The recent news of Jim Tressel and Terrell Pryor has really got me thinking, who is to blame for all of this? For those of you who don't know what happened, Jim Tressel has stepped down as the Ohio State head football coach and Pryor has decided not to play at Ohio State for his senior season due to some off field issues in which Pryor got some "extra benefits" from some tattoo parlors and other places. Tressel decided to step down as the investigation was still going on about what he knew and didn't know and what he covered up and lied about which leads me to believe that he was pretty up to speed with what was going on, but what could he have really done?

There is about 100 student athletes that are either on the roster or working out and on the practice squad and stuff like that for a big name school like Ohio State. What is Coach Tressel supposed to do? He can't possibly hire a big enough staff to keep tabs on every single one of these players and know what they are doing and who they are dealing with. If a player is need of money and wants to sell some memorabilia, how is Jim Tressel or his staff suppose to stop him or know that he did it? Is he suppose to take inventory every day from every player on all the memorabilia that they all have? It is virtually impossible for Tressel to keep track of that kind of stuff and I think that part is unfair for Tressel to have to take the heat on. 

Where I think Tressel went wrong was once he found out what was going on, he tried to hide it or cover it up instead of just coming clean and telling what he knew. Listen, I am a former D2 college football player and I know that Tressel is a very loyal guy and I respect that now because I know I would love to play for a coach like that, however once the NCAA is on to you and breathing down your neck, you have to think about all the hard work and effort you put into making Ohio State the powerhouse that it is and maybe a couple of players have to take the fall instead of you. I have never really like Jim Tressl and I don't know why. Maybe it is because he is a winner, maybe it's the sweater vest, I really don't know, but now that I have seen this kind of loyalty and commitment, even though it was stupid, I did gain a lot of respect for this guy.

So in the end, who is to blame? The answer to me is pretty simple, the athletes. Maybe its a stupid answer and you guys will disagree but players like Terrell Pryor have to be smarter, or more sly about what they are getting for free and taking.  I am sure it does happen everywhere and everyone is doing it, but you can't be flashing it around and abusing it like Pryor was doing with his new cars and pretending like this was a joke. In the end, the joke is on him because his head coach stuck his head out for him and he blew a chance at the NFL if you ask me. The players need to smarten up and stop doing stuff like this or the NCAA needs to come up with some sort of payment plan to get these kids on so they can stop doing stuff like this before this really gets even more out of hand than it is right now.