According to the Columbus Dispatch the NCAA has told Ohio State today that they have found no new violations and that OSU will not face “failure to monitor” or “lack of institutional control” charges.

This is wonderful news for OSU as it goes along with OSU’s own findings that this case starts and stops with Jim Tressel. The NCAA investigated the Sports Illustrated story and determined that only one player of the nine committed violations. OSU has confirmed that is the already suspended player Dorian Bell. Bottom line as of today the penalties OSU gave themselves will be sufficient to the crimes they are charged with and if for some reason the NCAA were to enforce loss of scholarships or a post-season ban of any kind or amount Ohio State will have enough to fight those as unreasonable. Today is the kind of day Ohio State fans need. It will make the next few months a lot easier to go through as we wait for the NCAA to confirm what we all know…..

The sky isn’t falling.

Today, Ohio State responded to the NCAA’s Notice of Allegations by recommending two years probation and the vacation of all wins from the 2010 season.  Michigan fans responded to this news by doing what Wolverines do best: getting things wrong.  Thanks to the marvelous Openbook (and my own personal newsfeed), I present a sampling of what Those Up North think just happened:

We’ll start with the most egregious historical revision, that the vacation somehow means that Ohio State lost the game.  Even in the official record this will not be the case, as the game will simply be considered to never have happened.  To reiterate for the fellow above:  The 12 wins are not being converted to losses; they are being erased entirely.

Similarly, a number of UM fans (see below) think that the vacation will magically convert their loss into a win.  Again, this is not what is happening.  That would be a forfeit.  I find it a bit sad that this particular fan apparently wants to lose again this year and then have that loss vacated.  I find it more sad that he used to live down the street from me.

The winky emoticon makes me think this guy knows that he’s wrong.  The hat and goatee make me think that he doesn’t.

This guy pulls off the rare feat of making me laugh both at him and with him.  Well played, sir.

Again, not a forfeit.  At least the second guy seems to get that this is a non-event.  And also he can spell “forfeit.”

These guys were on the right track but just missed it.  And seriously, Guy Who I Hope Just Rented That Uniform, a paper win would constitute an ass-kicking in your world?

And finally we come to the matter of the record.  While Michigan did technically have a better record than Ohio State last year, our new record is 0-1, not 0-12 (note that this guy even managed to be incorrect wrong; forfeiture would result in an 0-13 record).

Class dismissed.

When the dust settles on Summer 2011, there may be no NFL or NBA on the horizon, but there will be college football.  Our favorite sport isn’t subject to collective bargaining agreements or union decertification.  It just keeps chugging along year after year, rarely changing in any significant way.

Which is what makes this year so bizarre for us Buckeye fans.  For the first time since most of us can remember, we’re entering a season under the dark cloud of controversy.  Our beloved coach of the past decade who delivered us a long-overdue national championship is gone, replaced by another beloved but severely inexperienced assistant.  Our more polarizing yet undeniably gifted quarterback has packed up and shipped out as well, maybe replaced by a longtime backup that few of us trust to pass the salt or maybe a true freshman (yeah, there are other choices, but those are the two most likely).  Throw in the four returning suspended players and this has to be the most uncertainty a Buckeye lineup has had in years.

On top of that, we’re heading into the first season of the New Big Ten, with the powerful newbie Nebraska ready to make its mark and Wisconsin and Michigan State looking to take that next step.  We’ve got divisions that probably aren’t split up correctly and definitely aren’t named correctly.  We’ll have a championship game that our team–the one that’s dominated the conference for the past six years–might not be allowed to play in.

For the first time in 82 years, both Michigan and Ohio State will take the field with new head coaches.  The last time this happened (in 1929, the year legendary Buckeye-Wolverine hybrid Bo Schembechler was born) Ohio State won 7-0.  If you told me that would be this year’s result, I’d be ecstatic.

I can’t help but approach this season with a strange brew of anticipation and dread.  For the first time in a long time, I have no idea what to expect.  How about you?

The obvious answer is the current head coach of The Ohio State University Buckeyes Football team.

The real answer though is he is one of US. He is a Man of the Scarlet and Gray. He is a man who grew up loving Ohio State. He is a man who dreamed of playing for the Buckeyes. He is a man who has worked his whole life to become the Head Coach at this wonderful University we all love. He is a family man with a supporting and loving wife and beautiful children. He is a man in his later 30s who is living out his dream even if it is in a tough situation.

I watched his first press conference today as the head coach of OSU for at least the 2011 season and he did a really nice job of showing he learned well from the “Senator”. He answered questions with diplomacy and grace mixed with nervous pauses and looks that any person would have in his shoes. We didn’t learn a lot from his answers but if you watched his facial expressions you could sense his giddyness of having the job many of us would die to have. You could see the love he has for all things Scarlet and Gray. You could even sense the “hate” he has for TSUN whenever The Game was mentioned.

If you would have asked any of us last year at this time who we wanted to be our next HC at OSU after Tressel retires in a few years. I would venture 90% of us would have said Fickell first. After Tressel resigned some of us felt like the whole staff would be tainted and Fickell wouldn’t stand much of a chance to be the full time HC. When I polled my fellow fans and bloggers to a man we all thought Urban Meyer would be the best hire as the next OSU HC some of them may still think that way and that is fine. For me though it took one hour of watching him for me to remember why we all wanted him to be Tressels replacement when he retired after 2014.

To put it bluntly when I see Fickell and the way he carries himself he reminds me of myself and my friends who love OSU and write for this blog. He is never going to be flashy or “Tressel boring” either. He is his own man. He has a chance to make his own legacy. He loves Ohio State and everything that it stands for. He is one of Us…… a full fledged member of the Men of the Scarlet and Gray.

I sit here tonight with so many thoughts running through my head. I am as die hard of a Buckeye fan as there is. In the last 7 months we have had really good times and really bad times and as a fan it is hard to avoid the emotional roller coaster that we have all been on. At times I feel like John Candy in National Lampoons Vacation and I am begging to get off this roller coaster just so Clark Griswald can shoot me in the butt with a BB gun. At least then the horrible motion sickening aches I have will be over and I can go back to feeling normal again.

Thanks to El Kaiser I became a member of the Twitter world right around the time that the issues started back in December of last year. Since then I have come to follow and be followed by a plethera of different types of Buckeye fans. We are a huge Nation and we have very differing opinions on the people and situations currently causing our roller coaster ride. Also via twitter I have learned to like (Jason Whitlock and Ken Gordon and anyone affiliated with the Columbus Dispatch) certain media members and loathe many others (Bruce Hooley and Sports by Brooks and anyone affiliated with ESPN and recently bush league reporters at WSYX ).

Mostly though I have found Buckeye Nation has decided to choose camps. There is the Tressel is a scapegoat camp or Tressel is the problem camp. There is Terrelle Pryor is a dirt bag and Terrelle Pryor is a kid who made a mistake camps. There is the Fire everyone left who was involved camp and the Stop the bleeding camp. The biggest problem I have found is that Buckeye Nation is splitting up and I have seen infighting amongst our fans that should be saved for OSU fans vs. scUM fans. I know my fellow fans are angry or hurt or saddened or happy depending on which camp they are in. I feel all your pains. I understand what you are going through.

Terrelle Pryor is a guy who has made horrible mistakes. Has he made bad decisions lately? Yes, of coarse. Has he done harm to the school we all love? Yes, of coarse. Is there a lot of rumors and innuendos flying around about him right now? Absolutly and some or all of them may even be true….. or GASP some or all may not be true at all. We dont know the whole story yet. I dont trust the media to be unbiased and fair in their reporting since they have yet to do so. He is under investigation by both OSU and the NCAA and I am sure they will dig deeper then they already have and they have dug to China in his first 3 years here trying to find something that will stick. He is taking all the blame for what is going wrong at OSU currently but if you believe the rumors this stuff has been happening for longer then he has been at OSU by many years. He isnt the only player already suspended but yet he is taking all the heat. Which is fine I suppose if he gets all the glory for winning he should prob get the brunt of the bad as well. My question to all of you who wants him gone for good before the investigation is even over… Wat happens if he doesn’t get kicked off the team and comes back after his 5 games off and he leads the team to 7 or 8 more wins? Will those same people still be calling for him to be gone? or Will they stand and cheer and buy his jerseys and pretend like they always supported him? I vote for the second option.

Jim Tressel is now and will forever be my SENATOR. I dont think any less of him today then I did after he won the NC in 2002. He is a man of great character and great flaws. He is basically just like you and me….. HUMAN. He made a horrible mistake and has paid a heavy price for it. I dont know if the punishment fits the crime but if it doesnt it is really darn close. I will never buy into the National media telling me I should feel betrayed by Tressel. I have lied to my bosses and covered up for other people probably at every job I ever had and I imagine 99.9% of you can say the same thing. He isnt the coach anymore that is his pill to swallow for breaking the rules and making a huge mistake.

Gene Smith doesnt deserve to be fired or forced to resign. He didnt break any rules. He didnt help in any cover up. Did he bungle the handling of the Public Relations part of this whole thing? Yes, indeed he did. Honestly though how could anyone be prepared for all that has happened in the last 6 months? I am sure he has learned a lot from this all and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did resign sooner rather then later. Doesn’t mean I think he should.

E. Gordon Gee is a bumbling idiot. He is also a great President of one of the largest Universities in the world. He has done a wonderful job of making the University a better institution and has been masterful in fundraising and making OSU a research leader in many fields. He shouldn’t be involved in the athletic dept day to day dealings and shouldn’t even be targeted by the media for firing or resigning. His job is so large and expansive and involves so much more then Athletic Dept duties. Give the guy a break I am sure he could answer every question correct on Jeopardy but he clearly has no idea what a blitz or a Option Pass is. He is doing his job and he is doing a spectacular one at that IMO.

Lastly, Doug Archie and the compliance dept. Which until recently was 6 people. I heard they asked for and received 2 more people so they are now a dept. of 8 strong. That is 8 people teaching and enforcing compliance to over 1100 athletes and countless other coaches and Athletic Dept. employees. Having said that WHAT THE HECK HAVE THEY BEEN DOING THE PAST FEW YEARS? I wont pretend to know what their jobs entails but I get the feeling they haven’t been doing much of anything work wise for a while other then have classes where they read the NCAA manual to the players who some clearly aren’t listening. I don’t know if they should all be fired or not but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were or disappointed. I do hope OSU will take some of the millions of dollars they have and hire a staff of 50+ compliance people to help fix the issues we have and prevent future ones.

So I end this with a hope. I hope Buckeye Nation will pull together and become the close family we have always been and stop making camps that will divide us. We should support all of our Buckeyes from the top to the bottom until we have an actual reason with proof to not support them. Now more then ever we need to rely on each other in support during this crazy roller coaster ride ends and Clark Griswald shoots us all in the butt letting us know the ride is over and we can relax. Football season cant get here quick enough for any of us thats for sure. Until then Support Your Local Buckeye and hope we all make it to see better days as BUCKEYE NATION.

Here’s a little experiment: Pull out your preferred mobile device, fire up your Twitter app, and run a search on “Tressel.”  What you’re probably looking at right now is a bunch of Finebaum retweets followed by around 100 variations of this:

If not, wait a few days until something else important happens in the world and try again.  The basic formula is simple:

1. Pick something that happened.

2. Insert into this sentence “Jim Tressel knew about [thing that happened] but didn’t know who to tell.”

3. Rinse

4. Retweet

It doesn’t matter what the thing is; before Saturday it was that he knew the apocalypse was coming.  I’m a little surprised that he didn’t “know” about Arnold’s love child, but maybe no one could spell “Schwarzenegger.”

If topical humor isn’t your thing, maybe you’d enjoy a reworked version of some moldy old Catskills schtick:

This is what passes for acceptable Ohio State hate these days, and the only thing insulting about it is the complete lack of creativity our antagonists are displaying.  If you’re going to kick us when we’re down, at least have the decency to change out of your bunny slippers first.

Maybe it’s my fault for expecting to find the brilliant humorists amongst our detractors working in a 140-character limit medium.  Perhaps they were busy with PhotoShop, or whatever cheap imitation they can afford.  Here’s an example from  Nebraska blog Cornnation:

Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying.  The concept isn’t terrible, but surely there is a good synonym for “lying” that could have been substituted to make the title less clunky.  The co-authors aren’t bad, but Satan is involved in so much evil that reducing him to a mere “liar” is a real slap in the face to the Lord of Darkness (and completely glosses over his fiddling skills).  Also, would have been so hard to bump that font up a couple of point sizes and hit the “B” button?

(Feel free to head on over and check out the embarrassingly amateur face-pastes by a certain Hawkeye fan.)

Okay, okay, photoshopping isn’t exactly a high-brow endeavor either.  Respected humorists are writers, like those geniuses over at McSweeney’s.  I’m sure I’ll find a stinging piece of satire about our revered head coach in the world of the classic written word.  Or not.

Is it just me?  Anybody heard any good Tressel jokes lately?

After last summer’s addition of Nebraska to the Big Ten, one of the biggest issues became the nature of future football scheduling. More specifically, fans were whipped into a frenzy when the idea was floated that the traditional season-ending Ohio State/Michigan slugfest could be moved earlier in the season. The reasoning behind this consideration is understandable; with the two teams in separate divisions (itself an unpopular decision), the contest could conceivably be repeated one week later in the Big Ten Championship Game. The reasoning behind the outrage is also understandable; The Game is something that, regardless of the other 11 scores, the season builds up to. It is essentially a holiday among fans and you wouldn’t move Christmas to September, would you?

I would.

And you can spare me all the talk of messing with tradition and your fond childhood memories of whichever Game is most special to you. I get it; I really do. But the conference landscape just shifted in a drastic way. When Penn State joined the league, it wasn’t as big of a deal; it was just one extra team. But with Nebraska comes not just another extra team, but a whole new divisional structure. The Game will never mark the end of the Big Ten season again. It’s not unreasonable to expect that at least one of Ohio State and Michigan will be participating in the Big Ten Championship Game half the time (my guess would be more than that).

The question now becomes what is the best way to enhance the Big Ten’s national exposure/relevance and provide the most compelling product on the field? I believe the answer to that is a new method of scheduling the season that will give the conference a better chance to shine in the national spotlight and increase the excitement leading up to the championship game.

The basic structure would look like this:

2 non-conference games – These games will likely be the “cupcake” games, just as they generally are now. This gives our teams the best chance to rack up a couple of wins and build some momentum as well as work out the kinks.

3 cross-divisional games – These games bump up the start of the conference action and keep fans from becoming fatigued by too many uninteresting matchups early. For Ohio State, the last of these games would be Michigan, and the other teams would be matched up with their biggest cross-divisional rival (e.g. Illinois/Northwestern, Penn State/Michigan State).

2 non-conference games – These games provide a break before the end-run and give our teams a chance to schedule top-notch national programs at a time when teams are generally running at full steam, as opposed to early in the season when there are often still major issues to correct. One of these games will likely be a “lesser” team, but ideally this is a place for the Big Ten to make a case for itself come BCS time.

5 Divisional Games – These games provide a more playoff-like build toward the championship as each week will see major moves in the division races. I believe this is the best way to keep the conference at the forefront of the national discussion. The final game of this run could be used for in-division rivalry games (e.g. Michigan/Michigan State, Ohio State/Penn State).

I understand that this will not be a popular proposal among Ohio State or Michigan fans, but I do think that it serves the overall interest of the conference much better than the process in place for this season and next.

Okay, have at it.

EDDIE GEORGE

I remember the day like it was yesterday. The day was a Monday November 6, 1995. I was working with my Dad at a company whose name I wont use out of shame. I was hiding in his office trying to avoid working. I picked up the Columbus Dispatch sports section and I saw a little article that said there were tickets still available for an OSU football game. I called the number and told them I wanted to buy 2 tickets to the game. The nice lady on the other end of the phone asked me for my Credit Card # and I politely said lady I am 20 years old and I don’t even have a bank account. I then looked at my dad and begged him to give me his CC. After 5 minutes of begging he conceded. The nice lady sold me 2 tickets at a cost of 26 dollars each tax and fees included. She told me I could pick up the tickets at the Will Call window any time I wanted. I decided to fake an illness and go home early where I picked up my friend and roommate and we drove down to the office and got our tickets.

The tickets turned out to be in the South stands when they were those old erector set of recycled aluminum soda cans. The day of the game we went down early to soak up as much atmosphere as we could after all it was our first game ever. We went to Skull Session and we drank alcohol at several places that didn’t care how old we were. I remember walking into the gates of the ‘Shoe and crying my eyes out. I was living a dream I had had for years as a child. I remember wearing shorts and a T-shirt and not caring what the weather would be that day. Turns out it would be a fricking horrible weather day it was windy and cold and rainy and snowy. We arrived at our seats feeling very warm I assume from the alcohol. We then watched as TBDBTL performed and they dotted the “i”. We booed when the Illini team took to the field. We Cheered when OSU came out of the tunnel louder then I had ever heard anything in my short life. Then something magical happened Eddie George took over the game he ran for 314 yards that day and OSU crushed Illinois 41-3 on the back of Eddie. That is my greatest memory of Eddie George and just possibly the greatest running game any OSU player has ever had. Eddie won the Heisman that year but really he won it that day. He also won a lifetime fan…… That day was November 11, 1995.

Today is May 16th, 2011 it is my Fathers birthday it is also the day that the College Football Hall of Fame announced Eddie George will be inducted to the HOF. There is no doubt in my mind that my father helped me to become the Huge OSU fan I am today and without him I wouldnt have been able to sit in those rickety old metal stands in the South End of the ‘Shoe and watch my first game there and witness what is to this day the greatest day ever for a Buckeye runner. It is very fitting for me personally that today on my Dads birthday we both get to talk about the greatest RB in my lifetime as an OSU football fan. Thanks Dad for the tickets that I promised to pay for but never did. Thank You Eddie for memories I will never forget. Congrats to both of you for a truly wonderful day to celebrate for 2 completely different reasons that will forever be intertwined in my life.

Ted Glover at Off Tackle Empire (formerly known as The Rivalry, Esq.) lets loose with both barrels, and it’s a beautiful thing. Be advised, the language is a tad NSFW but given the subject matter, highly acceptable if you ask me.

I demand that you read it in its entirety.

First he establishes that anyone who is a fan of a college football team outside of Ann Arbor joins us in our (completely justified) hatred of a certain school disturbingly close to Canada:

When I identify myself as an Ohio State fan, most people think ‘as a college football fan this guy is probably 95% asshole, but I can get along with the 5% of him that hates Michigan.’  First off, way to be a judgmental ass because you don’t know a thing about me, but it’s okay.  Secondly, I’m cool with that, because the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

He goes on a bit (seriously, read the whole thing) and then he wraps it up with a sentiment only too many of us can understand.

And OSU fan, don’t give me this horseshit that ‘the rivalry is lacking’, and ‘it’s not fun anymore’. Really? Fuck you and your ‘it’s not fun anymore’. This is a bacon orgasm, and I don’t ever want it to end. I don’t know about you, but I’m having so much fun over Michigan’s current run of suck I’m singing zippity-doo-da out of my ass.

Why? Because I remember the Cooper era; it’s burned into my soul and will never go away. Some people talk about war vets that have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), I have PTCED–Post Traumatic Cooper Era Disorder. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night screaming in cold sweats because RB Tim Biakabdfosdfasasdfsdcvcsdflguxfvbjkzxdfgtuka just scored again, or Shawn Springs fell again, or Desmond Howard did the Heisman pose again, or John Cooper pooped himself on the sideline–again. No, what’s happening to Michigan now can happen for another 100 years for all I care.

If I didn’t make it clear before, READ THE WHOLE THING. It’s beautiful, there’s a bacon reference, and I think it fits in with our new John Kreese, “strike first, strike hard, show no mercy” philosophy for OSU football going forward. Take an opponent who has been scuffling as of late and rather than offering a hand up, smack him in the face with an iron gauntlet. Then pee on him like R. Kelly.