Ohio State Football: What If 'Tattoogate' Never Happened?

Last week, the popular Ohio State website The-Ozone.net posted an interesting poll asking OSU fans whether or not the Buckeyes would have been better off now or if the scandal known affectionately as "Tattoogate" never happened.

Now, we know the obvious of what happens if Ohio State doesn't have its scandal: Urban Meyer doesn't become head coach, and Jim Tressel and Terrelle Pryor among others never get suspended.

What happens after that, though, is the great question of "what if?"

What if Ohio State stayed with Tressel because it felt no need to fire him?

What if Pryor hadn't committed his violations, either real or perceived?

The obvious answer is the Buckeyes would be a much better football team last season compared to the 6-7 mark they had a year ago. The more time passed, the more apparent the vacancy left behind by Pryor and Tressel became. It wasn't like just returning suspended players like Mike Adams, Dan Herron and DeVier Posey. Tressel and Pryor never came back after leading Ohio State to back-to-back BCS bowl wins—although the 2011 Sugar Bowl was vacated—for the first time since 2003 and 2004.

Pryor could have been a Heisman Trophy favorite in a class that never saw a clear-cut favorite until Robert Griffin III emerged in the home stretch.

The suspensions might not have helped with a defense that looked surprisingly porous compared to years past, though having Luke Fickell focus solely on defense instead of being the head coach might have made a difference.

However, could Buckeye fans still put up with poor offensive coaching—especially on the offensive line—and agonizing Tresselball for another year?

Although the Buckeyes are handcuffed slightly because of the bowl ban and scholarship reductions, their future does appear much more optimistic than it would if Tattoogate never happened. Urban Meyer has the Buckeyes moving in a new, much brighter direction. The problem is they are going nowhere this year regardless of their record.

So the question remains, are the Buckeyes better off having gone through the scandal since it got them Meyer or if the Tattoogate scandal never happened at all?

Let time be the judge.

Follow me on Twitter @bielik_tim for the latest college football news and updates.