Eleven Warriors

I'm surprisingly not that upset...I feel like we've greatly over achieved this year and really aren't one of the top several teams in the nation. Yes, I'd love the chance to see for sure or prove that we are as good as those top 10 teams, but we're paying our dues with a chance to be undefeated and swoon some recruits. I feel way better than I thought I would. Great season during a year when it easily could have gone the other way if not for Urban bringing his dominant and winning personality to tOSU. Go Bucks!

Bdude1001, please post on your own thread so that you can be down voted into oblivion. This will make the next person that wants to rehash a subject that everyone is tired of, think twice before they go there.

Theres always next year and the year after that and so on.

I beleive the ncaa was going to make an example and add a bowl ban for OSU reguardless what punishment they delt themself.

Upvote to Bolt. Seeing a bunch of young men go out onto that turf every week and play their hearts out, not for a trophy, but for honor, respect, and redemption. That is what competition is all about and no other team represents that like this OSU squad. I'm really proud of these guys.

Upvote to AngryWoody and Bolt.  Well said.  It really is something that they're so motivated and hungry.  It would be really easy in a tough game, when you're tired and banged up, to on some level give up.  This staff, and likely Urban in particular, has exceeded expectations in the motivational department, at least in my book. 

I too am really proud of this team.  Very special group of guys.  Senior day is a BIG deal this Saturday.  There will be beers and tears for this guy.  (No really, I do start to well up a bit when I think of guys like Simon...)

I don't feel sorry at all. We were going to get this bowl ban whether we self imposed last year or not. Giving ourselves a bowl ban last year would have been the equivilent of a child punishing himself with no ice cream even though his parent's weren't going to give him ice cream in the first place.

Crappy analogy but I hope my point gets across.

Think about this.  The NCAA gave us one year of bowl ban.  That's all they thought we deserved.  So if we imposed a bowl ban on ourselves last year, why would they impose a 2nd year?  Isn't the idea of self-imposing sanctions to show the NCAA how seriously you're taking your transgressions?  Why would you essentially get punished if you did what would be considered a good thing?  Wouldn't they just have banned us for 2 years if they thought that's what we deserved?  Something about the logic doesn't quite add up for me.  Then again, with the NCAA, the logic doesn't have to add up.  I do believe that the NCAA, on some level, wanted to make a statement and felt pressure to. 

We can't know for sure.  Since a bowl ban without an LOIC was unprecedented, I can see why nobody thought we'd get a bowl ban, and thus not impose one on ourselves.  It's all moot and stuff, I know.  The NCAA is unpredictable, and what wouldn't make sense to me may be something that they'd do anyway.  I'm at peace with the bowl ban and how everything turned out.  It's just something I've been thinking about.  I hate what ifs but boy do I sure think about them a lot.

I believe that horse is long dead, removed to the processing plant and is way beyond piecing back together. I am willing to bet my dog digested some of it. Why bring it up now?

I don't comment on here too often but I have to say something about this.  IMHO the Senior class is nothing but a class act and has already left a legacy to build upon. The Juniors, Sophomores, and the Freshmen will remember the games, the hard fought battles, and the look on the Seniors faces coming off the field when "nothing to play for" was being whispered in their ears by the Doomsayer.  I will remember these and not the "what if" scenarios we all can come up with. Just let it die and fade away because the more you feed the Doomsayer the more it hangs around like a stray hungry dog.

The LOIC defense isn't very valid, considering we were repeat offenders as an athletic program (whether you count T. Smith and Clarett or not, Jim O'Brien was just 6-7 years prior).  So to stick, like Gene Smith did, to this hard line LOIC is the only way to get a bowl ban is naive.  You had to be an idiot, like Gene Smith, to not see it coming as a repeat offender AND all of the "fake jobs/hours" AS THE INVESTIGATION WAS ONGOING.  Of course, the NCAA waited until after the bowl game was announced to make its decision, and if you're a conspiracy-theorist you would say they knew all along they were just waiting to see what OSU would do in terms of self-imposing.  The "self-imposed" scholarships of 3 a year were a joke.  Just kicking Tressel out and thinking all would be solved was stupid.  As soon as the story broke on the guys taking money at a fake job I would have said no bowl game.  I'm sorry to the seniors last year who played by the rules, but the rest of your classmates royally screwed up.  The defense last year was "These seniors deserve to go to a bowl."  Ok Geno, what about this year's seniors who didn't do a damn thing that led to this mess?  Bowl ban last year.  The unprecedented move by the NCAA would have been to hit us again this year, that's when we could have cried foul.  But imposing a ban last year would have be prevented those responsible (who were still left) from a bowl, as it should have been.

I don't feel sorry..it is what it is. 

Notre Dame isn't overrated one bit..they blew out half the teams on their schedule including Oklahoma in Norman. Beat a good Stanford team with the best run defense in the country. Held scum to 2 field goals and blew out Sparty. Made a QB who threw for 500 plus yards a week or two prior in Stephen Morris look like Joe Bauserman. They give up 1 td a game! That's not easy to do even if at the H.S. level.

i think they deserve to be right where they are at. 

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8654095/ohio-state-buckey...

Just in case you cared what Gene Smith had to say.  Or that, from the sounds of it (according to Boren), the players were all but assured there would be no bowl ban.  Great job, Gene.