Purdue Leadership Addresses Rule-Breaking

November 29, 2 Boiled Sports

"People that cheat think about it. People that don't, don't." -- Matt Painter

For your Friday reading pleasure, take a look at this interesting article wherein Morgan Burke, Matt Painter and Danny Hope all discuss the topic of cheating in college sports. Yes, I know it's very hard to know what all of your players are doing, Tressel apologists. We'll give you that.

However, once you become aware of something, that's when you take action.

I know there is "fallout" and the Buckeyes will be punished by the NCAA (though how hard the NCAA will "punish" one of their cash cows remains to be seen). But it doesn't change the fact that they have dominated recently and been the face of the conference. And no, improper benefits and rules violations did not make them win more games. These guys weren't -- to our knowledge -- juicing or anything like that. So the short-sighted among us may say, well, whatever, they still won it on the field/court.

However, when you become well known as a school that will "play ball,' then the scales tip in your favor on a more grand scale. When you're the SEC school of the Big Ten, guys know that and know that the rules will not apply to them there. And not only that, since the rest of the conference isn't the SEC, well, hell! Winning will be even easier when the other schools are sticking to the rules and suspending guys for even minor team rules violations.

As more and more of the OSU mess has unraveled, the more irritated longtime Purdue backers have become. Witness this rant from B-Dowd's brother the other day:

It's impossible to compete against this. These stories explain why Purdue can only beat the OSUs of the world once every six years--and make what Purdue (and other schools that play by the rules) have accomplished--in years like 1977-1980, 1984, 1997-2000, 2003-2004--truly impressive.

I'm not kidding when I say this: if I were Purdue's president I would formally propose the expulsion of Ohio State from the Big Ten--or at least the suspension of its football program for four years. Another option would be to take away all of Ohio State's conference home games. This is the only kind of punishment that will force the necessary transformation of the entire Ohio State culture. This problem is plainly not limited to Tressel and Pryor. It is systemic, and it's unworthy of the Big Ten. At the very least, it's unworthy of Purdue.

If the Big Ten presidents didn't go for this--and I bet at least half of them would support it--I would notify the conference that Purdue will no longer play at Ohio Stadium. That probably wouldn't mean much to OSU--given that there's not much of a rivalry there--but at least Purdue wouldn't be directly contributing to the disease.

Obviously, none of those strict punishments will ever happen -- nothing even close. However, he's right about a couple of things. One, the problem is systemic and not exclusive to a couple of "bad apples." And two, short of something drastic, the culture will not change in Columbus.