Ohio's D.J. Cooper said Tennessee, Baylor tried to get him to transfer

Hmm, now Cooper says Pearl didn't contact him.

 

That's not really what he said. If Pearl really was wrongly implicated, he should be calling for an actual retraction. The "no school directly contacted me" stuff smells of a compliance guy and a PR hack trying to make a story go away so Ohio can focus on tomorrow.

 

Exactly.

 

I could needlessly argue the point, but, personally, I don't give a shit either way. I just thought it would be a nice little monkey wrench into the usual "Pearl is evil" chatter. Obviously, I liked having Pearl as coach, but he's not here anymore. Unless he can still get us on probation for anything, I don't care that he talked to Cooper or not.

 

I'm actually, in an odd way, on Pearl's side here. If he really did nothing wrong here and the Coopers decided to grab a few headlines at his expense, they should be held accountable. By saying nobody contacted them "directly," the "retraction" creates the impression they were contacted by third parties. Using runners and street agents is worse than doing it yourself. If Pearl really has clean hands here, he's been dealt a tremendous injustice. I despise the guy, but I don't want anyone publicly slandered for sport.