By Doug Lesmerises (Cleveland Plain Dealer) -- JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Updates from Ohio State's Gator Bowl preparation in Jacksonville, Fla. * There's some hope for the OSU offense to come together for this game and build off what was a better offensive performance against Michigan in the last regular-season game of the year. Asked if the Buckeyes would put two quarterbacks on the field together at the same time, as they did in the Fiesta Bowl during Terrelle ... Read More

By: Chad Hobbs (Examiner.com) -- To go along with a terrible economy and unemployment rates, fans of Ohio sports pretty much would like to forget 2011. From a sports perspective, with the exception of the Columbus Clippers, there wasn't a whole lot to cheer about. However, when it is all said and done, the majority of Ohio sports fans will see light at the end of the tunnel. It all started at the tail end of 2010 and snowballed ... Read More

By: Bob Fisher (MansfieldNewsJournal.com) -- To say we Michigan fans are enjoying the current problems at Ohio State would be an understatement. Some OSU fans are surprised the Buckeyes got hit with a one-year bowl ban among other sanctions. Michigan fans are surprised it wasn't longer. The University of Southern California received a two-year bowl ban in 2010 because of one football player -- Reggie Bush. Ohio State had multiple players committing violations, plus a coach who knowingly played ineligible players and knowingly ... Read More

From: AP via FoxNews.com -- For players breaking rules and having its coach conceal those infractions, Ohio State ended up with a one-year bowl ban, the loss of nine scholarships over three years and a new coach with two national championship rings. "I feel closure, yes," Ohio State President Gordon Gee said Tuesday night, hours after the NCAA announced it sanctions against Ohio State. "I feel very much closure. I'm disappointed on the one hand but on the other ... Read More

By: Bruce Hooley (FoxSportsOhio.com) -- A former colleague of Jim Tressel once told a story about the disgraced coaching icon before he grew into the sweater-vested poster boy for much of what’s wrong with big-time college football. Seems Tressel repeatedly called the same play from the booth snap after snap until finally questioned about his repetitive strategy by the head coach down on the sideline. “I’ll stop doing it when it stops working,” Tressel supposedly said. Old habits apparently die hard, ... Read More

By: Pat McManamon (FOXSportsOhio.com) -- A wise man once explained that while poverty is an injustice, the NCAA is simply inexplicable. It wasn’t Confucius who said it, but it was Confucian in its simple logic. Because the NCAA makes a habit of baffling, incoherent, near-absurd rulings, and it makes them with all the pomposity of a British know-it-all traipsing through Australia in the penal colony days. It’s even easy to imagine NCAA suits making the decisions with the same Derby ... Read More

By: Matt Brooks (WashingtonPost.com) -- Nearly one year to the day after Ohio State suspended five football players for accepting improper benefits from a local tattoo parlor, the Buckeyes finally found out their fate. The NCAA announced Tuesday that the Buckeyes will face a one-year postseason ban, a reduction in available football scholarships and three years probation. Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith told the Associated Press early Tuesday that the NCAA’s committee on infractions will assess its final sanctions against the ... Read More

From: AP via ESPN.com -- COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio State asked for and received NCAA approval to exceed the limit of football coaches on staff through the Buckeyes' bowl game. The existing staff, under Luke Fickell, will prepare the Buckeyes on the field in the days leading up to and including their Gator Bowl game against Florida on Jan. 2. Then there is incoming coach Urban Meyer, who will handle only recruiting while hiring his own ... Read More

From NJ.com -- COLUMBUS, Ohio — National education groups and the U.S. Department of Education are siding with Ohio State University in a lawsuit alleging the school violated state public records law by denying requests for items related to an NCAA investigation. ESPN is asking the Ohio Supreme Court to order the release of records related to the forced resignation of football coach Jim Tressel and star quarterback Terrelle Pryor. The records sought include correspondence referring to Ted Sarniak, ... Read More

By: Randy Chambers (BleacheReport.com) -- Now that the Urban Meyer to Ohio State rumors have died down because they have been confirmed, we can look toward the football side of things and see just how quickly he can turn this program around. There's no question he will succeed at this prestigious program, because he was able to succeed everywhere he's been—even at Bowling Green, who's been terrible ever since Meyer has left the Falcons. He's a proven winner, and ... Read More