That will show them!
Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel apparently consulted The First Grader’s Guide to Playground Etiquette when he made the six players suspended for five games next season pinkie-swear that they will return to the Buckeyes if they are allowed to play next week in the Sugar Bowl.
Yeah, that will teach the players.
In addition Tressel won’t bench any of the players or punish the players in any way for the Sugar Bowl.
“We told them they would have to make the decision on the NFL prior to leaving for the bowl game,” Tressel said at his first Sugar Bowl news conference. “It wouldn’t be fair to not face the consequences down the road.”
How will Tressel enforce the promise if any of the players decide to leave? That’s right, he can’t.
It was silly enough that the NCAA penalized the players in the first place; the items they sold belonged to them, they should be able to do what they want. But Tressel’s comments made him sound as clueless as Joe Paterno.
“A number of people reached out as we’ve been dealing with this thing maybe to calm my thinking or whatever, and one thing said was, ‘Keep in mind, Coach, you’re dealing with a different generation,” Tressel said. “Back when you were growing up one guy got a trophy, maybe, and now you’re dealing with a generation that if you were on the team and you were 7 years old, everyone got a trophy. Maybe this generation doesn’t understand the value of awards like we did,’ “
Sorry to break it to you coach, but players don’t go out to the Malt Shop with their high school sweethearts after the game anymore.
If Tressel was serious about wanting to punish the players, he would suspend them for the game. But that would just increase the odds of the Buckeyes being embarrassed again by an SEC team, so you know he never even considered that.
Suspensions aren’t realistic, we get that. There’s too much money involved for that. But for a school and a coach that thinks they are better than everyone else, and for the apologists who believe Tressel can do no wrong just because he beats Michigan, this just shows that OSU is like everyone else in big-time college football.
We’re just surprised OSU president Gordon Gee didn’t find a way to blame all this on Boise State.
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Is Mike Holmgren ready to coach the Browns? Doubtful.
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Are the Steelers worried about Sunday’s game with the Browns? Certainly.
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Red Right 88 