Back in 2010, the Oregon Ducks Presented By Nike wrote a $25,000 check to Houston recruiting company Complete Scouting Services run by Willie Lyles, who is apparently not the secret identity of a Batman villain. As it turns out, the money was more likely to secure Lyles’ influence with star recruits like Lache Seastrunk, which is really the name of an actual human being, and not for the report Lyles sent them, which consisted of seven Rivals.com screencaps and a bag of old Bazooka Joe comics.
Today, the NCAA delivered a similarly insignificant package in the form of sanctions, which include:
- The loss of three scholarships over the next three seasons
- Three years probation
Did I say “include?” I meant “consist entirely of.”
Yep. That’s it.
Oh, sure, there’s also that 18-month show-cause penalty levied against current Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly, which will make it difficult for him to obtain another college coaching gig until, you know, he might actually be in the market for one.
I don’t want to get sanctimonious here, but the fact that a team can essentially attempt to purchase a player and receive virtually no punishment at all is a bit infuriating, especially if you’re a fan of an undefeated team that had to experience the postseason at home.
The excuse is that Oregon cooperated fully with the NCAA’s investigation, and I guess that’s fine, but it was my understanding that Ohio State did as well. In fact, it was an OSU staffer that initially discovered and reported that Tressel had previous knowledge of the infractions committed by players.
It’s really becoming difficult to defend the NCAA in any capacity when in comes to infractions cases. They botch investigations, completely ignore significant violations, and spew out wildly inconsistent punishments seemingly at random.
At this point, I won’t be surprised if Miami gets the death penalty or a nice basket of cured meats.
The thing that burns me about this whole situation with Oregon is it was said during the press conference “Oregon was a repeat offender”. Isn’t that the whole and only reason the Buckeyes received the one year bowl ban? I’m not a hundred percent sure on this but I swear that’s what I remember. tOSU gave themselves stiffer self imposing sanctions than the Ducks did and the Buckeyes still got smacked harder makes no sense.
The problem was with OSU is that after they gave themselves the self-punishments…. and after the team was busted for tatgate and after Tressel got caught lying…. Those guys Jordan Hall and DeVier Posey and others got busted for taking money at the Tedd Ginn Jr charity golf event. Thats what got OSU the one year bowl ban from what I heard.
all of which though was self-reported by OSU…
I did forget about that but didn’t they also pay the money back and Posey was suspended first five games? Kinda of fuzzy tried to ignore a lot of the darkness and pain. lol On the positive side it brought us Urban Meyer and as good as Tressel was Meyer is way better.
Yeah they did all that but it was just a nail in the OSU coffin it was like they flipped off the NCAA infractions committee and that led to the 1 year bowl ban… I believe
Tressel and Urban are different but they also have one thing that is exactly alike they are both winners and OSU is bigger than anyone and it is impossible not to win at OSU.