^

As a UM fan of 20 some odd years, I always felt like it was um's god given right to just have this super talented super deep roster and when one guy left or got hurt the next just got plugged in. Naive! Now I see how depth and talent affects scheme and other positions and this years recruits are really those problems in the distant future and the whole thing is just one giant never-ending perfect rube Goldberg device. Thanks mgoblog but also not so thanks as my addiction has expanded ten fold to where I am jamming the USB cable into any vein and just hitting f5.

Zone Left

July 10th, 2011 at 11:36 PM ^

All I can say is that the NCAA should absolutely refuse to allow anyone to self-impose a penalty that doesn't affect the program going forward. Playing ineligible players should be an auto-vacate from the NCAA, but not actually be counted as a penalty.

If Michigan (please don't happen) got caught in the same web as OSU, the games in question should go away, but Michigan shouldn't be able to point to that and say they did something substantial.

painterlad

July 11th, 2011 at 4:30 AM ^

There is nothing else besides 5 guys sold their belongings to get tattoos and their coach stupidly tried to cover it up. The car issue has been resolved (all of the cars sold made money for the dealer), and several of the players listed in the SI article are considering a lawsuit because they can provide the trinkets the article said they sold. I doubt the NCAA has anything else.

That being said, OSU lost so much more from this besides erasing games from a record book. They lost national prestige, an outstanding QB (on the field only!) and one of the best coaches the Big Ten has ever produced. Imagine if this thing had happened at Michigan and Bo would have been forced out after 10 years. Think of where Michigan football was from 69-79, and how the 80s would have been without Bo at the helm. OSU has suffered plenty.

FreddieMercuryHayes

July 11th, 2011 at 7:06 AM ^

There is so much wrong with this statement.  First, the head coach of a prestigious football program blanently lied and cheated for the better part of a year so he could make a run at a NC, and benefitted to the tune of a B1G and Sugar Bowl championship.  And, yes, those are officially out of the record book, but we all saw it happen anyway, and it denied other more deserving teams of the opportunities.

Second, the car thing isn't totally over.  That BMV investigation just concluded that the dealers followed state laws, and the sales were legal.  Even if the dealers made a profit, if the players who bought the cars got a discount the dealer wouldn't normally give the general public, then that is an impermissable benefit according to the NCAA.  And they haven't even touched the loaner cars yet.  But there's nothing there...dealers always let people take cars on multi-month out of state trips.

Third, you didn't even mention the golf thing.  If the NCAA can get the club on the record, and it's credible about them informing the complience staff years ago, OSU is FUCKED.

Fourth, as has been rehashed several times on this site, the last thing OSU wants is anyone sueing.  That gives SI subpenoa power during discovery of the lawsuit, and can force anybody to testify, something which the NCAA cannot due.  You don't want an investigative journalist with subpenoa power mucking around your program.

Your only valid point is that Tressel, a very good head coach, is gone.  But that being said, that is not really much of a punishment.  As every OSU fan is saying, OSU will land a good coach, and be fine.  That is why there needs to be additional punishment.  There needs to be something that affects the program for a while going forward.  Nothing so far will do that.

jackw8542

July 11th, 2011 at 10:46 AM ^

In the litany of possible offenses, one frequently overlooked seems to be the removal of equipment from the equipment room, its being autographed and its being sold.  From what has been reported, that went on for a considerable period of time at least with Pryor and involved a considerable amount of merchandise.  As to the folks threatening to sue, the article said over 20 players (can't remember the number), OSU compliance after yet another extensive investigation has found 1 more and I have to believe the number is considerably more than that 1 more that OSU's ace compliance staff located, even if it is less than the additional 20+ mentioned in the article.

We can only hope that the NCAA makes as much of an effort to investigate as that already made by the reporters.  After all, these infractions have been eluding that crack enforcement staff at OSU since Maurice Clarett (and perhaps before), not just for the past 16 months.

mooseman

July 11th, 2011 at 7:17 AM ^

OSU may not get slammed the way many anticipate and some hope that they will. However, if you buy that this was just about the Tat 5 and Tressel covering it up I don't know what to say. The car issue is not just about whether the dealers made money on the transaction. The issue is whether the players benefitted from those transactions in a way the general public or any regular OSU student would not have. And, btw, I'm still waiting for the first filing of a lawsuit by one on those players. I think they have been advised not to bring the legal system and subpoena power into this scenario.

Seth

July 11th, 2011 at 10:22 AM ^

The shame and coach loss things can't be counted like that. Say Bo Schembechler was allowing his players to receive extra benefits for the length of the '70s, and got caught in '81 and forced out. You would list the loss of Bo for '81-'89 as part of the punishment, but that's an unknown quantity. On the other hand, you have the entire 1970s that are tarnished because who knows how good those teams would have been without the extra benefits. Maybe Hypothetical Alternate Universe Evil Twin Michigan would never have won all of those Rose Bowls and National Championships in the '70s had they played it straight!

When the coach gets caught out like that and is fired, the implication is that he shouldn't have been there in the first place because he was not ethical enough to run that program.

The shame is a sunk cost as well, since it too cannot be quantified. Yes, in 49 states today, anyone who walks into a store with OSU gear on is liable to receive a lot of scorn. However counting that with the punishment would be like letting a thief avoid jail time because it's bad enough nobody in his neighborhood will trust him anymore. As any Michigan fan can tell you, national scorn for major violations is not justice -- look how many people use "cheater" to describe Rich Rodriguez after the 20 minutes of extra practice thing. One of the reasons we develop impartial judicial systems in the first place is because the public is known to be arbitrary and capricious.

The tattoos thing really isn't a big deal to me. If they each traded a few things for free tats and Tressel had forwarded Cicero's e-mail to compliance and suspended the players for five games I'd call that good compliance. The cover-up by Tressel is a big deal. Ohio State's response to that at the time -- conducting a week-long investigation and reporting back like Officer Barbrady while reporters in the same length of time were turning up way, way more is a HUGE deal. Those things demonstrate that the university is taking an adversarial approach to NCAA compliance. NCAA justice isn't at all like the U.S. legal system: it relies 99% on cooperation of the regulated schools in order to function. This essentially makes the regulated the regulators as well, therefore an adversarial approach to compliance from the school becomes a corruption issue. NCAA needs to hit those instances hard (see USC) because otherwise the temptation is far too great for the schools to stifle compliance efforts.

That Pryor seemed to have unlimited access to equipment he could trade away is also a HUGE deal, because the equipment manager would have had to be involved in it. So is the 10 years during which the extensive test drives and special deals not offered to the public. This was all common knowledge for a long time, and it can be demonstrated the university was purposely overlooking it.

With the cars, there's a big difference between legality and NCAA compliance. It's perfectly legal for my wife's uncle who owns a dealership to give us a great deal on a Subaru, or let my wife test drive a new car for an extended period, even though he'd never offer those deals to non-family members. However when offered to student athletes (because they're student athletes) the NCAA considers these extra benefits not available to the general public. The only thing OSU has offered to do is to increase their oversight of their players' cars, but because it wasn't in the original notice of allegations they chose to completely ignore all of the evident violations from Maurice to Terrelle.

The gambit that Ohio State is taking is to blame everything on Jim Tressel and hope the NCAA can't prove anything that Sports Illustrated, Yahoo, et al. discovered.

Taking a gambit like that is a slap in the face of NCAA. They're basically saying "You think there's more? Prove it or get off my property" while the entire functionality of NCAA compliance is predicated on the regulated always being like "oh, hi, please come in and look around -- I pulled out all of the stuff from the drawers and organized them to make it easy on you."

On the other hand the NCAA knows Ohio State is a huge property, and while they'd be comfortable slapping some moderate scholarship and bowl game losses on them, imposing something truly terrifying is ultimately going to weaken the NCAA, especially if in doing so they destroy one of their biggest franchises. It's a very typical regulatory gambit -- EPA and OSHA often are faced with situations where a big company is clearly in violation of safety or environmental laws but the company says "look, if you go through with this you're going to get a lot of people out of work, and our competitors are going to corner the market, so consumers are screwed."

If I was the NCAA, my response would be "this is on you, not us." But that's easy for me to say as an Ohio State rival who doesn't care how the NCAA's margins are affected by a premier brand getting shelved for a decade. So putting myself in their shoes, I'd offer Ohio State one last chance to accept a moderate proposal of double-everything (so 2-year bowl ban, something like 20 lost scholarships for the tats and cars amortized), plus 5 years probation for the failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance. Furthermore I would stipulate that Smith be removed and the compliance department be overseen directly by NCAA for a year. If OSU doesn't take the offer, re-run the investigation and nail them for the maximum for everything that can be proven.

jackw8542

July 11th, 2011 at 10:57 AM ^

The way OSU is now treating Tressel is also significant.  While trying to blame Tressel for everything and taking the position he was forced to resign, OSU is both contradicting its statements made contemporaneously with his resignation and its own conduct that was contemporaneous with its NCAA submission, in which it waived his fine, paid him money and allowed him to change his status from resigned to retired.  How many people who have been responsible for their employer getting into significant regulatory difficulty for which they have been sequentially fined, suspended, had the suspension increased, been forced to resign and then been personally blamed in a legal submission for the problems they caused are next allowed to withdraw their resignation, change it to "retired", get their fine waived and get paid an extra $52,000?  The way OSU is treating Tressel is completely contrary to its written submission to the NCAA, a FACT that one can only hope is not overlooked by the NCAA when it decides how to punish OSU.

BradP

July 11th, 2011 at 7:35 AM ^

EA apparently modeled their NCAA 2011 DL off of that youtube video of Brandon Graham.  Now everytime I get ready to scream "NO FUCKING WAY THAT COULD HAPPEN!!!!", I'll just have to remember that its Graham who made Heisman difficulty level impossible.

ironman4579

July 11th, 2011 at 10:42 AM ^

Just throwing it out there, but I wouldn't call Brandon Graham a "fringe" first round pick.  He was drafted with the 13th overall pick, and was likely at worst going to be taken at 19 by the Falcons.  At 13 he's a solid early first round pick.  Fringe is in the 25-35 range.  He was far above that.

Erik_in_Dayton

July 11th, 2011 at 11:05 AM ^

Pryor, etc. played in the Sugar Bowl with the NCAA's blessing.  I don't think OSU will get hit with a bowl ban until it is charged re: Talbott's dealings with Pryor and others, some of the then-new stuff in the SI article (such as trading memorabilia for drugs), and/or something to do with cars...Hopefully OSU is charged re: those situations in time to sway Bri'onte Dunn to Michigan.