Sports Illustrated investigates.

It’s odd. Tressel has had a long history of breaking the rules. The sports media turned its head, virtually ignoring the fact that he could have had a national championship stripped at Youngstown State if the statute of limitations hadn’t passed and the rest of his pattern of misbehavior. Because Tressel, with his sweater vest and vocal Christian values, has long been regarded as one of college football’s good guys. As SI reveals, that just isn’t the case:

One of Tressel’s duties then was to organize and run the Buckeyes’ summer camp. Most of the young players who attended it would never play college football, but a few were top prospects whom Ohio State was recruiting. At the end of camp, attendees bought tickets to a raffle with prizes such as cleats and a jersey. According to his fellow assistant, Tressel rigged the raffle so that the elite prospects won — a potential violation of NCAA rules. Says the former colleague, who asked not to be identified because he still has ties to the Ohio State community, “In the morning he would read the Bible with another coach. Then, in the afternoon, he would go out and cheat kids who had probably saved up money from mowing lawns to buy those raffle tickets. That’s Jim Tressel.”

When Lane Kiffin committed a handful of secondary violations during his short tenure at Tennessee, the press was all over it. Yet Tressel committed hundreds of secondaries during his time at Ohio State and it was hardly sneezed at in the published media.

But, oh, how the mighty have fallen. The media is very interested in Tressel now, and every time a new story comes out, it’s more bad news for the Buckeyes.

There are already rumors circulating the Internet that the NCAA will slap Ohio State with a four-year bowl ban and a total loss of 50 scholarships. That seems awfully severe, until you consider the Sports Illustrated story.

In fact, with the possible exception of Alabama’s repeated wrongdoings in the late ’90s and early ’00s, this might be the most egregious pattern of NCAA violations since SMU was given the NCAA’s death penalty in the 1980s.

No. 95 Arthur Jeffery
Class: Sophomore
Hometown: Sarasota, Fla.
High School: Booker
Height: 6-3
Weight: 305
Position: Defensive Tackle

Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel has resigned. The resignation comes after a meeting with school officials.

By resigning, he avoids the fate of Bruce Pearl, who was fired at Tennessee. But, like Pearl, Tressel’s departure from his job is against his will.

Even though Tressel and Pearl shouldn’t be compared, since Tressel’s transgressions were far more egregious than Pearl’s, this is the second time this year that one of college sports’ highest-profile and most successful coaches has been forced out by the NCAA.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the pressure the NCAA put on Tennessee set such a precedent that there’s no way Tressel could be allowed to stay on at Ohio State. If you’re going to force a coach out for initially lying about illegal contact with a recruit and then setting the record straight, there’s no way you can overlook a coach who covered up multiple players’ ineligibility and lied about it. But the NCAA should absolutely not be in a position to force schools to fire their coaches. Period. The NCAA as an institution has gotten way too big for its britches.

Urban Meyer to Columbus?

There is no No.

96 on Tennessee’s current roster, so today we take a look at an incoming freshman.

Allan Carson
Hometown: Oxford, Ala.
High School: Oxford High School
Height: 6-2
Weight: 327
Position: Defensive Line

Ratings

• Rivals – 2*
• Scout – 3*
• ESPN – 2*

UTSports.com

No. 97 Malik Jackson
Class: Senior
Hometown: Northridge, Cali.
High School: Birmingham High School
Height: 6-5
Weight: 270
Position: Defensive Tackle

No. 98 Rae Sykes
Class: Senior
Hometown: Alcoa, Tenn.
High School: Alcoa
Height: 6-2
Weight: 275
Position: DL

The Oklahoma twister Tuesday evening:

(CNN) — A 3-year-old lost in the ferocious storm that swept through Oklahoma Tuesday night was found dead Thursday morning, authorities said.

The body of Ryan Hamil was found floating in a lake.

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The search for him in Canadian County and his family’s anguish drew worldwide attention. Ryan’s younger brother, 15-month-old Cole, died in the storm as well. His older sister Cathleen survived, as did his mother, Catherine Hamil, who is pregnant.

The storm system that is now pushing off to the east was not nearly as bad as anticipated for areas of the Midwest down into Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee, though it did spawn some warnings and some minor damage all the way into East Tennessee before finally pushing out of the area last night.

Was this Mother Nature’s last hurrah of the 2011 spring severe weather season? Severe weather can and does happen in the South in June, but for the most part, we’re arriving at the time of year when the storm track shifts further north. In turn, the severe weather threat also shifts northward, leaving the South in a summertime pattern that mostly features garden variety afternoon storms and hot weather. These storms can be more numerous at times than others, but the bottom line is there are really not many large-scale synoptic systems that track through the region.

The GFS weather model shows that over the next couple of weeks.

There will be several chances for those afternoon thunderstorms, but it appears the next large-scale system won’t impact the Southeast until perhaps the second weekend of June. With a ridge in the Pacific flattening out and the North Atlantic Oscillation trending positive, warmer and drier weather should be on the way to the Southeast as we trend to a summer-like pattern. The trend actually began a couple of weeks ago, but Ma Nature couldn’t resist sneaking one last storm system in on us.

It will be interesting to see what the summer brings. Will it be largely dry and hot, a la 2007? Or will it be more like 2009, when there really wasn’t a difference between May and July, with cooler than average temperatures and repeated storm systems that kept us wet? If I were a betting man, I would say that we’re going to see mostly average temperatures with slightly wetter than average conditions this summer. We’ll see…