For what it's worth, the SI author, George Dohrmann won a Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for exposing the academic scandal within the Minnesota men's basketball program, so I'm hard pressed to believe that he simply fabricated information.
Even if you throw those allegations out the window, there still is this whole matter:
http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/docs-o...mpliance-29737
There's simply too much smoke at OSU right now for there to be no fire.