Ohio State Football: Why the Worst 12 Months in Buckeye History Are Almost Over

Twelve months ago, Ohio State fans woke up to stunning news that five seniors would be suspended for five games for trading memorabilia for tattoos, a surprising bit of news that so few people knew was an NCAA violation until that moment.

Since then, it has not been a good year for Buckeyes fans.

After beating Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl just a few weeks later, the news only got worse and worse.

Revered head coach Jim Tressel was found to have withheld information of the dealings not only from the NCAA, but also from athletic director Gene Smith and his superiors at Ohio State.

Tressel was later forced out of his job, and star QB Terrelle Pryor left the team shortly after. Whether the reason was to avoid talking to the NCAA or for more selfish reasons, the former all-world recruit was banished from Ohio State for five years shortly after his departure.

With all kinds of turmoil, Ohio State finally took to the field on September 3rd, where senior QB Joe Bauserman took Buckeyes fans on the most bizarre roller coaster ride.

After looking Heisman-caliber against Akron, he looked subpar against Toledo and followed it up with terrible performances at Miami, and in relief at Nebraska where he failed to pull OSU out of a titanic collapse against the Huskers.

In the middle of a stunningly tough season, more players were suspended when it was revealed that a former booster, Bobby DiGeronimo, paid Ohio State players small funds for additional hours at a summer job that weren't worked. WR DeVier Posey, one of the original suspended five, was one of those players, and received an additional five-game suspension as a result.

With him out and freshman QB Braxton Miller in, the Buckeyes passing game reached levels reserved for teams like Army and Navy that only throw the ball about seven or eight times per game.

Miller was able to salvage three straight wins, including a thrilling upset against Wisconsin, to get the Buckeyes to a bowl game this year.

But the Buckeyes finished the season with three straight losses, including their first to Michigan in eight years.

That's quite a lot to digest, eh?

It seemed for the longest time that Ohio State couldn't escape such bad karma day after day, like they were stuck in a perpetual world where the only law was Murphy's Law.

But the dust finally seems to be settling and the dust is finally rising.

Two days after the Michigan game, former Florida coach and Ohio State graduate assistant Urban Meyer arrived and brought life back to a desolate Buckeyes fanbase that looked lifeless and despondent.

He has brought new life into the program and has made the Buckeyes a hit with top-tier recruits in only his first two weeks on the job.

So is Ohio State finally back?

We will have to wait until National Signing Day to know the answer to that question.

The university had one last meeting with the committee on infractions this past weekend to discuss some loose ends and get things wrapped up.

With that in mind, the NCAA should finally be able to decide whether Ohio State's self-imposed sanctions—two years of probation, five scholarships lost over three years, vacating of the 2010 season and Sugar Bowl and the return of all money received from the Sugar Bowl—will be enough or if more sanctions are needed.

Ohio State was given a "failure to monitor" tag for the DiGeronimo situation, and technically can fall under the repeat violator category if the NCAA feels that the Jim O'Brien scandals in the basketball program years ago are connected in some way.

But the NCAA has been very inconsistent one way or the other, so it's hard to get a read on what they plan on doing.

Most sources have said that there won't be too much else added on due to Ohio State's cooperation with the NCAA and athletic director Gene Smith's connections inside the NCAA.

Regardless of what the NCAA ultimately levies on Ohio State, it can't possibly be much worse that what has happened in the past 12 months.

Only Penn State and Miami have had more turmoil in their programs in that time frame, and their full stories have not yet been revealed.

But Buckeyes fans should feel relieved that 2011 is about to be a distant memory and they have bigger and brighter futures to look to.

Almost nothing good came out of this year except for Meyer and Miller, a combination that should have a lot of retribution to deliver on a Big Ten that certainly looked meager without an elite team like Ohio State leading the way.

For fans that have national championship aspirations in year one of the Urban Meyer era, dial your expectations back a little.

Just expect Ohio State to start to get back to being Ohio State next season and move on from the worst 12 months in the history of the football program.

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