COLUMN: Hey OSU, let's talk about integrity
Never has one football game caused so much controversy between Central Michigan University and one of its opponents.
Remember when the Chippewas upset Oklahoma State last fall? Of course you do. No one could stop talking about it. That final Hail Mary play was a fixture on ESPN's "SportsCenter" for a week. Instead of accepting the loss and moving on, student journalists at OSU publicly questioned the university's values listed in our mission statement.
To paraphrase the O'Colly's editorial, we should have "given back" the win.
Oklahoma State University’s core values are clearly defined. Like us, OSU values truth, honesty and integrity.
The Cowboys had a chance to embody those values by not letting one football game taint their whole season.
They failed again in that pursuit last week.
In September, the Chippewas defeated the Cowboys in Stillwater in what ended up being one of the craziest plays I’ve witnessed as a college football fan and sports writer. CMU scored on a Hail Mary pass in the final play of the game to beat Oklahoma State 30-27.
Referees later admitted the game should have ended when the Cowboys were penalized for intentional grounding on fourth down as the clock ran out. Nevertheless, the Chippewas were granted that last play. It resulted in one of the biggest wins in Mid-American Conference history.
Game over. End of story.
After losing to CMU at Boone-Pickens Stadium, OSU went on to defeat Colorado 38-8 in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 29 to finish its season 10-3. Despite that impressive bowl game victory, the Cowboys gave the loss to CMU — which finished with a 6-7 record — as a win on their fancy Alamo Bowl Champion rings.
Last time I checked, falsifying your season record on a championship ring isn’t truthful or honest. It also calls the university's integrity into question.
Not only did the Cowboys lose without grace, they can’t win with class.
The O’Colly student newspaper produced an editorial that came out the day after OSU’s devastating loss to the Chippewas. It advised us to “practice what we preach” in our mission statement by accepting that CMU shouldn’t have won the game — which most of our fan base did.
They also wanted us to forfeit the win, which even the NCAA said was logistically impossible if we wanted to.
I know CMU shouldn’t have had that extra play, but asking the football team to give up a win is absolutely ridiculous. I can’t think of a team that would even consider it.
Trying to present a loss as a win is even more ridiculous.
You’re speaking to a Michigan university made up mostly of Detroit Lions fans. Do you know what we call games lost due to bad officiating? Sunday.
Athletics is supposed to teach us how to work hard and face adversity. At the end of the day, your football season doesn't define the character of your university. That's a measure of your students and what we teach them in and beyond the classroom.
By engraving 11-2 as its final record and completely disregarding a defeat to a losing team from a smaller conference, what degree of integrity is OSU preaching?
