A breakdown of the messy Greg Schiano situation at Tennessee

Tennessee had an agreement to hire Greg Schiano as head coach until outrage forced them to change that decision.

Sunday was a messy day for Greg Schiano. In the span of eight hours, the Ohio State defensive coordinator went from having a job coaching Tennessee to having the university pull out of its agreement after outrage.

Rather than participate in the back and forth, let’s just simply go over those facts. Unbiased and unfiltered.

Everyone has an opinion on the matter. Let’s remove that here and simply go over what we know. What conclusion you draw is entirely up to you. It’s a messy situation that many are just trying to make sense of.

Here’s a timeline of what happened.

• Sunday morning it was announced Tennessee had reached an agreement with Greg Schiano to become the program’s next head coach
• Immediately after news of this started to spread, social media influencers and Tennessee politicians began railing against the move. The common theme was digging up Schiano’s involvement in the Penn State child molestation scandal.
• Students took to social media to protest the hiring and began organizing rallies to urge the school not to hire Schiano.
• Sometime Sunday evening, the school backed out of a memorandum with Schiano and said he would not be hired.
• Schiano and his camp demanded that Tennessee compensate him for backing out of the agreed-upon deal.
• No contract was ever signed.
• After news spread that Schiano had been forced out, many began coming to the defense of Schiano saying he is wrongly being punished.

A number of questions have been raised in the wake of this, not all of which are easy to understand or answer.

What are people against Greg Schiano saying?

The argument against Schiano is that he knew about the behavior of Jerry Sandusky at Penn State. Schiano coached at Penn State from 1990 until 1995, working under Sandusky during this time. Because of his association with Sandusky, as well as being named as someone who mentioned the abuse to a fellow coach, it is being claimed that Schiano was part of the coverup.

Prominent media members and politicians spoke out against the hiring. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and various Tennessee lawmakers were among those urging the university to not hire Schiano based on the child rape cover-up claims.

What are people defending Greg Schiano saying?

The crux of his defense is that no hard evidence exists to suggest Schiano participated in a coverup. He was mentioned as someone who brought the abuse to light to a colleague, but not in a way that suggests he was trying to keep it under wraps.

From here, the defense of Schiano becomes less about his being mentioned in a statement and more about the leap in logic suggesting he was part of the coverup.

Did Greg Schiano participate in a Penn State coverup?

We don’t know. There is no evidence exists linking Schiano with actively covering up facts or keeping them away from authority figures.

In a piece by John Ziegler, the argument is that the culture of Twitter outrage and fake news has cost an innocent man his job.

Ziegler, who over the years has extensively researched the Penn State scandal, laid out bullet points as to just how insane it is to associate Schiano with all that happened. You need to read it, but the gist is that mob mentality that has become popular in this charged climate we live in has cost someone a job and tarnished his reputation.

Why is this coming up now?

It has come up before. Back in 2016, it was revealed that Mike McQueary — the whistleblower on the Penn State rape scandal — told law enforcement that Schiano was among the people who knew about Jerry Sandusky’s behavior years before it came to light.

The Washington Post published a piece detailing this allegation and points out that Schiano brought the information to another person.

"“Greg had come into his office white as a ghost and said he just saw Jerry doing something to a boy in the shower. And that’s it. That’s all he ever told me.”"

That’s the line everyone is focusing on, which clearly suggests Schiano knew of an incident of abuse. Lost in translation is whether or not Schiano contributed to a coverup. As of now, no evidence has been reported to suggest this.

Did Schiano address the allegation?

At the time of the document’s unsealing in 2016, Schiano denied the allegation.

This is where people against the Schiano hiring are connecting dots that he was part of a coverup. The logic being he was named as someone who was mentioned as bringing up the abuse in the past, so the fact that he is now denying it shows his guilt.

Those defending him are saying McQueary’s mention of Schiano is hearsay. Schiano has never mentioned the abuse and no evidence exists saying he reported it to anyone. Also mentioned in his defense is that if he was guilty, Schiano would have been among those taken down at the time.

Some are saying that regardless of whether or not he was part of a coverup, being associated with that era of Penn State is enough.

Will Greg Schiano be fired from his job at Ohio State?

He never left his position with the Buckeyes, but there have been questions about whether he should be removed from his post in light of this outrage.

We don’t know what Ohio State’s reaction will be. There’s a chance the outrage leads to his dismissal, however, the school did not fire him when this all came up a year ago. Considering the fact that no new information has come out, it would seem odd if he was let go.

That being said, Ohio State could simply choose not to renew his deal and move on citing not wanting the distractions he brings. So far the school has not spoken about the matter so guessing doesn’t do us much good.