The last time the top job at Michigan’s football program came open, it was widely considered one of the best in the business. Three years later, any coach with a pulse seemed to be on the Wolverines’ short list.
Few things demonstrate the dizzying, desperate, downward spiral the college game is locked in better than that. A season that began with agents running amok and decades-long conference ties being severed in pursuit of a quick buck came to an unsatisfying end with fewer viewers watching the bowls while harboring plenty of unanswered questions.
Auburn, the national champion, could wind up abdicating the throne by the time the NCAA enforcement staff wraps up its months-long investigation into the eligibility of Tigers star Cam Newton. Loyalty is in such short supply that he’ll likely be auditioning for the NFL before it’s completed, along with one or more of Ohio State’s so-called “Tat 5,” who like Newton wriggled through a loophole and found themselves suiting up for the postseason.
Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel, one of the longer-serving, genuinely good guys still working the sidelines these days, could have made a statement by sitting down the five players for the Sugar Bowl against Arkansas; the NCAA announced the suspensions in December, yet deferred punishment until the first five games of next season.
But he chose not to. Like his brothers in the coaching fraternity, Tressel knows his exalted status in Columbus hinges on competing for national and Big Ten titles each season. Or at the very least, beating his archrival with some regularity, which just happens to be Michigan.