knapplc
International Man of Mystery
Actually, Leach is who I was thinking of when I mentioned that Tressel might fight it. I would imagine he would fight it if for no other reason than to force a settlement. You're absolutely right in that he would be fired for cause in this scenario and that the school would likely win the case, but the goal wouldn't be to win in Tressel's situation - it would be the threat of a public airing of dirty laundry, and a settlement negotiated based on that threat.If Tressel is canned he won't fight it. Violating rules of conduct and the law is most certainly in his coaching contract as grounds for termination without compensation. If he violated NCAA rules and the school acts to terminate him because of that then he has no grounds to sue.True, but Tressel would fight it because it could potentially mean millions to him, and of course that would go to court and get public and ugly, so the most likely scenario is a negotiated buyout. Nobody wants their dirty laundry aired like that.Generally speaking, "breaking the law/violating rules of conduct" means you can and usually will lose your job immediately, and without remedy.
If they fired him because of falling short in BCS games then he could sue for rightful compensation. In this scenario the former would be the case. He wouldn't drag it out since no judge would accept the case.
A more recent and somewhat similar example was Mike Leach at Texas Tech. However, Leach was fired amid allegations of player mistreatment and there were no formal sanctions from the NCAA. Thus, it is debatable whether he violated the codified code of conduct in his contract since that dealt with legal and NCAA sanctions. Tressel's contract and all of them for Div 1 coaches contain clauses which allow justifiable dismissal if sanctions are levied. It's not like Tressel is in the drivers seat at all.
I freely admit this is purely conjecture on my part, and I have no evidence that Tressel would stoop to such tactics. Consider this just thinking out loud.