And the last time Michigan beat OSU was....

....before I address the topic of this post, let me explain my absence in the blog thus far.  Let's just say I've been staging a holdout.  I had vowed to myself that I would not comment until Ohio State finally discovered some sort of morality, took responsibility for the program and fired Tressel.  I'll comment on this more in The Nut's original post, but let's face it.  THE NCAA HAS CLAIMED YOUR COACH IS A LIAR.  That's bad.  Seriously OSU, lying is not good.  Nonetheless, I've regained my wits and realized that the chances of OSU developing a sense of morality is about as good as MSU demonstrating a culture of high intelligence (for my friends the Greek and the Nut, that chance is zero).

Back to the original theme.  This fall, when Michigan and OSU clash in Ann Arbor and the TV execs at ABC start making that graphic highlighting how long it's been since Michigan beat OSU, will the correct answer become 2010?  In other words, if OSU is forced to vacate the 2010 season how do we view the outcome of the 2010 Michigan OSU game?  OSU no longer can claim victory and I'll be the first to admit that Michigan certainly can't claim victory, so how do we view it?

The fact of the matter is that this whole idea of vacating victories for inelligble players at best just creates very odd situations.  Consider the following:

• Michigan was determined responsible for the fab five and Ed Martin when he was listed as a booster for the final four during their freshman year.  So, the record is stricken from that point on.  So, did the fab five make the tourney, win 4 games and then Michigan basketball ended for 8 years?
• In 1997, another season vacated for Michigan Basketball, Minnesota won the regular season men's basketball championship in Ann Arbor.  Minnesota was later forced to vacate the 1997 championship, including all of the games played.  So if both Michigan and Minnesota removed records of this basketball game in 1997, did it really happen?  For what it's worth, I was at the game.  Is what I witnessed only alive in my memory?
• Since my mom has been referenced in this blog already and she made an interesting point related to this, I'll bring it up here.  If I had flown from Minnesota to Ann Arbor for that 1997 game would Northwest refund my flight since the game never happened?  What about U of M for the ticket I bought?

The point is this: altering past history is not a severe enough penalty for these rule violations.  Sure, you are removing them from the record books but you cannot remove the events from people's memories.  OSU beat Michigan last year, even if they cheated to do it.  If the NCAA wants to send a message that breaking the rules have severe consequences, then they need to penalize OSU harshly.  Destruction of the program like Michigan basketball seems fitting, but at the very least, taking the Greek's suggestion of replacing Tressel with Rich Rod would be a good start.

More comments to come tomorrow as my holdout has officially ended.