May 24, 2013

NCAA Completes Ohio State Investigation, OSU Imposes More Sanctions

November 10, 2011 by 18 Comments

When The Ohio State University went through the scandal with former coach Jim Tressel, the hope of the University and its athletic department was that firing Jim Tressel and self-imposing probation plus forfeiting the last season would be enough.

For a while, it looked like that might be the case when the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions delivered OSU a positive letter in response to their investigation into the Notice of Allegations.

All of that changed when the news of the Bobby DiGeronimo booster scandal rocked the program. The NCAA essentially slammed the brakes on their investigation and delivered OSU a supplemental Notice of Allegations.

OSU fans began bracing themselves for the worst penalties. Would the NCAA hit them with Failure To Monitor and/or Loss of Institutional Control (a pre-requisite for most postseason bans)? Would scholarships be lost? Would bowl games be forbidden?

The University is beginning to move toward the light at the end of the tunnel in this situation and the answers to those questions are closer to being revealed.

Today the University announced their co-investigation with the NCAA into this matter was officially closed and that the University would be self-imposing further sanctions. According to a press release on the University’s website,

As a result of the additional allegations, the university will self-impose a reduction of five scholarships over a three-year period beginning next year. Also, the university disassociated DiGeronimo Sept. 20 and is taking further steps to enhance its education and monitoring programs. This action is in addition to the self-imposed sanctions previously identified to the Committee on Infractions Aug. 12. Those include vacating the 2010 season (including the Sugar Bowl), vacating the 2010 Big Ten football championship, imposing a two-year probation period, seeking and accepting the resignation of then head football coach Jim Tressel, and forfeiting the university’s share of the Big Ten’s payment for having played in the 2011 Sugar Bowl.

Additionally, the NCAA has indeed charged the University with a Failure To Monitor its football program. This opens the door to a postseason ban, though it still remains to be seen if the NCAA will go that route.

The NCAA can still add any additional penalties it sees fit, but the whole picture is beginning to move slowly into focus. No timetable is set for the NCAA’s response to OSU’s penalties, but an answer is expectedly fairly soon, most likely by the first week or so of December, if not sooner.

The Failure to Monitor charge does not mean the NCAA has to impose a postseason ban, but it does open the door to precedence for it. Last week the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that of the 5 teams to face postseason bans in the last 10 years, 3 of them were hit with Failure to Monitor or Loss of Institutional Control, and the other 2 were hit with major recruiting violations.

Ohio State may not have the recruiting violations, but they now have the FTM charge. The NCAA is entirely too inconsistent to predict what will happen, so the University will now have to play out its season while waiting to hear if the NCAA feels their self-punishment is sufficient.

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Photo Credit: ERIC ALBRECHT | DISPATCH

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  • http://exiledclevelander.wordpress.com AMC

    I’m eagerly awaiting the day when the NCAA makes its ruling and OSU and all its fans can put this in the rear view mirror and finally move on.

    While OSU haters will clamor for additional harsh sanctions beyond those imposed by OSU itself, the haters are kidding themselves if they don’t view the biggest penalty of all as losing Tressel – the program is a shell of its former self since his departure.

  • jimkanicki

    there’s something very tone deaf about this.

  • oribiasi

    I’d like to know what they will eventually accuse Penn State of doing. Yikes.

  • mgbode

    let’s separate what is going on at the other big10 school scandal please.

    for Ohio State, if we are going to get a bowl ban, then I hope it is for this season. for one, we still have players on the team that were apart of this scandal. also, it’s best if the program can just move on and that won’t happen until the public penalties are completed.

    also, is it 5 scholarships per year for 3 years or 5 scholarships over 3 years? it sounds like the latter above and that is basically nothing. hoping it was just poorly worded.

  • http://www.waitingfornextyear.com Andrew

    Its a total of 5 scholarships, spread over 3 years (2,2, and 1).

  • mgbode

    thanks Andrew. i do not think the NCAA is going to let that be enough, but we’ll see.

  • matt tag

    why separate it? The whole purpose of the NCAA seems arbitrary right now. “A couple kids got a couple bucks? The horror! Ban! Failure to Monitor!”

    Look, I know the big specter that the NCAA is trying to protect against is fixed games. But if the NCAA produced photographic evidence of Tressel taking a basket full of cash from a known mafioso – this STILL wouldn’t be as bad as what’s going on in the state next door right now. Talk about “failure to monitor”.

  • JM

    If it was failure to monitor then how does Smith still have a job?

  • mgbode

    because some things go beyond sports?

    depending how many of the rumors are true (rivals.yahoo.com had a few that made even what had been the worst seem tame) we are talking about a scandal that has significantly affected the lives of possibly 20+ children, their families and could very well get Penn State kicked out of the Big10 along with most of their upper level staff fired, football program given a near self-sustained death-penalty, etc. (again, depending on how many of those rumors are true and can be proven).

    despite all that, what Ohio State did was still wrong and there are rules on the books. let’s not act like it was an isolated incident with a couple bucks. it was nothing to the horrors of PSU, but the NCAA has rules on these things for a reason.

  • Vagabond

    Matt tag –

    Being less dirty does not make one clean. Penn State will be remanded, but I doubt this is the last anyone will hear about what happened.

  • JM

    Mgbode makes some good points. I guess more news is leaking out about Penn State that could make that mess even worse.

  • matt tag

    I don’t argue that rules were broken – I’m more interested in studying the integrity of the rulebook. This is especially true now that the NCAA has recently considered giving a stipend to the athlete. So it’s wrong for the athlete to take money unless we’re (the NCAA) the ones giving it out?

    I’ve always found it odd that so much energy is expended enforcing rules that aren’t intrinsically ethically wrong. When juxtaposed with the current happenings at PSU, it seems even more ridiculous.

  • forrealmccoy

    When did Ohio State hire Steve Harvey?

  • jimkanicki

    ^^like button.

  • Pat

    Knowing the NCAA, any bowl or postseason ban wont come until RIGHT AFTER the michigan game (as in that night) if OSU is in line to play in the Big Ten title game. Talk about lack of institutional control, more than likely the punishment has already been decided, but the NCAA is letting the season play out to decide whether or not its a fair punishment

  • Porkchop xpress

    @Matt Tag, and any else who is trying to draw comparisions between Ohio State and Penn State. The NCAA isn’t going to get involved with what happened at “the state next door” because its not their buisness. Supposedly the NCAA exists to maintain competitve balance on the field. The things that happened at Ohio State fit under this jurisdiction the things at Penn State simply do not. As nicely as I can say it is completely ignorant to bring these two incidents up in any sort of comparision. Paterno and Sandusky could have literally raped someone at mid field during halftime of homecoming and it wouldn’t change one bit the fact that Ohio State deserves what they are getting. How stupid does Ohio State have to be to be in the clear pretty much over the Tressel thing, and then allow athletes to work summer jobs for a guy who is on the “NCAA Watch List”

  • Lars

    @Porkchop

    Let me preface this by saying that OSU deserves whatever sanctions they get for violating specific NCAA bylaws.

    Speculation on my part, but I would imagine that the NCAA requires its member institutions be held to certain moral and ethical standards. PSU has actively fostered an environment of crimes against humanity and have embarassed themselves, the state of PA, the BIG, and the NCAA amongst others. I would not be surprised if they face major sanctions, but I wouldn’t expect to hear anything until the legal process plays out either. And honestly given the NCAA, I wouldn’t be shocked if there are no sanctions.

    As a fan of the Big 10 – I personally don’t want to be associated with a school that actively covered up (yea yea allegedly, whatever – read the grand jury report and see if you think allegedly is applicable) these vile acts. I don’t know if Delaney and other schools would ever kick them out, but I would not be sad if they did.

  • Porkchop xpress

    “NCAA Moral Standards” now thats an oxymoron for the ages.
    Lars you may very well be right, I have no mortal idea, I’m speculating as well. I am only assuming that the NCAA will let this one play out in the legal realm, I can’t think of anything that comes close to this so they would be making a precedent setting judgment, hardly something I’d think they want to dive into with the number of other violations they are not resolving. Again, I don’t know.

    If anything I’d the dept of Education, or whoever controls accredidation should be their biggest fear. Failure to report is a pretty big issue and since it seems this includes the pres, ad chief of campus police and possibly god-like football coach, they could be in battle to keep the University open (Its too much of a money maker to close but I bet it gets threatened).
    Not to mention the 100 million dollars worth of lawsuits that I’m sure are already being filed.

    Yeah there’s a chance that the big ten is back to the natural order of things – with eleven teams