Jacobs4Heisman wrote:To be honest, RF -- even though you said very explicitly that you think Toledo should be punished harshly should the facts come out like most of us think they will, the general tone of a lot of your posts sound like "Yeah, Toledo's in trouble, but look how many other people are doing it too!".
There's a strange dichotomy to what you've been posting. With one breath you;re very harsh towards UT, and with the next, it sounds like you're defending them because "everyone else is doing it too". The defensive attitude, real or imagined, is what some are reacting to.
I think I'd probably be going through a lot of the same internal conflict you are if BG were in this situation.
I see what you are saying, but that is not my intent. The reason I have said that it appears to be happening often out there is because it really is, and that is also why I feel that any player and the University should be punished more severely. Maybe doing that will help to deter some kids from doing the same thing that may have already done it or thought about doing it and so forth.
I'm sorry if anyone is taking my tone that way, but it is awfully hard to get a feel for somebody's tone from a post on a message board. It's probably more of a grouping me as a UT fan then actually reading a tone off of my post. We should all be reminded here that they student-athletes are our future and this is about helping them and influencing them to do the right thing. It should not be about Toledo, Bowling Green, who's a better school and who's better at football, or anything like that.
In one of my interviews with Clint Cochran last year he told me something that really sums up what it is all about. He was talking about how important academics are and he said "after all that is why we are all here."
Unfortunately some don't feel that way and are only "here" as a way to try to get to the NFL, but Clint is right. Academics is the reason that those student-athletes are here. They are here to get a college degree and position themselves for their future. I don't care which University it is at and I don't care if they are the star football player or the 4th string bench warmer. And if helping these kids stay on the right path means the NCAA comes down hard to make an example, which I believe is needed, then that is what we should do.
I think rocket football and H2ORocket are just great fans of their school and program. And I don't see how this includes BGSU. This is UT's problem as well as the MAC office and NCAA. Unless BG players were in on anything related, it ain't our problem. As long as we make sure we're doing everything humanly possible to stay clean, we'll be fine. We have enough to watch and worry about with ourselves, let alone another school's program.
