The hottest topic in sports, again, doesn’t have anything to do with something that happened on the playing field. The Ohio State mess and Jim Tressel’s resignation have become the topic du jour.

More than a month ago, I speculated that the seat was getting too hot and the evidence too damning and that Tressel would not coach the Buckeyes in 2011. The Buckeyes, too, I think will not be able to play those six players who have been implicated, including Terrell Pryor, in any games this year.

I think that gang will have to wait for the NFL strike to end and make their deals as they become available.

Since all of this business has been going on since at least 2002, the NCAA is going to take a jaundiced look at the Ohio State program. And I think their penalty will be very similar to what Southern California is going through at the moment.

There will be forfeiture of games, and trophies, if they can find them in the tattoo parlor. There will be no bowl appearances, and I do believe that Ohio State will not be eligible for the upcoming Big Ten football playoffs if they would somehow qualify.

It is going to be harsh and will require great cleansing in Columbus. Does this hurt the Big Ten and its image? Probably it’s a bruising, but not a major factor. I can tell you one thing from my experience with universities: No individual is bigger than the institution.

And now that institution has to clean itself before that football program can be viable again.

I would suggest that if you’d take the BCS champion and the NCAA basketball champion, I would bet that any investigation would turn up enough violations to cost those schools the titles that they have won.

That, my friends, is just how it is in college athletics these days.

NOTE: Since school is out and summer baseball is here, I’d like to take a moment to personally congratulate Dusty Albaugh at Marion High School. This young man has played just about anything you can play in high school and is some kind of all-around athlete.

He is playing the high school season with the Marion baseball team and then will attend Iowa State. But, he’s going there as a college student and apparently will not try to make any of the Iowa State teams. What he’s learned in athletics will serve him well as a college student. He ought to be some star in the intramural leagues at Iowa State.

Congratulations on your years at Marion and good luck on the campus at Ames.