Ohio State is on probation for NCAA violations stemming from the 2010 tattoo-and-memorabilia scandal. The pay-to-play fiasco that ended up costing Jim Tressel his job, disgraced Terrelle Pryor and led to the suspension of Boom Herron and Devier Posey.
The Buckeyes’ are ineligible for a bowl this college football season. This morning, Ohio State released a statement by Athletic Director Gene Smith denying the possibility of major violations. The statement was in response to The Lantern, THE Ohio State University student newspaper, quoted Smith as saying that he didn’t know how the NCAA would classify 12 pending OSU violations it was in the process of reporting. (Post Dispatch)
Smith’s statement reads:
“Contrary to reports attributed to me, Ohio State Athletics is not facing any major NCAA violations,” Smith said. “There are several secondary violations being processed by our compliance office. These are similar to those released last week. Again, these are secondary in nature and consistent with our culture of self-reporting even the most minor and inadvertent violations.
“Again, to be clear, the Ohio State football program, its coaches and staff are not facing any violations.”
Obviously, being the skeptical sort that we are, we read this as the possibility of future sanctions to come. New coach Urban Meyer has come under tremendous criticism from other Big Ten coaches for his recruiting practices, and where there’s smoke…Clearly, there’s nothing to report yet, but remember when Meyer was at Florida he falsified drug test results in order to make players eligible to play. So Meyer has a history of malfeasance which means don’t be shocked if future infractions occur. Since just about a year ago when Tressel stepped down, the school has committed 58 violations, although most were self-reported and secondary in nature. Not a big deal.
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