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Jim Tressel is Fired & More
[EDIT: Here's the Sports Illustrated article on Jim Tressel.]
I know, he resigned. LLoyd Carr resigned too. Carr’s resignation has a different ring to it when up against the pile storm that sits on Jim Tressel’s legacy at this point.
Nevertheless, Jim Tressel resigned this Memorial Day morning. Here is Tressel’s resignation letter.
The allegations, many of which the general public doesn’t know about yet, are sure to be the reason that Tressel flew home from vacationing in Florida early, and on a holiday to further validate the crippling conclusion of the Sports Illustrated investigative piece (EDIT: The report is supposedly being published tonight sometime between 7:30pm and 8pm EST) that has been mostly a rumor up to this point.
Nobody will be shocked to find out that Terelle Pryor’s role in this whole thing is probably enormous and the early word and rumors are indicating that Pryor’s last snap to close out last season’s Sugar Bowl – will be in fact his last as a Buckeye.
I’d like to point you in the direction of Genuinely Sarcastic – where you’ll find a detailed timeline of Jim Tressel’s career dating back to 1986 and Ohio State’s unbelievably terrible track record in this past decade during the heart of Tressel’s time in Columbus. He also goes …
Nothing Ohio State has accomplished in the last ten years is valid anymore. From Clarett, to Smith, to Pryor, and all the others in between, with the cars and the cash and the discounts and the cutting of corners, Ohio State is essentially an SEC school operating in the Midwest. Tressel is a proven, documented cheater, and if the NCAA has any balls at all, they will slap him with a show-cause order, blackballing him from ever coaching again. He has successfully manipulated his public perception so he comes across as a righteous, homely, ethically pure gentleman, when the reality is he’s basically a gangster, willing to do whatever it takes to win, and turning a blind eye toward the corruption that he himself endorses.
It’s fairly shocking after reading through transgression after transgression within the Ohio State football program – and how they were handled by Tressel.
How Does OSU Recruit now?
You thought Michigan would take a recruiting hit once Hoke took over for Rich Rod – and they did for a period of time and have since pulled off a nice recovery. But how do you recruit when you won’t know for over a year who the next head coach will be? To me, this is gigantic and a huge part of how Ohio State’s football program takes steps to recover from this…
@BMac_SN: Have now talked to 8 or 9 kids with Ohio State offers, and many are done with OSU because of today’s news.
That was from Brian McLaughlin at the Sporting News a few hours ago.
Here’s a bit from ESPN folk…
Pryor? No thank you.
Lastly, my goodness did Michigan dodge a bullet by losing the recruiting battle for the services of one Terelle Pryor. You can’t find a Buckeye fan that has an ounce of sympathy for this guy. Now, there’s this coming from what is apparently a reliable source from over at Eleven Warrior’s twitter
@elevenwarriors: We’re hearing from a pretty reliable source that Pryor’s playing days are over at OSU due to new allegations
And just as I am writing this – I see that there is a full-fledged investigation under way by the NCAA and OSU on Terelle Pryor. From the outside, it looks like the investigations that took place earlier in Pryor’s career weren’t as thorough as they could be and as the current investigation.
Bruce Hooley has a good read on Pryor being the catalyst in Tressel’s downfall. These comments were intriguing…
“If that was anyone else, coach Tress would not have hesitated to turn them in,” said a former teammate of Pryor and a multiple-year starter for the Buckeyes. “I never understood why, but he let TP get away with stuff other guys couldn’t do. (Pryor) clearly had different rules than the rest of us.”
A longtime Tressel friend agreed.
“I can’t explain it, but he felt differently about (Pryor),” the friend said. “He treated him differently. He would just go on and on about him — not as a player, but as a person. I didn’t get it at all.”
Not only has Pryor been a disappointment on the field, he’s been a nightmare off the field. From misguided tweets that are garbage, to the car borrowing, to the free tats, to whatever else we’ll probably learn in the next day or two – it’s all been undesirable and shady.
All Hail what is Denard Robinson! Even if Denard was on the squad and never took a meaningful snap, he’d be a better and more impactful teammate than Terelle Pryor ever has been. That’s right – Pryor has only hurt his team on the field, in the locker room and in the tattoo parlor.
Here’s Jim Brandstetter’s take on Tressel.
Big Ten commish Jim Delaney makes his statement.
He's only human and everyone makes mistakes. It was the players fault not his. They shouldn't have put him in that position. He shouldn't have had to resign.
Jim Tressel gets paid nearly $4 million annually to ensure these types of mistakes don't happen, and to take proper action in response if these types of mistakes do happen.
Jim Tressel getting fired or forced to resigned – is 100% his fault. Nobody is having any of these conversations if Tressel immediately took his knowledge of wrongdoing to the proper channels of authority. Saying he didn't know who to go to is a load of garbage. That might fly if a graduate assistant coach said that, but not the head coach who has been coaching for decades.
You are wrong. He should have had to resign, and his resignation was not the players fault it was his.
Pregnancy Pointers, It is because of people like you that we as a country are in trouble. No one wants to take accountability for their own actions. It is always someone else's fault. It is clear now that JT, at a minimum, looked the other way in many instances where red flags should have been raised. Overtime that gave him a competitive advantage that allow him to recruit the best talent in the area (come to OHIO and get your free candy). He is only now forced to accept his responsibility, but don't think this is ending with him. OHIO's AD and President are at risk too and I wouldn't be surprised to see them gone once the NCAA brings "lack of institutional control" charges.
OW,
You're right – all of this happening for an entire decade and being pushed under a rug is not going to fly anymore – and it's not just Jim Tressel that will be owning up to it.
No doubt, this will continue to be a topic of conversation as more information comes to light.