B1GTide said:

The board only had one booster willing to take that step, and he didn't want Meyer fired, only suspended for the year. So Drake wasn't alone in the room (I hear that he wanted Meyer fired) in wanting a more harsh punishment. But they represent only 2 votes. The President cannot act alone in these things at OSU. The board decides. The lone vote on the board was not sufficient (and he quit because he felt that the rest were putting football ahead of integrity).

I have come to the same conclusion that most of you have - they decided to ignore what they knew had to be true. They decided to give Meyer the benefit of the doubt, even though they had to stretch credibility to do that. IMO, they did not actively decide to put football first. It happened because their bias did not allow them to see what they were doing. Their bias did not allow them to see what everyone else saw very clearly. It is a human condition. Being rich or intelligent does not protect us from this condition. We see what we want to see, hear what we want to hear. I very much wanted to see Meyer vindicated. It took a mountain of evidence for me to reach my point of view. For some reason, they simply were not able to get there.

The good news - those few still made their point. Meyer knows that there are people in power at OSU who are willing to show him the door. That shocked him. With his ego, I just don't know how he stays.

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I understand. Simon and Garfunkel got it right nearly 50 years ago. "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

We had an exactly parallel situation in the spring of 2003 with the Mike Price fiasco.

Dr. Witt wanted him fired, but the BOT wanted to keep him. And, as with tOSU's governance, the President can't do that alone, in contravention of the BOT's wishes.

The ironic difference for us was that Witt was only a few weeks on the job when the scandal hit. He played it like a master poker player...he stared the BOT down, and essentially said, "Him or me."

The very fact that he was so new on the job actually made his play stronger. Under the circumstances, if Witt had left after only a few weeks in the chair, and Price had stayed, it would have been obvious what had happened. And what a horrible look for the University as a whole.

Thank goodness, even with emotions running incredibly high, the BOT recognized that.

They collectively gulped, then blinked, and Price was fired without ever having coached a game.

With only George Denny as a possible peer, Dr. Witt went on to become one of the two greatest presidents the University of Alabama ever had. He very well might be alone as the greatest.

I say all this not to pat ourselves on the back, but to agree with your point. Our BOT was right there, and would have done exactly the same thing as tOSU's BOT, for exactly the same reasons, if not for an extraordinary leader who just happened to be at the perfect point in his tenure.

Plus, Price was new himself. Unlike Meyer, he didn't have the capital built up, and I don't pretend that firing Mike Price was as hard a decision as firing Urban Meyer would have been.

Sometimes, you just get lucky. It didn't look or feel lucky at the time, but I highly doubt we'd be enjoying our current success if Price had been retained.

4Q Basket Case said:

I understand. Simon and Garfunkel got it right nearly 50 years ago. "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

We had an exactly parallel situation in the spring of 2003 with the Mike Price fiasco.

Dr. Witt wanted him fired, but the BOT wanted to keep him. And, as with tOSU's governance, the President can't do that alone, in contravention of the BOT's wishes.

The ironic difference for us was that Witt was only a few weeks on the job when the scandal hit. He played it like a master poker player...he stared the BOT down, and essentially said, "Him or me."

The very fact that he was so new on the job actually made his play stronger. Under the circumstances, if Witt had left after only a few weeks in the chair, and Price had stayed, it would have been obvious what had happened. And what a horrible look for the University as a whole.

Thank goodness, the BOT recognized that. They collectively gulped, then blinked, and Price was fired without ever having coached a game. With only George Denny as a possible peer, Dr. Witt went on to become one of the two greatest presidents the University of Alabama ever had. He very well might be alone as the greatest.

I say all this not to pat ourselves on the back, but to agree with your point. Our BOT was right there, and would have done exactly the same thing as tOSU's BOT, for exactly the same reasons, if not for an extraordinary leader who just happened to be at the perfect point in his tenure.

Sometimes, you just get lucky.

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If they hadn't, Witt was going to resign. He'd made that clear...