So, let me get this straight.

Ohio State University throws its most successful football coach since Woody Hayes under the bus because he knew about compensation being paid to Ohio State football players, whose talents the institution exploited for enormous profit.

Meanwhile, numerous commentators castigate Ohio State and its coach for being cheaters when, in reality, virtually every big-time college football program engages in similar violations of the NCAA’s dubious regulation of compensation to players who create enormous value for NCAA member institutions. Some institutions are simply better at hiding their violations than others.

I don’t know Coach Tressel, but I’d be willing to bet that he is a good man who simply responded to the perverse incentives of a corrupt system.

Big-time college football is an entertaining form of corruption (see also here). But the corruption is the NCAA’s regulatory scheme, and throwing decent men such as Coach Tressel to the wolves will not change that.

South Park’s analysis is spot on: