The NCAA's Ohio State Verdict: Close to Justice

Almost a year to the day that the original "Tattoo Five" scandal broke, the Ohio State Buckeyes learned exactly what everything was going to cost the program.

The answer: more than anyone—Gene Smith, especially—expected.

The NCAA announced that Ohio State will receive a one year bowl ban as well as a few modifications to the school's self-imposed penalties.  Let's deal with the specifics first.  In response to Ohio State's self-imposed sanctions, the NCAA:

• Increased the number of scholarship lost by nine (three each for three years).  This is an increase from Ohio State's forfeiture of five scholarships during the next three years.
• Added two years of NCAA probation.  Ohio State had self-imposed only one year of probation.
• Handed Jim Tressel a show-cause penalty lasting five years.  Ohio State had already parted ways with Tressel and he has since taken a job with the Indianapolis Colts.

Not that any of this was surprising.  After the depth of knowledge that Jim Tressel had about the original violations and his refusal to come forward for months, the show-cause penalty was a given.  On top of that, more years of probation and additional scholarship losses are standard NCAA reaction in most cases—especially additional years of probation.

The one question that we finally got an answer to is just how serious the NCAA deems the violations committed by Ohio State.  

The self-imposed penalties by themselves constitute a solid slap on the wrist.  Scholarship losses have a tangible effect on the team's performance on the field but the show-cause penalty has no real impact because Tressel has been gone for months.  Probation just forces Ohio State to keep its nose a little cleaner.  

The Ohio State athletic department played a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the NCAA over the past year.  The department first tried to push for short suspensions for players, but once word came out that Tressel had known about the violations well before they emerged publicly, the school couldn't wait any longer.  Tressel had to be removed.

Sweeping Tressel out of the football program seemed to give Gene Smith just enough of a scapegoat to pin the blame on.  It wasn't the failure to monitor or a lack of institutional control, it was the poor judgment of one man who paid for his offense.  Even the smaller issues that came out weren't enough to seriously alter Ohio State's self-imposed sanctions.  

The Buckeyes would give back the 2010 season, give away the bowl money and take a year of probation as penance.  Gene Smith was confident that this would be enough and that a bowl ban or scholarship reductions would be too much:

"But the other things, I'll have a hard time with," he said. "I'd have a hard time with scholarship losses. Justify that. Bowl ban? Same thing. Justify it."

He would later go on to self-impose some scholarship reductions while simply having to eat a one year bowl ban.

This isn't an easy issue to have rational discussion on.  How you view the "fairness" or "outrageousness" of a one year bowl ban depends a lot on what colors you wear on Saturday.

If someone prefers maize and blue on Saturdays, odds are he are incensed that the penalty wasn't two years.  "Why should they get off so easy?"

Those in scarlet and gray probably feel victimized by a vindictive organization that wasn't content to just punish the man responsible.  "Won't somebody think of the children?"

The ones off to the side in green and white wonder when their team gets its justice.  It was snubbed from the Rose Bowl last year because an ineligible team was factored into the rankings.

Fandom is a lot like political affiliation these days: it creates an "us vs. them" mentality that doesn't take kindly to rational discussion.  However, allow me to interject a little reason into this whole affair. There are three things that seem pretty clear (and are supported by a reasonable amount of evidence).

First, a one year bowl ban was warranted.  

There is really only one argument you need: Ohio State used ineligible players for an entire season and those ineligible players were prominently involved in the team reaching a highly profitable BCS bowl, and then winning that bowl.  Giving the money away is all well and good, but it really has no impact on one of the richest athletic programs in the country. 

This penalty may hurt the players at the school now, but if Ohio State wants to lodge an objection based on this it needs to get in line behind every other athletic department that has ever been hit with NCAA penalties.  Ohio State went to a bowl game because of ineligible players and now it will be forced to miss a bowl game as punishment for that.  All in all a pretty fair punishment

Second, Gene Smith handled this poorly and needs to be fired.  

All throughout the process Smith was almost cocky in his constant assurances that Ohio State would see no additional penalties.  A bowl ban was out of the question—until it wasn't.  

Smith had the perfect opportunity to amend the school's self-imposed sanctions once it became clear that the NCAA would be considering a failure to monitor charge as well.  

Smith could have thrown himself at the mercy of the NCAA, given the Buckeyes a self-imposed bowl ban and let the lost 2011 season go out with a whimper while letting new coach Urban Meyer gain steam.  

Whether it was incompetence or hubris that kept Smith from accepting the possibility that the NCAA wouldn't agree is immaterial.  He has more than likely wore out his welcome in Columbus, and for good reason.

Third, Ohio State will be fine.  

Face it, even though a one year bowl ban could sway some recruits to reconsider their commitment or interest in Ohio State (not likely, but still possible), Urban Meyer has already done enough to the recruiting class that it should hardly matter.  The school still has a great deal of alumni support, some of the best facilities in the country and more money than God.  

How long did a bowl ban and scholarship reductions hold down USC?  The team is poised to open the 2012 season at the top of the polls by a wide margin if Matt Barkley returns for his senior year (and will still be a top-five team if he doesn't).  That is with much harsher penalties than Ohio State received (cut to USC fans nodding vigorously).  

One year off from a bowl shouldn't do much more than make the Buckeyes hungry come 2013.

What the NCAA did to Ohio State's football program is as close to justice as anyone can expect in major college football anymore.  

Over the course of the last year, the program was forced to get rid of its coach, its biggest offender and was without the help of four other offenders for multiple games. Scholarship reductions will up the ante when it comes to Urban Meyer's margin of error in recruiting. Finally, a bowl ban will add a bit of negative publicity and take away a great deal of visibility for the program.

At the end of the day, however, none of this will matter.  All that matters now is just how well Urban Meyer coaches the team, how well he recruits and how long he sticks around.  Those questions will take much longer than a year to answer.  

Odds are, Gene Smith won't be around when find out the answers.