Ohio State Football: New Documents Could Mean Multiple-Year Postseason Ban

According to official Ohio State documents obtained by the Associated Press Friday afternoon, former Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel failed to do an adequate job of self-reporting NCAA violations six years before the ongoing tattoo and memorabilia scandal.

The Buckeyes' athletic director at the time, Andy Geiger, rated Tressel "unacceptable" in terms of self-reporting rules violations in a timely matter in his evaluation of the former coach for a 2005-2006 job performance report. 

Tressel first ran afoul of the NCAA rules with Ohio State before he even coached a single game in Columbus.

On June 15, 2001, Geiger gave Tressel a letter of reprimand for giving a recruit an Ohio State jersey, which is a major violation.

This letter apparently did not get through to Tressel, because the NCAA-Ohio State evaluation report rated Tressel as "unacceptable in self-reporting violations and in a timely and accurate completion of phone and unofficial visit logs."

A recent BMV investigation of 25 cars purchased by Buckeye football players discovered dealerships received fair-market value for the cars, but this was not the first time red flags were thrown up at Ohio State about Tressel's players and their fancy cars. 

Geiger raised concerns to Tressel and his staff in 2003 about their inefficient job of monitoring car purchases of football players.

"In the course of the investigation, there were questions surrounding, among others (redacted name's) automobiles and cell phone use," Geiger stated in the letter to Tressel dated Sept. 9, 2003. "I am writing to make it clear that the university expects you and your staff to pay attention to automobiles driven by the football student-athletes and report to the Athletic Compliance Office any unusual circumstances with respect to such automobiles." 

The BMV cleared the Buckeye players of any legal wrongdoing in the matter, but the NCAA's ruling on "loaner cars" used by former quarterback Terrelle Pryor and the sales on the cars could be much different.

But, these reports by Geiger were just the tip of the iceberg at Ohio State. Tressel's file also contained a reprimand for, "permitting an outside person to coach kickers before a full team practice and allowing the mother of a recruit on an official visit to make a call for $7.93 that was billed to the university."

Tressel also received two "letters of caution and education" for giving free tickets to a recruit's parents and allowed the same unidentified player to, "practice with the team during fall camp for 19 days despite (his) not having completed his NCAA Drug Testing Consent Form."

There was also a police report filed last November concerning the theft of 10 pairs of Buckeye football cleats, which all belonged to Pryor, running back Dan Herron and receiver DeVier Posey.

No charges were filed in the case, but this helps to validate a claim made by a former Fine Line Ink employee, who was cited in a Sports Illustrated article investigating Ohio State as "Ellis," and alleged Pryor sometimes traded team equipment for tattoos at the Columbus establishment.

Herron sold a game jersey, pants and shoes for $1,000 dollars to an employee of Fine Line Ink in exchange for tattoos, which has to make you wonder whether or not these items were stolen from the players, or if they took them with the intention of trading and/or selling them.

The Buckeye men's basketball coach, Thad Matta, received five warning letters early in his time with Ohio State, but is now, "praised for his relationship with the school's NCAA compliance department."

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Tressel, which makes everything that has transpired at Ohio State since December a lot worse now.

With all of this information in hand, along with emails discovered in March proving Tressel knew of his players committing NCAA violations in April of 2010, it should have prompted the Buckeyes to fire Tressel immediately. 

Instead, they opted to stand behind him until the end of May when the SI article detailed a string of violations that dated all the way back to Tressel's first years at the helm of Ohio State. 

If this is not lack of institutional control and does not warrant a multiple-year postseason ban and a reduction of at least 30 scholarships over three years, then I do not have a clue what does—especially considering the Buckeyes admitted to being "repeat violators" in their response to the NCAA's charges.

The university knew Tressel had done an unbelievably poor job of monitoring his players and their off-field transgressions, but never punished him.

Gene Smith knew all of this before he made a statement in December saying the newest violations were "isolated" to the tattooed five (Pryor, Herron Posey, defensive lineman Solomon Thomas and offensive lineman Mike Adams), which now makes him look like a fool for uttering such a thing, and further proves Ohio State does believe they are accountable for any of these violations.

This was made clear in their response to the NCAA, in which they essentially blamed the entire scandal on Tressel and believe they should not bear any responsibility for his actions.

In reality though, Ohio State now appears to be just as much at fault as Tressel, because all they have done since 2001 is continuously warn him and hope he would get the message that he better follow the rules.

Well, now the Buckeyes are about to find out the hard way why you need to punish coaches and players, no matter how good they may be, for tip-toeing the line of major violations.

If the NCAA opts not to drop its hammer down on Ohio State, then the floodgates will be permanently opened, and the number of scandals like this will be 10-fold in the coming years. Schools will think they can get away with what Tressel got too many times at Ohio State—a simple warning.

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