Don’t lay all blame on Tressel

Don’t lay all blame on Tressel

Steubenville Herald Star: Jim Tressel isn’t the problem with major college football, especially at Ohio State. He’s merely a symptom, a tip of the iceberg.

Tressel’s resignation came as a way to stanch the bleeding for the Buckeyes football program, where the transgressions have been laid bare.

The coach was unable to dance through the raindrops anymore amid the mounting charges in the Buckeye tattoos-for-memorabilia scandal. Tressel did the wrong thing in April 2010 by not telling the university of an e-mail from a former player tipping him off to the trading of memorabilia for tattoos at a Columbus tattoo parlor.

He signed off

He put his name to the issue by signing off on the usually routine affidavit to the NCAA at the beginning of the football season proclaiming that the Buckeyes football program had no knowledge of violations of NCAA rules.

It’s not a Jim Tressel problem. It’s not just an OSU problem, either, but to begin fixing what’s wrong with big money influencing college football will require OSU to admit it has a problem.

Athletic Director Gene Smith and President E. Gordon Gee have as much Scarlet and Gray on their hands in this as Tressel.

They are, after all, the guys in charge.