Thoughts On Jim Tressel Getting 5 Game Suspension & Buckeye Situation

Jim Tressel has decided that two games wasn't enough of a suspension and that his penalty should equal that of the players, so he is going to be sidelined for the first five games of the 2011 season. He, along with the Buckeye Five, will be unable to help The Ohio State in their first five contests against Akron, Toledo, Miami, Colorado and Michigan State.

Significant? Yeah, the Miami game and the contest against Sparty are the big two in that time frame but I'd bet my money on the Buckeyes coming out of that stretch 4-1 or 5-0.

Let's get a couple things straight here, I don't particularly give a damn how long Tressel is suspended. I think self sanctions are basically folks trying to do the least amount possible to themselves to escape the NCAA coming down hard. I'm not exactly a fan of it but I understand why teams do this. Personally, I'd ride it out and hope for the best because in the end you're going to get screwed either way, so win now. The issue here, with Tressel, is that Gene Smith, E. Gordon Gee and Jim Tressel all agreed on the two game suspension just over a week ago when the penalty was announced.

After the announcement the call for him being suspended longer came from various sources. Even Luke Zimmermann mentioned a longer suspension might have been in order. Nothing too vocal on the national scale, and to be fair a lot was dismissed as Buckeye hatred, but there was a solid measure of folks upset about the coach getting two games. So after about a week of that outcry, what happens? Tressel decides to do the "noble" thing, he suspends himself for the next three games to "equal" the suspension of Terrelle Pryor, DeVier Posey, Dan Herron, Mike Adams and Solomon Thomas.

Laugh now. It is as noble as Brandon Spikes decision to "do the right thing" and suspend himself for the entire game following the eye gouging incident.

I'm not a fan of altering ones policy based upon public perception.

I don't like it when schools go out to hire a coach, I don't like it when a player apologizes for something he didn't think was wrong. Hell I don't even like when the NFL waits to see how hurt a player is before they suspend or fine players for the hit. It is a low budget move, an insincere more, a play at trying to sate the public outcry as well as stave off what might be coming from the NCAA.

The fact is the punishment was two games, they added three after the fact and this whole situation is all a play to hope that nothing "too" bad happens to their program with the boys from Indy snooping around. You can't fool me, there is no more remorse there than we've seen at Auburn in the last five months or out of USC during their five year investigation.

Which brings me to another point, public perception. I talked about this briefly in the podcast with Luke and basically the fact that because Tressel has built himself in this image of the pious and righteous alternativehe is taking less heat than other coaches would. In football alone there are guys with far more "plausable deniability" in their NCAA situations than Tressel that have drawn the "he's just a dirty, stinking cheater" label. I'm not sure how one can look at a coach without any proven connection to the situation, call them a cheater, and then turn around and give Tressel the benefit of the doubt when the proof sits there in all its exclamation point glory in his inbox.

As a guy that, besides my love for the Saban, has absolutley zero preference for one coach or the other outside of scheme and results I don't get your approach. Because you like Tressel more you don't think he's as elbow deep in no-good as other coaches? He's had MORE NCAA issues surrounding his programs than Caliparin more players involved in NCAA issues, far more secondary violations and like Calipari none of these were ever connected to him. Yet somehow Calipari, because he isn't well-liked, "surely had a hand in it all" while with Tressel it has always been "just the kids fault."

Coaches are coaches. Whether you like them or not they all swim in the same pool. Some are a bit more off track than others but the quicker we get rid of the idea that "my program is perfect and your program is dirty" the quicker we can stop the idiotic reactions.