Au contraire, BT. It is well-deserved. I understand your desire to defend their "honor" but if it had happened at the program I support, I would hope that they would have been long gone by now. It's just a matter of perspective and opinion, and we'll have to agree to disagree.
Indeed we will Sid....it is not my intention to defend their honor. It was my intention to bring a little perspective into the discussion. As misdeeds and poor decisions on the part of teenage young men go, on every roster in every college town in this vast country of ours, there are young men who made much poorer decisions, including drug and alcohol abuse, with much more serious consequences and have received much less scrutiny and vastly more lenient punishment. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.... If the worst thing my young son ever does is to sell a trinket that belonged to him - even if against my express desire that he not do so - I will be a very happy man. We will indeed agree to disagree on this one my friend.....
And it's my intention to assert that it depends on the whims of some potentate at the top of the NCAA on how "justice" is doled out. Ohio State and Auburn had big time BCS bowl games coming up so decisions were made quickly and surprising, surprise, not one player had to miss one play of these games. Sickening! Ethics is in the eye of the beholder. :roll:
I tend to agree, KP...fairest thing would have been to have suspended them from the bowl, as OSU was going to do from the start. But when the NCAA comes along and takes five games away next year...what are you going to do? Penalize yourself (and them) twice? Maybe that would be taking the extreme high road, but I doubt many schools would do that.
Stu, I hear what you are saying, however OSU shouldn't have had a say in it. The NCAA did it on their own. Like I said earlier, I am not trying to slam OSU, my complaint is with the NCAA and how they make decisions. Let's see how they handle the appeals of this situation with OSU and I am really interested in the USC appeal. :x
My prediction is that any reduction will be minimal...I think that the 5 games is too much but they have caught so much grief for allowing them to play in the bowl that they have to stand tough.
Have to throw my 2 cents in... 1. I don't believe for 1 sec that these kids "were unaware that they did wrong"...convenient way for their AD to attempt take the blame...We didn't educate them enough. Bah! I just don't believe it. 2. I don't believe they did it because they were poor and were just trying to help their families. Just don't, again another convenient rationalization. 3. I do believe they knew exactly what they were doing and had most likely been educated by older players on the "ins and out's" of making some extra cash and how to do it. That previous guys hadn't been caught just meens that...they didn't get caught. I do believe that members of the OSU coaching staff were aware of what was going on and just turned their backs, naturally I have no proof, I just think that so often coaches act like they had no idea guys were doing stuff that everybody else knew about but they some how in their world didn't have a clue...yeah right. That goes for coaches at my favorite schools as well. 4. While there certainly is a ton of potential for this to really get out of hand with it being a convenient way for boosters to funnel money to players, these guys didn't make a ton of money off of it. I am glad they got caught, it's out in the open and got lots of publicitiy. 5. I do think the punishment of 5 games was too harsh for all of them, there have been other cases where guys have taken money and only had to pay it back and miss a game. Maybe it's to hard to say if you take XDollars you miss 1 game if you take YDollars you miss 2 games, etc. Maybe the severe punishment was attempted as a "shot across the bow" to let players all over the country know it could really cost them. 6. I do think it's a sham that they were allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl, don't care if it was the NCAA, The Ohio State University, or the Sugar Bowl itself. It was just wrong. Sorry if it would have screwed up the game, but that's the consequences. Using that logic a lot of players who haven't been able to play in bowl games over the years were wronged, they should have been allowed to play and taken their punishment the next season like these guys. 7. I wouldn't have kicked them off my team, give them the punishment and let them do the time and then move on.
Excellent points, Terry. Very well thought out. I should comment (Are you listening, BT? :wink: ) that I like Tressel. I think he's a class guy as well as an excellent coach. Having said that, the OSU administration IMO bungled the public spin. My opinion of the players' mindsets, as I've stated in a different way in an earlier post, is consistent with TOK's. After reading TOK's post and BT's comments, I would change my original opinion that the players should have been kicked off the team to a suspension for the bowl game and a few games into next season. I agree with kp that the NCAA is inconsistent and seemingly arbitrary in how they dole out punishments differently for similar offenses (cite: the Georgia WR vs. the OSU players).
I always listen to what you are saying my friend....while we don't always agree, I always respect your views and find them, as I do TOK's, typically well thought out and articulated in a respectful manner. In this instance we simply have some differences of opinion on some of the issues involved, but in substance we're in agreement and as it relates to Coach Tressel, we're in complete agreement. 8) The kids screwed up, deserved to be punished and in the grand scheme of things, the NCAA needs to be as consistent as possible in their processes, policies and practices....