I don't know that ND is living on borrowed time. Total defense and scoring defense do not perfectly correlate. ND consistently stops the run and forces teams to pass. They play a pretty safe defense in the secondary, so they do give up some yards but do not give up a large number of big plays. Their defense is kind of similar to OSU's 2002 defense, which also gave up a fair amount of passing yardage but overall was extremely good.
...can certainly be placed in the 2nd tier if Thomas leaves, because they are a mysterious team to figure out with so many new guys. However, Matta is perhaps one of the more underrated coaches in the game, and returning actual players and not having to rely on freshmen gives me a little hope. Most likely star next year - Sam Thompson.
I'm supposed to believe that Alabama is a horribly evil program because they have the audacity to put players on medical scholarship to free up more football scholarships. That is a terrible thing, but when seniors decide to just up and leave the program en masse it is all due to their decision and all ok because they may graduate and that cures all ills.
It's not hypocritical - it's educational. When fans of team A see what is required for success, the justifications for that are much easier to come by. The reasoning given by Alabama fans, LSU fans, and now Michigan fans has been almost identical, (i.e. it's a case by case basis and magically in every case there was this really important reason play X didn't want to play for Michigan anymore that had absolutely nothing to do with his play on the field).
It's not like this is a horrible practice - all these guys will end up playing football somewhere else for at least a little while, probably. None have futures in the NFL. But don't call this something that it's not. These guys aren't good enough to play for Michigan anymore so the coaching staff directed them to a new path off the Michigan team. And don't tell me how evil other coaches are for doing the same thing.
...that there is a benefit, because Hoke has more scholarships available this year for players he might wish to give a scholarship to this year. Further, this is just the latest round of cuts, many of which were made so they could sign more players this year. You may think that cutting players is fine if it doesn't free up scholarships for future players in future years, but that doesn't change the fact that this is clearly cutting players who aren't as good at the game of football, which is supposedly a terrible sin until Michigan starts doing it.
Sorry, but this is total crap. Obviously, these guys are being cut to make room for new players. 4(!) seniors decide to just walk away from the team and hey, that's totally their call, nothing the coach could do about it, business as usual, etc., etc. Oh hey look Michigan just got a preferred walk on who now may get a scholarship. Surprise, surprise.
I really don't care that much except to point out that the "oh no you didn't posts" about other teams jettisoning poorly performing players really feel hollow now that Michigan seems intent on jettisoning poorly performing players.
Really, it can be boiled down to "if Team that is not Michigan cuts a player, they are everything that is wrong with college football." "If Team that is Michigan cuts a player, nothing wrong at all." Welcome back to bigtime college football, I guess.
The recommendation is for violating attorney/client privilege. He didn't blow any whistle. He helped cause the problem by telling Tress about it then telling him it was confidential. I always thought one reason Tress didn't say anything is because Cicero would obviously lose his license if the emails became public.
Michigan's defense was essentially their compliance department was incompetent and hey, changes are coming!!!! Obviously, if the compliance department is so incompetent they can't regulate practice, it seems unlikely they are doing a good job with the money changing hands to players. Their is a real benefit to Michigan here - by keeping a terrible compliance department, they always have some plausible explanation for their failures and they won't uncover any. The NCAA has to be careful not to punish a school like OSU which does monitor and report violations as opposed to ones that don't, like Michigan.
The lack of contrition argument is somewhat implausible to me. Let's not forget, Michigan did get caught cheating, and did get tagged with Failing to Monitor it's program, and I don't recall any Michigan fan ever being contrite about this fact at all. Regardless, Michigan was punished and received penalties that seemed to match it's level of problem. You didn't follow the rules, so you get less practice time.
OSU gets caught. The coach clearly messed up by not passing on information of possible NCAA infractions to the compliance department. The penalty is that they have to vacate a successful season and fire a successful coach. Why is this somehow not in proportion to the crimes? There are no problems alleged with recruiting, but somehow OSU should lose recruits? That is nonsensical and if anything, I do expect sense from this blog. OSU thoroughly investigated the car issues and referred the car issues to Bureau of Motor Vehicles as well as another independent agency, all of whom found no irregularities. Your argument is that this should be ignored because...why exactly?
The NCAA interviews all the other players mentioned as possibly selling or trading their memorabilia, and attempts to interview the source who claims they were involved. The source refuses to talk to the NCAA out of fear of retribution by Edward Rife. This is somehow plausible and means he is telling the truth? However, Tressel doesn't report the infractions because he fears for retribution against his players, and he is somehow a crazy liar? Again, this doesn't make sense and doesn't approach making sense.
Those who think there is a "mountain" of evidence against OSU are just thinking with their hearts, not their heads. We usually think with our hearts when it comes to football, so that's not outrageous. However, for a site that does claim a higher standard of logic when reviewing sports, it is a bit puzzling.
...about the mountain of evidence is that it doesn't actually exist. Rumors of equipment being sold by the ton turned out to be totally false, rumors of checks being thrown around turned out to be false, rumors of additional players selling crap turned out to be false, etc., etc., etc., etc.
There was nothing here and there was never anything here except that some guys got some free crap and Tress didn't report it. There were lots and lots and lots of fuzzy rumors that the NCAA and OSU investigated and ultimately found to be unsubstantiated. Of the 9 players the SI article mentioned, the NCAA could only corroborate one of them. It was a big bunch of mess, and I'm surprised that Brian and the rest of usually smart Michigan fans didn't see through this crap from the beginning. Like someone said earlier, you were thinking with your hearts, not your brains.
...Why should OSU punish itself as if it were charged with a failure to monitor or lack of institutional control, when these charges haven't been brought and there is no indication they will be brought?
...it's difficult to keep the facts straight. For example, Brian writes that "I'd think the head coach lying to keep six players eligible for an entire season obviously deserves a bowl ban and scholarship pain even when you don't account for OSU's persistently nose-thumbing response."
1. Tress didn't know of 6 players, he knew of two.
2. There are other reasons Tress didn't report this besides "to keep them eligible." Really, the position makes no sense. OSU had won 5 straight Big Ten titles, and the assumption is that Tress would do anything humanly possible solely to win his sixth? Unlikely.
3. There is a lot of hype and very little substance behind the idea that OSU is running some sort of horribly dirty program. We know some guys got some impermissible benefits, and we know Tress did not report it, and when asked said he got a tip about but wasn't honest about the specifics. He is no longer employed, and the players are suspended, and the games have been vacated. That's what we know. Is that bowl ban worthy?
1. Tress only ever had knowledge of Pryor and Posey, apparently, and not anyone else, unless they told him and he didn't report that.
2. McNair kept denying he ever had knowledge or should have had knowledge right up through the interview with the NCAA.
3. McNair had no mitigating factors on his side for his behavior. It was clear he was turning a blind eye. Tress did not turn a blind eye; he apparently took a lot of steps to stop the behavior and his "crime" was not reporting them as ineligible then not saying he knew about. Further, McNair had no federal investigation or vague threats against his players that he could use as an excuse.
4. I think Tress is weakest on his lying, as there isn't much excuse for that except he didn't want to throw Cicero under the bus (as reporting your clients's words to a football coach is not particularly ehtical). Further, lying didn't help anyone do anything. He has some strong excuses for why he didn't report the behavior and whatnot.
I'm just saying if someone says "here's a rumor. It's unconfirmed and I don't know if it's true," you can't blame the messenger if it turns out to be untrue. You were warned and can only blame yourself.
People are being too harsh on this woman. She said in her tweet that it was unconfirmed, so I don't know why she should be criticized. Obviously, if she just made it up out of thin air, that's a problem. But it is very well possible that someone told her Tate was transferring, which is all her tweet really said. It really wouldn't surprise anyone if he did.
The Big Ten seems intent on expanding even without a high profile school such as Notre Dame. The reason for this is probably the Big Ten Network, and if the driving force behind expansion is expanding the Big Ten network, then the people in charge are probably looking at market as the biggest (only?) factor.
Washington deserves some love. They beat USC and gave LSU all they wanted and significantly outgained them. Why shouldn't they be in over teams like FSU, BYU, Georgia Tech, OSU, USC, and various other team with 2-1 records?
Michigan benefited from three huge and dubious calls.
1. The overturned int. Ok, two days later we look at video evidence, but at the time it seemed weird to overturn it when the camera angles available were hardly conclusive.
2. The terrible holding penalty that overturned a 60 yard completion to ND's tight end. This was huge, and was a horrible call.
3. The "taunt." This was another bad call, as contrary to claims made on this site, is not always called. Regardless, the complaint is more about why was that called and not the shove by Cissoko in front of the same ref?
Michigan got the breaks by the refs in this game, no doubt about it at all. Accept it and move on instead of claiming that sshing the crowd is a clear 15 yard penalty. Child, please.
...ask Jamal Lewis if you need to give someone cocaine to go to jail for it. It's called conspiracy with intent to distribute. Also, I'm not sure what the law is in Michigan, but taking money on an offer to sell cocaine is trafficking in Ohio, whether cocaine was actually sold or not.
One other consequence is the Cameron Wright issue brought up here a couple times. While we never got the whole story on that one, I strongly suspect that Wright was given the drop in large part because OSU was losing scholarships. Thus, it is important that the NCAA figure out a way to knock programs in some sort of rationally defensible manner.
It is hard to take the APR seriously as a measure of anything when it dings schools like Ohio State for having guys who go pro. Ok - so Ohio State had four guys who left after one season and became first round draft picks and make more money than the people who put the APR together. Counting them against the program as if they just dropped out makes no logical sense. The APR has teeth, but it's kind of like a blind pit bull. What does a low score even mean, beyond that you might get sanctioned?
1. We don't know what the conversation was between Wright and Matta. I agree, the most likely result was that Matta said you don't have a scholarship offer, goodbye. Is it possible that Matta said "look, we won't withdraw your scholarship offer, but I really don't see you playing here?" Yes, it is possible. Therefore, it is completely irresponsible to say that the offer was withdrawn when no one, including Wright, has actually said that. We can only speculate based on the evidence. You don't speculate, then criticize everyone who doesn't report your speculations as fact.
2. The reason it is annoying is because MGoBlog has very high levels of integrity and thus I usually take what is said as truth. The line was clearly taken out of context, as it made it appear like the article was defending Matta, when it clearly, clearly was not.
3. It has nothing to do with OSU/Michigan, only that I understand why Eleven Warriors would be upset that they get quoted out of context and then slammed for it by a very respected blog with a high readership. I'd be upset, too.
Every news story on the issue has described it as a "decommitment." He was committed, and he withdrew his oral commitment. Therefore, he decommitted. The real issue is the reason for the decommitment.
1. It isn't wrong - Cameron Wright didn't say his scholarship offer was yanked, and Matta hasn't commented, so saying that his scholarship was yanked is speculation supported by a strong amount of evidence. But it is still speculation.
2. The article doesn't argue that point. The context of the article is about the impact on recruiting from losing Groce and gaining Boals. The only tangible impact so far has been Wright decommitting, and thus the article briefly explains that this may not have anything to do with the recruiting prowess of either of them.
3. Picking one sentence out of an article and completely changing its context is, in fact, misrepresenting reality.
I was intrigued by the line about Cameron Wright and the blog Eleven Warriors and clicked through hoping to find more information. Unfortunately, the only site misrepresenting reality is MGoBlog.
The article was entirely about Jeff Boals being added as a new assistant to the OSU basketball staff and the impact he will have. Part of the article is about him recruiting, and that some people think that losing John Groce will hurt recruiting. The entire last paragraph reads:
"Some insiders claim the loss of former Matta assistant John Groce had a negative impact on recruiting, in game strategy and overall communication with prospects and existing players. A lack of communication could have something to do with the Cameron Wright decommit though another school of thought says Matta and company grew disinterested. Regardless, it was wasted time either way so maybe Boals can play a role in helping avoid the few recruiting mistakes made by the current regime. "
Ergo, don't bash a site for misrepresenting reality then do the same thing yourself.
...it's also important to note the circumstances in Matta's situation. The team is probably going to lose 1 or 2 scholarships next year due to the APR restrictions, this in large part due to the defections of players such as Kosta Koufos. You only get 13 in basketball, and that as well as other factors (David Lighty redshirted this year, he lost his only undergraduate point guard, he has four other guys committed in 2010) has really destroyed a lot of flexibility he has with scholarships. Ethically, I'm not sure where it puts the move, but it would be incorrect to characterize this as simply "you were good but now your average see ya".
This is my problem with solely using the schedule: Imagine that OU and Texas had not played, and were playing for the championship this weekend. Imagine Texas had the same record, and Oklahoma had beaten some patsy instead of losing to Texas and were undefeated. So, it's 12-0 Oklahoma verses 11-1 Texas for the Big 12 title. It sounds like a big game.
Using your logic, the outcome of this mythical game is completely irrelevant to who should be #1.
Recent Comments
I don't know that ND is living on borrowed time. Total defense and scoring defense do not perfectly correlate. ND consistently stops the run and forces teams to pass. They play a pretty safe defense in the secondary, so they do give up some yards but do not give up a large number of big plays. Their defense is kind of similar to OSU's 2002 defense, which also gave up a fair amount of passing yardage but overall was extremely good.
...can certainly be placed in the 2nd tier if Thomas leaves, because they are a mysterious team to figure out with so many new guys. However, Matta is perhaps one of the more underrated coaches in the game, and returning actual players and not having to rely on freshmen gives me a little hope. Most likely star next year - Sam Thompson.
I'm supposed to believe that Alabama is a horribly evil program because they have the audacity to put players on medical scholarship to free up more football scholarships. That is a terrible thing, but when seniors decide to just up and leave the program en masse it is all due to their decision and all ok because they may graduate and that cures all ills.
It's not hypocritical - it's educational. When fans of team A see what is required for success, the justifications for that are much easier to come by. The reasoning given by Alabama fans, LSU fans, and now Michigan fans has been almost identical, (i.e. it's a case by case basis and magically in every case there was this really important reason play X didn't want to play for Michigan anymore that had absolutely nothing to do with his play on the field).
It's not like this is a horrible practice - all these guys will end up playing football somewhere else for at least a little while, probably. None have futures in the NFL. But don't call this something that it's not. These guys aren't good enough to play for Michigan anymore so the coaching staff directed them to a new path off the Michigan team. And don't tell me how evil other coaches are for doing the same thing.
...that there is a benefit, because Hoke has more scholarships available this year for players he might wish to give a scholarship to this year. Further, this is just the latest round of cuts, many of which were made so they could sign more players this year. You may think that cutting players is fine if it doesn't free up scholarships for future players in future years, but that doesn't change the fact that this is clearly cutting players who aren't as good at the game of football, which is supposedly a terrible sin until Michigan starts doing it.
Sorry, but this is total crap. Obviously, these guys are being cut to make room for new players. 4(!) seniors decide to just walk away from the team and hey, that's totally their call, nothing the coach could do about it, business as usual, etc., etc. Oh hey look Michigan just got a preferred walk on who now may get a scholarship. Surprise, surprise.
I really don't care that much except to point out that the "oh no you didn't posts" about other teams jettisoning poorly performing players really feel hollow now that Michigan seems intent on jettisoning poorly performing players.
Really, it can be boiled down to "if Team that is not Michigan cuts a player, they are everything that is wrong with college football." "If Team that is Michigan cuts a player, nothing wrong at all." Welcome back to bigtime college football, I guess.
...how is this not just cutting guys who aren't any good?
The recommendation is for violating attorney/client privilege. He didn't blow any whistle. He helped cause the problem by telling Tress about it then telling him it was confidential. I always thought one reason Tress didn't say anything is because Cicero would obviously lose his license if the emails became public.
Michigan's defense was essentially their compliance department was incompetent and hey, changes are coming!!!! Obviously, if the compliance department is so incompetent they can't regulate practice, it seems unlikely they are doing a good job with the money changing hands to players. Their is a real benefit to Michigan here - by keeping a terrible compliance department, they always have some plausible explanation for their failures and they won't uncover any. The NCAA has to be careful not to punish a school like OSU which does monitor and report violations as opposed to ones that don't, like Michigan.
The lack of contrition argument is somewhat implausible to me. Let's not forget, Michigan did get caught cheating, and did get tagged with Failing to Monitor it's program, and I don't recall any Michigan fan ever being contrite about this fact at all. Regardless, Michigan was punished and received penalties that seemed to match it's level of problem. You didn't follow the rules, so you get less practice time.
OSU gets caught. The coach clearly messed up by not passing on information of possible NCAA infractions to the compliance department. The penalty is that they have to vacate a successful season and fire a successful coach. Why is this somehow not in proportion to the crimes? There are no problems alleged with recruiting, but somehow OSU should lose recruits? That is nonsensical and if anything, I do expect sense from this blog. OSU thoroughly investigated the car issues and referred the car issues to Bureau of Motor Vehicles as well as another independent agency, all of whom found no irregularities. Your argument is that this should be ignored because...why exactly?
The NCAA interviews all the other players mentioned as possibly selling or trading their memorabilia, and attempts to interview the source who claims they were involved. The source refuses to talk to the NCAA out of fear of retribution by Edward Rife. This is somehow plausible and means he is telling the truth? However, Tressel doesn't report the infractions because he fears for retribution against his players, and he is somehow a crazy liar? Again, this doesn't make sense and doesn't approach making sense.
Those who think there is a "mountain" of evidence against OSU are just thinking with their hearts, not their heads. We usually think with our hearts when it comes to football, so that's not outrageous. However, for a site that does claim a higher standard of logic when reviewing sports, it is a bit puzzling.
...about the mountain of evidence is that it doesn't actually exist. Rumors of equipment being sold by the ton turned out to be totally false, rumors of checks being thrown around turned out to be false, rumors of additional players selling crap turned out to be false, etc., etc., etc., etc.
There was nothing here and there was never anything here except that some guys got some free crap and Tress didn't report it. There were lots and lots and lots of fuzzy rumors that the NCAA and OSU investigated and ultimately found to be unsubstantiated. Of the 9 players the SI article mentioned, the NCAA could only corroborate one of them. It was a big bunch of mess, and I'm surprised that Brian and the rest of usually smart Michigan fans didn't see through this crap from the beginning. Like someone said earlier, you were thinking with your hearts, not your brains.
...Why should OSU punish itself as if it were charged with a failure to monitor or lack of institutional control, when these charges haven't been brought and there is no indication they will be brought?
...it's difficult to keep the facts straight. For example, Brian writes that "I'd think the head coach lying to keep six players eligible for an entire season obviously deserves a bowl ban and scholarship pain even when you don't account for OSU's persistently nose-thumbing response."
1. Tress didn't know of 6 players, he knew of two.
2. There are other reasons Tress didn't report this besides "to keep them eligible." Really, the position makes no sense. OSU had won 5 straight Big Ten titles, and the assumption is that Tress would do anything humanly possible solely to win his sixth? Unlikely.
3. There is a lot of hype and very little substance behind the idea that OSU is running some sort of horribly dirty program. We know some guys got some impermissible benefits, and we know Tress did not report it, and when asked said he got a tip about but wasn't honest about the specifics. He is no longer employed, and the players are suspended, and the games have been vacated. That's what we know. Is that bowl ban worthy?
1. Tress only ever had knowledge of Pryor and Posey, apparently, and not anyone else, unless they told him and he didn't report that.
2. McNair kept denying he ever had knowledge or should have had knowledge right up through the interview with the NCAA.
3. McNair had no mitigating factors on his side for his behavior. It was clear he was turning a blind eye. Tress did not turn a blind eye; he apparently took a lot of steps to stop the behavior and his "crime" was not reporting them as ineligible then not saying he knew about. Further, McNair had no federal investigation or vague threats against his players that he could use as an excuse.
4. I think Tress is weakest on his lying, as there isn't much excuse for that except he didn't want to throw Cicero under the bus (as reporting your clients's words to a football coach is not particularly ehtical). Further, lying didn't help anyone do anything. He has some strong excuses for why he didn't report the behavior and whatnot.
The RichRod is dead. Long live the RichRod.
I'm just saying if someone says "here's a rumor. It's unconfirmed and I don't know if it's true," you can't blame the messenger if it turns out to be untrue. You were warned and can only blame yourself.
People are being too harsh on this woman. She said in her tweet that it was unconfirmed, so I don't know why she should be criticized. Obviously, if she just made it up out of thin air, that's a problem. But it is very well possible that someone told her Tate was transferring, which is all her tweet really said. It really wouldn't surprise anyone if he did.