Jim Tressel. Call for you. Jim Harrick on Line 2.

The loose end named Maurice Clarett is after Ohio State’s Tressel the way the loose end named Tony Cole got after Georgia’s Harrick, the ex-basketball coach.

You remember Cole. He showed up on camera and talked about those excruciating tests given University of Georgia athletes. Sample question: How many points does a three-point field goal count for?

Everybody in the class got an A. Harrick was fired.

Now the dime drops on Tressel, and Clarett is not the only loose end at Ohio State that wouldn’t be tied up. There are several.

Not only does Clarett, the former star running back, insist the Buckeyes cheated, but he has witnesses also fingering the coaching staff. That’s using the middle finger, of course.

Other disgruntled players have stepped forward in an ESPN magazine story to talk about cheating at Ohio State. Cars, cash-and-carry jobs, easy classes, the works. The players have a grudge and they are getting even.

If it were boosters holding open the bag of goodies, that’s one thing. But Clarett and his ex-teammates are claiming it was Tressel’s staff at the wheel of Santa’s sled.

So why is this news? Schools accused of cheating became routine 20 years ago.

It’s an issue because the NCAA has been making another push to launder its members. The organization governing college athletics is bleating about new rules, more institutional control, graduation requirements, blah, blah, blah.

Spare me.

It’s the same cesspool, just managed a little smoother by university athletic departments and their professional sports managers. They are pimping kids just as they always have. Just look at the mid-week football games and the year-round forced labor in the weight rooms.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL More on Clarett's Ohio State charges Buckeye coaches allowed cars for tickets Glier: NCAA must probe Ohio State Ex-Buckeye Smith believes charges Other Buckeyes corroborate charges Vote: Do you believe Clarett? More on college football

What’s more revealing than football on Wednesday is the curriculum the rest of the week.

Coaching staffs have wired the system with friendly professors and kindergarten classes. Players go into their third year with silly and useless credits in Coaching Football, Coaching Basketball and Coaching Coaches.

It is becoming the new dirty secret of college athletics. There is a made-up major: Interdisciplinary Studies, which is jargon for let’s see how many easy classes we can stuff into an official-sounding major.

That’s why we should pay close attention to Ohio State this week.

You don’t have to believe Clarett on the cars and the cash he said he received, but you better believe him on the classes. He was shepherded through.

It’s the same at a lot of schools. Players show up for an easy grade and then get down to the real reason they are on campus: practice, then games.

The ideal of keeping the kids, especially the black kids, eligible for football and basketball was exposed at Georgia. It was exposed at Tennessee. Sounds like we need to wheel the spotlight toward Ohio State.

Hey, but you know, it’s not really cheating.

You’re right, it’s worse. It’s pimping. Just wait until these kids try to get a meaningful job with 24 credit hours of Coaching Football/Basketball/Baseball.

The NCAA needs to get into Ohio State’s curriculum and find a way to stop the school from tricking up the course loads for its players.

That’s a problem. The NCAA is still licking its wounds from its last scrap with a football coach. It did some serious back-pedaling in the case of ex-Washington coach Rick Neuheisel, who was caught gambling, and was fired. The NCAA exonerated him after Neuheisel filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the University of Washington and the NCAA.

The NCAA better not run again.

In fact, it needs to go back to Columbus, Ohio, and have another look. If it can’t nail Tressel for giving away money, it should pin him up against the wall for using athletes.

The NCAA certainly can’t count on help from the Ohio State administration, which has a habit of pressuring reporters and ridiculing others who level charges against the football program.

Indeed, the athletic director, Andy Geiger, reminded a reporter Tuesday that one of the players leveling charges against the school has a history with drugs.

Ohio State will do what Harrick did to Cole. It will heap abuse on Clarett. The Buckeyes will call the player a liar and a punk, which he might be. It will wave around its own institutional investigative report clearing its good name.

Then it will get down to the business of making sure players get eligible, not educated.

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