UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: A tipster wisely points out that the source of the misunderstanding was actually Bucknuts' Dave Biddle, not Rob Oller of the Dispatch. Oller also deserves a lot of credit for really putting himself out there by apologizing for retweeting Biddle, so no disrespect meant.

Ohio State extends AD Gene Smith's contract through 2016: ohiostatebuckeyes.com/genrel/101608a…

— Dave Biddle (@davebiddle) May 10, 2012

Dave and Rob are both overall extremely credible and hey, we all have bad days. Interesting to see though how one misread of an article can turn such a non-story into one. In related news, Gene Smith should still not be Ohio State's athletic director until 2016. Just sayin'.

UPDATE UPDATE: Oller has since deleted the tweet with no explanation given. Cool story bro?

UPDATE: We got foiled by tricky ol Rob Oller of the Columbus Dispatch:

CORRECTION: My retweet of Gene Smith contract extension was an old link. No new contract update.

— Rob Oller (@rollerCD) May 10, 2012

They say "don't shoot the messenger", but in this case, shoot him. We jest. It's still absurd in hindsight that this ever seemed like a good idea and pending a premature retirement, the Buckeyes will have to deal with the ramifications of Smith's employment through 2016.

Per a university press release, embattled Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith has been given a four-year contract extension and a roughly eight percent raise's contract runs through the 2016 season. While this probably amounts to "inflation" per some weird line of university power broker rationale my brain's not wired to think in, let's go over all the wonderful reasons meriting giving this titan of the industry more money and more time to do his job:

• Botched press conference after press conference after press conference during the most embarrassing ordeal in the university's long, storied football history.
• Fired one of the two best coaches the institutions ever had not because of any moral impetus or swift need for justice but rather only because over a long enough time line, to cover his own ass, he pretty much had to.
• Made the executive decision to not self impose a bowl ban in the midst of a lame duck, lost 6-6 football season under an interim coach, instead allowing the NCAA to do so the first year after hiring the best coaching candidate available (a coach who's hire was allegedly brokered more by Les Wexner and Bobby Schottenstein than Smith himself).
• Chaired the NCAA tournament in 2010-2011 and helped oversee a process which gave the tournament's number one overall seed one of the least charitable brackets a number one overall's ever been placed in¹.
• Was employed as his predecessors' money sport hires won 11* Big Ten championships, 3* BCS bowl wins, made 2 Final Four appearances, and 2 other Sweet Sixteen berths.
• Had a men's volleyball and a wrestling team reach unprecedented heights in their respective sports.

Heckuva job, Smithy.

^{1. ADs such as Smith in these situations ordinarily have to recuse themselves when talking about their institutions, however as the committee chair, that would seem a bit unorthodox. That aside, the rest of the field was one of the worst in recent modern memory. ↩}