"VEST" IN PEACE

Ohio State head coach has Jim Tressel officially resigned this morning amid ongoing investigations into his football program. Nearing the end of 2010, news broke that current OSU football players had received some improper benefits via traded memorabilia. Since then, the information has snowballed to include past players, free cars, cash handouts, and most importantly Tressel not only knowing about all of this but covering it up as well. Seven months later, Tressel has been removed and OSU braces itself for the fallout. Honestly, I believe this instance is big enough that the NCAA will not only come down hard on OSU, but also make changes as to how it handles future infractions. Ohio State is one of the biggest NCAA  brands in the country. They pull a lot of weight, and both their athletic director and school president are big wigs. In a nutshell, this isn't a slap on the wrist handed down to Akron. No offense to all of my followers from Zips nation. If there's one thing the NCAA absolutely hates, it's when schools try to make them look bad and undermine their rules. Moving forward, I think the powers at be are going to realize that the five game suspensions handed out to five players at the start of next year, and Jim Tressel's self imposed suspension were some what of a mockery to the system as the allegations continue to grow. Also the way that OSU handled initial reactions and penalties were laughable at best (literally in some instances as school president Gordon Gee joked, "I hope he doesn't fire me" when asked if he would consider firing Tressel). There's little doubt in my mind that even though Tressel resigned, he was asked, or forced, to do so by school officials. They couldn't let him stay because of all of the sanctions that will eventually be imposed on the school specifically because of his actions, and they couldn't fire him because that would reflect poorly on them and raise questions of why they never did so earlier. Tressel resigning was the only thing that could happen with both sides saving a little face. USC just had its sanctions of two years without being bowl eligible and 30 scholarships being taken away upheld, and that's when the coach claims to have known nothing. In this case, its proven that the coach not only knew about what was going on but lied about it too, as well as more and more people coming forward with stories that make it seem like Tressel's entire 11 year reign was tainted from the start. I think it's a fair assumption then that OSU is facing some huge sanctions, bigger than those at USC. In life, everyone needs a little dose of humility every now and then, and Ohio State's time has come. After years of taking shots and mocking other programs, it's their turn. As stated, I expect OSU to potentially be hit with one of the biggest sanctions ever seen in major college football. So in a few years when someones asks who was hit with the biggest fine ever, you could say, "That's easy. It was THE Ohio State University!"