This is part of a series looking at crucial moments, games, and decisions in Ohio State football history, and how things may have played out if they had gone a different way.
As far as disastrous, unnecessary bureaucratic snafus go, this one is up there.
Ohio State found itself in the NCAA’s crosshairs in 2011 after it was revealed that several high-profile Buckeyes had traded their football memorabilia for services at a Columbus tattoo parlor.
There is a whole separate conversation to have about whether they should have been able to profit from their likenesses and fame. We won’t re-litigate that here.
This is about the university’s response.
What Happened
“Tatgate” ultimately revealed the NCAA at its most cynical. But the OSU administration didn’t exactly cover itself in glory, either.
The allegations against Terrelle Pryor, Dan Herron, Devier Posey, Mike Adams, Jordan Whiting, and Solomon Thomas came out before the Buckeyes were set to play Arkansas in the 2011 Sugar Bowl.
The NCAA, not wanting to hurt the TV ratings for a BCS bowl game, allowed the players to play in the win over Arkansas and instead announced before the game that the players would be suspended for the first five games of the 2011 season instead.
Nothing is more important than the purity of amateurism. Except of course for the ratings that would drive what turned out to be a $5.64 billion TV contract for the College Football Playoff a few years later.
In March came the revelation that head coach Jim Tressel had received and acknowledged an email in spring 2010 informing him about the potential NCAA violations from his official university email account. There was no official follow-up on the tip, so this was a big issue.
Because Tressel signed an official NCAA document in mid-2010 stating that he was not aware of any potential infractions, he landed in big trouble. He ultimately stepped down as OSU coach on Memorial Day 2011. That December, he was given a five-year show-cause and the Buckeyes were put on probation and stripped of some scholarships. The 2010 season, including that Sugar Bowl win, were vacated. The TV ratings were not.
But the biggest blow was a one-year bowl ban handed down by the NCAA for the 2012 season. This came just weeks after Urban Meyer was hired and the Buckeyes were already rolling again on the recruiting trail.
OSU leadership was gobsmacked. They had made the decision not to self-impose a bowl ban for the utterly lost season of 2011. That year’s team finished the regular season 6-6 and made a meaningless trip to Jacksonville for a meaningless loss to a similarly lost Florida team.
That’s because OSU’s leaders, including President Gordon Gee and Athletic Director Gene Smith, had been certain that no bowl ban was coming.
Gee later told The Lantern, “First of all, the NCAA — if we would have given up five bowl games, they would have imposed the sixth on us because they were going to impose a bowl ban. This was Ohio State. This was (the NCAA’s) moment in time, and they were going to impose a bowl ban no matter what we did.”
In the crowded race for the most-embarrassing thing Gee ever said as OSU’s president, this probably places somewhere in the top-3.
It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t Smith’s fault. The NCAA was out to get them and there was nothing they could have done. No mistakes were made. Just a horrible miscarriage of justice.
The decision to play a 2011 bowl game provided a free trip to most of the players at the center of the controversy.
And the decision only looked worse the next year when Meyer’s first team went 12-0, yet had to sit at home and watch the Big Ten Championship Game and BCS National Championship Game on TV.
Wisconsin, which goes to Indianapolis in OSU’s place, destroys a defenseless Nebraska team, 70-31.
Notre Dame, rocked by the Manti Te’o revelations, puts up basically no fight against Alabama in the national championship game.
What Could Have Happened
By the summer of 2011, it was clear that the fallout from Tatgate would be significant.
Tressel was gone. Pryor declared himself eligible for the NFL’s Supplemental Draft.
The Buckeyes had a young, unproven interim coach in Luke Fickell and a group of totally unproven quarterbacks in Joe Bauserman and true freshman Braxton Miller. Their starting running back, starting left tackle, and star wide receiver would all miss nearly half of the season.
You didn’t have to read the tea leaves very closely to figure out that the 2011 Buckeyes were probably not destined for greatness.
Given the relatively insignificant downside, the OSU leadership team chooses to show contrition and self-imposes a bowl ban for the 2011 season. It’s another black day in a year filled with them in Columbus.
The team, with nothing to play for, craters to a 5-7 record.
The NCAA issues its show-cause to Tressel and vacates the Buckeyes’ 2010 season.
Two days after a season-ending loss to Michigan, they hire Urban Meyer.
The 2012 season plays out more or less as you remember. The Buckeyes finish the regular season 12-0, champions of the (shudder) Big Ten Leaders Division.
They head to Indianapolis to face Bo Pelini and 10-2 Nebraska.
Miller and Carlos Hyde run absolutely wild on the Cornhuskers, cruising to a 63-24 win. The Buckeyes are 13-0 and the 2012 Big Ten Champions.
Ohio State and Notre Dame are the only undefeated teams in the nation, setting up their matchup in the BCS National Championship Game.
Alabama coach Nick Saban angrily protests that his 12-1 Crimson Tide should get in, but no one takes him seriously.
In the weeks before the game, bizarre revelations come out about Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o and his girlfriend. The story quickly becomes a major distraction for the Irish, who completely fall apart.
It isn’t the most talented team of the Urban Meyer era, but there is more than enough firepower to beat the rattled Irish, 31-20. In his first season, Meyer has brought a national championship to Columbus.
The Ripples
Nick Saban and Alabama go to the Sugar Bowl, and much like 2009 against Utah, they struggle through a listless loss to Louisville. The following year, they lose again to Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl.
When Meyer and the Buckeyes beat the Tide again in the Sugar Bowl in the 2014 College Football Playoff semifinals, the narrative is clear: Saban can’t win the big one any more.
The Buckeyes win again in 2014, and with two national titles in three seasons under their belt, they get the benefit of the doubt and make it into the 2015 Playoff field as well. When Meyer’s team wins that one as well, it’s clear: the Buckeyes are the team of the decade.
What If …
Ohio State had hired Glen Mason instead of Jim Tressel?
It’s a bad decision in hindsight, and very highly unlikely they would have been given a second year bowl ban. At the time the decision had to be made osu was 6-3. They likely thought that the punishment exceeded the crime, and to that point, no one had been given a bowl ban for similar violations. But they underestimated the lesson the ncaa boss wanted to send to the holier than thou, buckeyes and jim tressel.
I agree with Gee in that if OSU self-imposed a 1 year ban, the NCAA would have given them a second. I disagree that if we self-imposed a 5 year ban that we would have received another year. The part that intrigues me about this is our fans. I’ve never spoken to a single Buckeye fan who believes we deserved the punishment we got. Guess what? Neither does Gene Smith, and he didnt believe we were going to get it before it was handed down either.
The question I have to people who think the NCAA would have handed down a ban if OSU imposed their own is where was the second-year ban? There wasn’t one. The NCAA was fine with a one-year ban because that’s the one they imposed themselves.
that was an absolutely HORRIBLE decision on Gene Smith’s part to allow that team to go to a bowl game, end up with losing record, and of course couldn’t go the next season for a chance at the national title, I will never understand that decision.
This was the million dollar question and one of the many reasons why I can’t stand Gene Smith. Whenever it came to making the right decision, he did the opposite.