Tuberville: ‘Kids do things that we don’t know about.’
Tommy Tuberville fully admits he doesn't know everything his football players are doing.
In an interview on KRLD-FM 105.3 in Dallas on Tuesday, Tuberville was talking about former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel and the indiscretions at Ohio State, when he made the comment that players often hide any violations they might have committed.
"It happens a lot of places now," Tuberville said. "It's just not Ohio State. Kids do things I'm sure here at Texas Tech that we don't know about. We try to monitor them daily, every minute, talk to them, educate them. If we do that the right way, usually you can overcome a lot of these problems that happen."
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for Texas Tech's compliance department, but Tuberville's honesty probably represents the thinking of more college coaches that one would expect.{YSP:MORE}
Not everything is incidental. Tuberville, who's been a head coach at Ole Miss and Auburn, said rule-breaking among college teams and players is nothing new. The bending of the rules for a competitive edge is as old as the game itself (just ask former USC player Lonnie White).
"It's unfortunate, but it's always been out there," Tuberville said. "You've always had teams that have stretched the rules and played in the gray area. It's unfortunate that sometimes people go to the length of trying to hide things that players have done, and they get caught."
But like several others who have weighed in on the Ohio State saga, Tuberville maintains that while things do happen, covering them up usually results in more trouble than the actual breaking of the rule.
"The best thing you can do in our business is if something happens, be honest about it and go on with it," Tuberville said. "There's a lot of things you can't control. There's a lot of things the players do that you can't control. We're limited to the time we can spend with these kids, but we're held to the standards of a saint, so to speak.
"Unfortunately, Jim Tressel got caught up in this deal with one of his good players. If he'd have come out from day one and say 'listen, this happened, and we're going to go on with business,' I think they'd been fine."
