Category: College Football (Page 41 of 296)

Should Pryor apply for the NFL supplemental draft?

May 31, 2011 / Anthony Stalter

With the future of Terrelle Pryor’s career at Ohio State in doubt, there’s speculation that he could apply for the NFL supplemental draft this year.

On Tuesday, an NFL official told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that the supplemental draft would be held sometime in July – as long as there are applicants, that is.

“So far, there have been no applicants,” a league official told ESPN. “If there is one, the supplemental draft would be held mid-to-late July, no later than 10 days before the first training camp opens.”

A total of 45 players have been selected in the NFL supplemental draft since its inception in 1977. The supplemental draft is intended for players who missed the filing deadline for the annual NFL draft or had issues that affected their college eligibility. (You know, like if some player swapped championship memorabilia for tattoos or were given the opportunity to ride around in cars they never paid for.)

In order to be eligible for the supplemental draft, players have to be out of high school for at least three years. That’s obviously not a problem for Pryor, who is heading into his senior season at Ohio State. Teams then submit picks to the league and if their bid is the highest, they receive the player but lose the corresponding draft pick the following year. So in other words, if the Dolphins took Pryor in the third round this year, they’d forfeit their third round pick in the 2012 NFL Draft.

Seeing as how Ohio State and the NCAA are investigating whether or not Pryor received cars and extra benefits during his playing days as a Buckeye, now might be the time for him to jet off to the NFL. There’s no guarantee of course that he’ll be taken in the supplemental draft, but he may wind up being suspended for the entire 2011 college season. If that happens, he’ll have to wait an entire year to see if some team will take a flier on him in the 2012 NFL Draft, which seems highly unlikely.

If Pryor did apply for the supplemental draft, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing for Ohio State. He has already been suspended for the first five games of the season and with Jim Tressel resigning on Monday, the program doesn’t need this Pryor investigation hanging over its head all year. Granted, just because he’s gone doesn’t mean the university or the NCAA will halt their investigation, but at least from a media standpoint, Pryor wouldn’t be around.

Ohio State has enough on its plate then to worry about the constant stream of questions from the media regarding Pryor’s eligibility in 2011.

College Football, External Sports

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Ohio State, NCAA to investigate Terrelle Pryor

May 31, 2011 / Anthony Stalter

According to 10 TV News in Ohio, the NCAA and Ohio State University have opened a separate investigation into quarterback Terrelle Pryor and whether he received cars and extra benefits as a Buckeye. This news comes on the heels of head coach Jim Tressel’s resignation on Monday.

Records obtained by 10 Investigates showed that Pryor owns a 2006 Dodge Charger. However, video taken by 10 Investigates showed Pryor entering a 2009 Dodge Challenger with dealer license plates, 10 Investigates’ Paul Aker reported.
The 2009 vehicle was tracked to Auto Direct, located at 2300 E. Dublin-Granville Rd.
NCAA rules prohibit players from getting free access to cars because of their status as players.
10 Investigates spotted Pryor in the performance car from late March through mid-April at his home, around Columbus and at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, where the football team practices.
Traffic tickets showed that Pryor was pulled over at least three times in the past several years, driving cars that belonged to dealerships, Aker reported.

One of the vehicles was a GMC Denali that belonged to car salesman Aaron Kniffin. In the past, Kniffin and Pryor denied any wrongdoing involving the vehicle. Kniffin recently told 10 Investigates that he gave Pryor the Denali because he wanted to trade his Hyundai and planned to take the Denali to Pennsylvania to show his mother.

The story goes on from there but you get the point: Pryor is in deep trouble here. His career as a Buckeye is certainly in doubt and while we can only speculate what the fallout will be from this NCAA investigation, there’s reason to believe that Pryor has taken his last snap at OSU.

It seems pretty clear from these reports that Pryor was receiving more than just free tattoos. I’m sure it’s like this for other major college programs across the nation, but that doesn’t matter. Ohio State has gotten caught and they’re the ones in the spotlight right now. You get the feeling that things are only going to get worse for the Buckeyes before they get better.

College Football, External Sports

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Jim Tressel resigns from Ohio State

May 30, 2011 / Gerardo Orlando

Jim Tressel has resigned as the head football coach at Ohio State. Tressel had a hell of a run as during his time with the Buckeyes, but the recent scandal involving players trading memorabilia for tattoos and cash became too much for him to keep his job. Luke Fickell will serve as interim head coach during the 2011 season.

Tressel finishes with a 106-22 record at Ohio State (66-14 in the Big Ten). He won a national championship in 2002, seven Big Ten championships, including the past six, and a 9-1 record against Michigan.

Ohio State also has more BCS wins than any other program, so Tressel leaves as one of the elite coaches in college football.

Yet with all of his accomplishments, Tressel couldn’t overcome his terrible decision to not disclose information he received about his star players and OSU memorabilia. The violations seems trivial in one sense, yet Tressel was looking at a season where his team would be battling for a National Championship, and keeping this a secret certainly helped his team’s chances. When the scandal broke after the regular season, Tressel still failed to disclose what he knew about the matter, probably hoping the emails would stay buried. Once these came to light, it was only a matter of time.

There may be even more issues as Ohio State is still investigated car sales, but letting Tressel go probably helps the university dodge some of the tougher sanctions. In the end, the university is more important than any one player or coach. Given that Tressel preached this for years, it’s somewhat surprising that it took him so long to apply the standard to himself.

College Football, External Sports

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Ray Small backs off comments, says reported twisted his words

May 29, 2011 / Anthony Stalter

After receiving a ton of backlash from Ohio State players and fans for his recent attention-seeking comments to The Lantern (OSU’s school newspaper), former Buckeye Ray Small is now backing off his words. In fact, he has even gone as far as to blame the reporter for twisting his words.

From ESPN.com:

“I’ve come back to retract my words, because there’s two sides to every story, and I want to tell the world my side of the story,” Small said in an interview Friday with Outside the Lines’ Tom Farrey.
The newspaper, The Lantern, said it stands by its story and everything Small said is on tape. On Friday, Small said he sold his own memorabilia, but he never said everyone was doing it.

Small goes on to say that the reason he sold the memorabilia was because he needed to pay his rent.

Small said he earned up to $2,000 from selling two of his Big Ten Championship rings while he was playing for the Buckeyes, acts that he knew at the time were in violation of NCAA rules.
He just didn’t care — or feel he had a choice. He needed the cash to make ends meet, he said.
“It was either break the rule or get evicted,” Small told Outside the Lines on Friday. “That was the best thing I could do. It was the smartest plan I came up with to pay my rent.”
Small, whose senior season with the Buckeyes was in 2009, said he sold the rings midway through his Buckeye career because his regular scholarship check for room and board didn’t cover his year-round costs of living in Columbus. He also felt compelled to unload them because he lacked the funds to afford a car he was driving at the time, a 2007 Chrysler 300 that carried a $600 monthly payment.
“Being young, I wasn’t good with my money,” he said. “I made a bad decision on a car and I had to pay it.”

No, you weren’t.

It sounds like Small was faced with simple money management and failed to grasp that you can’t exceed your budget. I’m not going to feel bad for him for having to sell his rings to pay the rent. The only reason he was faced with, “be evicted or pay the rent,” was because he made poor choices with his money. And then he compounded the issue by selling his rings and violating NCAA rules.

Quite frankly, I think the only reason why he’s backing off of his earlier comments (or at least part of them) is because his OSU buddies are ticked off and have responded with some unkind words for dear ol’ Ray.

“I am a Buckeye at heart,” he said.
“I never heard another player say he sold his ring,” Small said.
“Show me a coward and I will show you Ray Small,” center Mike Brewster tweeted. “He isn’t part of the sacred brotherhood anymore. Never on time, never accountable, never sacrificed for the team. Can you trust his word?”

It doesn’t appear we can, no. And actually, I don’t know anyone who can be trusted from the Ohio State football program these days.

College Football, External Sports

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More trouble for the Ohio State football program

May 27, 2011 / Anthony Stalter

Former Ohio State receiver Ray Small says that he sold rings for cash during his playing days as a Buckeye from 2006 to 2010 and also accepted car discounts during that time as well. Not only that, but Small also confirmed that other players accepted similar deals.

In an article on Friday, Doug Lesmerises of the Cleveland Plain Dealer discussed how Small’s admissions could be a big problem for Jim Tressel and the OSU football program.

Where Small’s words matter most is in the scope of the potential violations. When Ohio State announced the player violations and suspensions in December, OSU Athletic Director Gene Smith said: “We’re very fortunate we don’t have a systemic problem. It’s isolated to these young men in this particular instance.”
Bigger problems became known in March, when it was announced that Tressel had committed major NCAA violations by not revealing his previous knowledge about his players’ actions. The cases of the players have been closed, but more players selling merchandise than initially reported could create more serious violations for Ohio State and Tressel. Most troubling for Ohio State is Small’s claim that “everybody was doing it,” and those words in particular set off a firestorm of anger from former Buckeyes who resented and refuted any notion that accepting extra benefits was typical.
“What he said may have been true for him,” said former OSU cornerback Malcolm Jenkins, who played with Small, “but making it seem like it was a culture at Ohio State, that wasn’t the case. This wasn’t the norm.”

Brooks Melchior of SPORTSbyBROOKS.com has a very extensive look at how Small’s confession confirms that Gene Smith had lied to the media about Ohio State’s growing problem. You can read the piece here.

One of the many questions I have is what are Small’s motives for coming forth with this news? Does he want to help blow the lid off the story? Is he seeking attention? Is he sore at Tressel or Ohio State because of how his tenure played out as a Buckeye? Why come out unless you have a reason for doing so? And to the school paper no less.

Of course the bigger question is, and Doug Lesmerises touched on it in his article, is whether or not Ohio State has a major issue on its hands or if these are just several isolated incidents coming to surface. No matter how you slice it, none of this looks good on the program. But it’ll make a difference if the university can isolate the issue the best it can. If it can’t and the problem is widespread, then obviously OSU is in it deep.

College Football, External Sports

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Category: College Football (Page 41 of 296)

Should Pryor apply for the NFL supplemental draft?

Ohio State, NCAA to investigate Terrelle Pryor

Jim Tressel resigns from Ohio State

Ray Small backs off comments, says reported twisted his words

More trouble for the Ohio State football program

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