Writerbuckeye;860260 wrote:Interesting fact:
USC's hearing with the NCAA went 3 days.
OSU's hearing lasted 3.5 hours.
UM's hearing was 7 hours.
Boise State's was 13 hours.
Tennessee's lasted 11 hours.
I think there's a lot to this. Most of those schools were seemingly trying to argue a case and limit the amount of damage the committee would impose. Coming into this hearing, it was pretty cut-and-dry - there was really only one issue and that was Tressel's lie(s). There wasn't really anyone else to explore or any actions that needed clarified. OSU stumbled through the handling of its self-imposed punishments initially, but their ahead-of-the-curve approach was absolutely the best move.
It seems they went into this meeting equipped with two things that are likely uncommon in these things. They could say, "yes, we did all of this," and "look at all these extremes to which we've gone to address it." I've thought since they announced it that the vacating of wins was a genius move because the NCAA views that as a major punishment, but it keeps the penalties in the past with little impact on the future. Obviously, losing Tressel is the worst thing that could've happened, so taking that step proactively kind of leaves the NCAA without any powerful statement to make, even if they wanted to. I mean, is taking away a couple scholarships really going to show OSU they better not mess with the NCAA again?
Note that LSU was recently commended for its compliance and cooperation and the NCAA actually reduced some of their self-imposed penalties while doing little else. The only real debate for OSU fans is going to be, did they have to fire Tressel - is that what enabled the NCAA to go light or could they have achieved the same thing by suspending him for a year or something (someone has mentioned that alternative before)?
