How will Tressel survive this one?

Thursday could be the most interesting day yet in the ongoing Tattoogate scandal that continues to fester and ooze troubling headlines for the Ohio State football program and head coach Jim Tressel.

NCAA president Mark Emmert will hold a press conference that day at the Final Four in Houston. It's an annual event for whoever holds the top job at the NCAA. The question-and-answer session is sure to pin Emmert down on matters related to the investigation of Tressel for lying on an NCAA rules compliance form and for not being truthful with Ohio State investigators when details of the football program's rule-breaking came to light.

Also Thursday, the Buckeyes will start spring practice, which means Tressel will be facing reporters for the first time since The Columbus Dispatch reported that he indeed forwarded the emails he received in April 2010 notifying him of likely NCAA violations by quarterback Terrelle Pryor and teammate DeVier Posey.

The reported recipient of the emails forwarded by Tressel raises the question whether he'll still be coach at Ohio State by the time his players put on the pads later this week.

According to the Dispatch, Tressel forwarded the emails to Ted Sarniak, a 67-year-old businessman in Jeannette, Pa., Pryor's hometown.

Sarniak accompanied Pryor on his official recruiting trip to Ohio State. He also is the man who Scout.com reported loaned Pryor a Corvette to drive to his senior prom. Multiple other outlets have reported that two Buckeyes assistant coaches ate dinner with Sarniak the night before Pryor made his official recruiting visit to Michigan.

Doug Archie, OSU's director of compliance, said Sarniak was a person of influence during Pryor's recruitment but that Sarniak is only someone the quarterback has "reached out to for advice and guidance throughout his high school and collegiate career."

As poorly as Tressel came off at the March 8 press conference OSU called to confirm that he lied to the NCAA in September about having no knowledge of pending NCAA violations in his program, and that he deceived OSU investigators twice in December, Tressel looks even worse now.

If true that he forwarded the emails to Sarniak -- the Dispatch cited multiple sources and has a track record of being dialed into the inner sanctum of OSU politics -- Tressel appears boxed in by everything he said on March 8 in attempting to justify his actions.

Tressel said March 8 that he did not contact the NCAA, OSU's compliance department, athletic director Gene Smith, school president E. Gordon Gee or any of OSU's in-house legal counsel with details of the troubling emails about Pryor because he felt he was restricted by "confidentiality" between himself and the Columbus attorney who emailed him details of the players' probable rule violations.

He did acknowledge during the news conference that he had forwarded emails, nodding saying "um-hmm" when asked if he had. Smith interceded at that point, ending that line of questioning, so we didn't know who else saw them until the Dispatch's report about Sarniak.

Tressel said he kept the details private, after learning of them in April and after receiving three more detailed emails from the same attorney in June, because he did not want to impede a federal investigation into drug trafficking at the tattoo parlor where Pryor and Posey sold their team awards and memorabilia in violation of NCAA rules.

Both those excuses are out the window if Tressel forwarded the emails to Sarniak.

How would letting Sarniak know about Pryor's activities preserve the confidentiality Tressel was purportedly so concerned with?

How could the sanctity of a federal investigation be preserved if Tressel was contacting Sarniak, presumably to get him to do something to rein Pryor in?

Tressel's confidentiality excuse and his sanctity-of-the-investigation excuse already appeared questionable. If blown asunder by forwarding the emails to Sarniak, that would mean Tressel lied twice more at the press conference Ohio State called to announce he had already lied three times about not knowing anything in advance of the Tattoogate scandal blowing wide open.

Such behavior is mind-blowing for a coach who has always had the squeakiest of squeaky-clean reputations, but the head-scratching questions don't end there.

The NCAA is sure to ask Tressel, as are reporters if they ever get the chance:

-- Why would Tressel let Sarniak know the details of Pryor's activities if he didn't expect the quarterback's "mentor" to do something about it?

-- What kind of influence did Sarniak have over Pryor that Tressel didn't have?

-- How would a 67-year-old businessman hold more influence over Pryor than the coach who determines playing time for every player on the roster?

Gee and Smith both locked themselves to Tressel and threw away the key at the March 8 press conference, lauding his integrity and insisting that firing him was never considered. They maintained that he will remain Ohio State's coach going forward.

That was before the Dispatch broke the Sarniak revelations, which might not be the last bit of mud to splatter against the scarlet-and-gray wall.

Numerous media outlets have filed Freedom of Information Act requests to pore through the coach's emails and phone records.

Further communication with Sarniak or the Columbus attorney whose emails to Tressel put him on notice about the violations in April, or any other embarrassing matters, have the potential to surface as each news organization's investigation deepens.

What might come out if Edward Rife -- the owner of the tattoo parlor where Pryor and Posey eventually ensnared teammates Mike Adams, Daniel Herron, Solomon Thomas and Jordan Whiting in the scandal -- decides he would like to talk on the record or to the NCAA?

The NCAA is also digging into Tressel's concealment of key details in the Tattoogate scandal. The bylaw Tressel broke, 10.1_(d), forbids "knowingly furnishing the NCAA or the individual's institution false or misleading information concerning the individual's involvement in or knowledge of matters relevant to a possible violation of an NCAA regulation."

SI.com reported Sunday that since 1989, the NCAA has ruled on 177 cases involving a violation of bylaw 10.1. In those cases, 172 included coaches or athletic administrators accused of unethical conduct.

"Of those," the website reported, "159 resigned or were terminated. Eighty-one cases involved coaches or athletics administrators accused of providing false or misleading information to NCAA investigators or encouraging others to lie to investigators. Of those, 78 resigned or were terminated."

The reason so many coaches get cut loose in those situations is because it's the best way to show the NCAA that schools won't tolerate such behavior in their athletic departments.

The NCAA doesn't have subpoena power. It can't make a booster or a former player testify or answer questions from its investigators. The only hammer the NCAA wields is its heavy and certain punishment for anyone caught lying or misleading its investigators.

To go easy on Ohio State in this situation, given the deception OSU has already admitted Tressel engaged in, would be to tell every coach at every school that they are no longer under any burden to tell the truth, because the penalties for lying won't be that severe.

It's difficult to see the NCAA going soft for that reason, and because it took such a public relations hit in December upon allowing the Buckeyes to play Pryor, Posey, Herron, Adams and Thomas in the Sugar Bowl and delay their five-game suspensions until 2011.

The NCAA didn't know then, but knows now, that Tressel was aware or had a strong suspicion Pryor and Posey were in violation of NCAA rules as far back as April.

The NCAA also knows Tressel concealed that information not only in September, when he signed the NCAA's rules compliance form that he knew of no possible violations in his program, but twice more in December when OSU investigators asked him about it and the NCAA was making its Sugar Bowl eligibility ruling.

Most people outside Ohio -- and many within the state -- thought that was a sham of a ruling brought about by lobbying from Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and Sugar Bowl CEO Paul Hoolahan.

Delany's influence as a former NCAA investigator could be crucial to the hopes of Tressel and Ohio State for lenience. Delany, though, may be boxed in by his statements regarding the NCAA investigation of Cameron Newton at Auburn.

Delany said the NCAA "missed an opportunity to stand up" when it allowed Newton to play, despite discovering that his father shopped him to a rival school for as much as $180,000.

"There ought to be accountability, Delany said. "There ought to be consequences."

It's not hard to envision an NCAA staff member looking across the table as the Big Ten commissioner pleads for understanding in the Tressel case and asking why it should forgive a coach who lied three times to an organization famous for cutting coaches absolutely zero slack when they lie even once.

Still, Tressel has piled up far too much power and influence during his 10 seasons in Columbus to sell short his ability to withstand this scandal.

His exemplary won-loss record is a powerful ally in his corner, because winning coaches get far more leeway than losing ones.

Tressel is also a favorite of well-heeled donors and the titans whose influence shapes decisions in both the City of Columbus and the State of Ohio.

All that may insulate him, and convince Ohio State it's worth the risk of defying previous cases, where coaches lose their jobs to lessen penalties against the school going forward.

The decision Ohio State must make is this: Is Tressel so irreplaceable that retaining him the face of his misdeeds is worth the risk of the football program being hit with severe sanctions -- scholarship limitations, recruiting restrictions and a ban on either future bowl or television appearances?

If the answer is yes, then it appears that Tressel has become bigger than the future of the program he directs.

Follow Bruce on Twitter @BHOOLZ

Email bruce@brucehooley.com