Ohio State is on the Mount Rushmore of college football programs. It had always been that good, and showed no signs of letting up, with the Jim Tressel era being a new golden age in program lore.

But, all things must end, and the Buckeyes will be downtrodden (.500, or even sub-.500 records) for a bit when they are hit with the sure-to-be-coming sanctions (some type of probation, and scholarship losses). No program overcomes scholarship reductions in the short term.

But, why were the Buckeyes (soon-to-be) taken down?

Basically, it was good ole’ American greed. Terrelle Pryor wanted to drive new cars, and decorate himself with new tattoos. He cashed in on his fame to do so. (Hey, maybe it was either that, or something that involved massaging and oils with Bob Barker.) Note that his fame (value in a free market) was the conduit for him to satisfy his greed. After a lawyer tried to help out his head coach, he finally got caught.

The Buckeyes will pay the price.

Yes, there is a problem at Ohio State. Yes, there is a problem in the NCAA as a whole. But, how do you fix greed? Somebody tell me.

Mike Floyd is going to pay every game for the Irish this season. Period. Point. Blank. That’s what Kelly means when he says he is “optimistic” Floyd will return. A far departure from when the Blarney said he had “munsoned” his Notre Dame career. (Looks like my prognostication skills are on par with any big-time “analyst”.)

You can think the road back has been a hard one for Floyd, or that Kelly is playing by the rules of the rest of the college football world, and letting his players get away with anything short of murder before facing any kind of real consequence. Who knows for sure? All I know is that Notre Dame has made a change as an institution to not send players right to the guillotine when they screw up (wise move), and that Kelly has talked tough as far as his role being one of straightening Floyd’s life up.

“Michael has made steady progress towards modifying his behavior and he may participate in the voluntary workouts being conducted by his teammates as well as the summer strength and conditioning program, if he so chooses,” Kelly said. “However, Michael still has steps to take before he can be considered for reinstatement to our football team. If he meets the conditions I have outlined to him and he demonstrates improved decision-making skills, Michael will have the opportunity to rejoin the team for practices and games this fall. If he doesn’t meet every criteria given to him, Michael will not play for Notre Dame in 2011.”

Basically, Kelly said that missing a few games is a trivial punishment, and the real onus is on changing Michael as a person by making him step up his personal development off the field. It’s all about Michael Floyd as a man and productive member of society. (Again, you can think whatever you want to about that logic, but I do know that Bobby Bowden used to talk in terms of off-field punishments rather than suspensions, and was chastised for it, and that ND fans would shake their heads in disgust if an SEC coach said something similar.)

The Blarney is going to assume that Floyd’s road back had indeed been a hard one, and wonders what tasks Brian Kelly may have had him undertake in order to come back:

1.) Conduct and NCAA rules seminar for Jim Tressel.

2.) Give Louis Nix a piggyback ride around ND stadium.

3.) Forced him to read every post ever written on South Bend Blarney. (If he did this, he would deserve to play EVERY SINGLE down.)

4.) Sign a binding contract to only drink O’Doul’s from now on. (If you don’t know, this is death, people.)

5.) No car privilege. Mike has to get around campus with a Cozy Coupe. Humility is the lesson.

6.) Kelly has stated he had to “maintain a certain GPA”. 6.0 on a scale of 4.0 sounds right. (Hey, maybe the graders are Russian.)

7.) Write a 200 page report on why Coldplay ever became popular. (Hmm…maybe he won’t play after all.)