The Rest of College Football

[Hannibal]

I'm glad somebody is finally saying it.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The Presidents of the member institutions have the power to change the landscape of college football and basketball.

I find them as responsible for the current situation as much as I find the NCAA responsible. Maybe more so.

[WM Wolverine]

The member institutions are the NCAA.

[entropy]

The Presidents of the member institutions have the power to change the landscape of college football and basketball.

I find them as responsible for the current situation as much as I find the NCAA responsible. Maybe more so.

everyone wants others investigated... but not themselves.

plus TV $$$ is so big, conferences and schools can't afford to have members on probation

[Jeff Buchanan]

The schools are the NCAA (the point of post). E, you add support to the idea that the presidents can change both the culture and the landscape of college sports. Working through Conference Commissioners, improvement in most aspects of the darker and cumbersome aspects of the current NCAA management of collegiate athletics could move forward quickly.

Maybe we should stop complaining about Emmert and start targeting the presidents.

[Rocky Bleier]

Saban interviewed regarding Bowlsby's remarks says the SEC is very well policed. Spurrier says no one in the SEC would dare cheat because they know other coaches will turn them in. Reality is it's like politicians who don't turn each other in for fear their own dirty laundry will be exposed. Media won't dig too far. Afraid they'll find bag men.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The biggest problem, in my mind, is that it probably isn't the coaches "cheating," it's the impact on the CFB landscape that other interested parties, outside the program, have.

It's no mystery why highly regarded recruits will simply disappear from one program's list of interested recruits or commits and show up on another's dropping their former program like a hot potato.

jim tressel, among others is a perfect example of how CFB coaches have gray areas they operate in that are, by the strictest definition, not breaking any NCAA rules at all. That gray area gets expanded as the NCAA either does not have the resources to investigate an alleged violation, or is unable to enforce its own rules in any standardized way.

Lastly, those who are looking at this with a clear eye, understand that the conferences have varying standards with respect to academic qualifications, how a student athlete progresses in fulfilling degree requirements, how many recruits can be signed each season, how long and under what circumstances a scholarship will be extended and so forth.

Standards and compliance is not uniform across all 125 Division 1 programs and, in my view, the SEC has a tremendous advantage in recruiting, managing their rosters and to what degree a student athlete must perform academically.

I think we are at a point where the power brokers here, mainly the Conference Commissioners acting at the behest of their constituent University Presidents , are setting the stage to form a new and more effective mechanism for regulating college sports.

I think the NCAA in its present form is dead and the Power 5 will move forward, if not glacially, with needed reforms. All this posturing we have been seeing over the last few months is clear evidence of this.

[entropy]

SEC and Clean are laughable.

[Hannibal]

everyone wants others investigated... but not themselves.

plus TV $$$ is so big, conferences and schools can't afford to have members on probation

That's why the solution is to change the rules so that nobody will gain a competitive advantage by paying players under the table.

[entropy]

I'd like to see accreditations on the line…. You blatantly pay players, you’re school is no longer accredited. That would force some behavior changes.

[Jeff Buchanan]

That's why the solution is to change the rules so that nobody will gain a competitive advantage by paying players under the table.

Its more than just players getting paid under the table although I acknowledge that is BIG part of it.

Slive and SEC will be reluctant to give up the current advantages they have acquired by not being dishonest so much as being shrewd Any new coalition of conferences is going to be a hard sell.

Its going to be tough sledding trying to get a level playing field. There is so much cash at stake, so many competing agendas and interests, I think that's why this process is going to move at Glacial speeds with a lot of bumps in the road ahead.

[entropy]

stoops is taking shots at A&M and bama....

[Hannibal]

Its more than just players getting paid under the table although I acknowledge that is BIG part of it.

It is probably 75% of the competitive advantage that the SEC has. Maybe another 20% is due to oversigning, and then 5% everything else.

[entropy]

let the guilty speak:

In opening the Big 12 Media Days Monday, commissioner Bob Bowlsby created a bit of a firestorm when, in the midst of a diatribe against the current enforcement practices in the NCAA, stated “cheating pays” and “[r]ight now, if you wanna cheat you can do it and get away with it and that needs to change.”

Tuesday afternoon, the highest-paid coach in college football took exception to the broad strokes painted by one of the most respected commissioners in the sport.

In a sit-down interview with ESPN radio “personality” Colin Cowherd, Nick Saban questioned Bowlsby’s take on the current climate of enforcement while espousing how the commissioner of his conference has stressed compliance throughout his time in the league. In fact, in Saban’s mind, social media has forced all of college football to keep their collective hands clean on the recruiting front.

Here are some of Saban’s comments on the situation, as transcribed by al.com:

“I don’t see that. I don’t know where people get those opinions. Like I think the compliance in our league is actually better than it’s ever been. I think Mike Slive, that was one of his babies when he came in, he was going to make sure that we had a clean league and people did it the right things. When you don’t walk the walk in our league, you’re going to get called down by our conference offices as much as the NCAA.”

…

“But I don’t see players getting bought. I don’t see players getting extra benefits any place. I think recruiting is so transparent now, I think most people are scared to death that they would get caught publicly — not by the NCAA, not by the conference office.

“But even if you have illegal contact with a player, he tweets that you talked to him. So that’s a violation. I mean, it’s so transparent, you almost have to do things correctly because I don’t think anybody needs to catch you. I think the public would catch you.”

Saban also seemed to take a bit of a shot at Bowlsby’s “cheating” crutch, saying that “[y]ou’re always looking for a reason and one of the easiest excuses is to say the other guy did something illegal… which I don’t buy into that.”

The coach did allow though, that “[a]gents are a problem.” That is an understandable stance on Saban’s part.

Over the past couple of years, various Tide players, including D.J. Fluker, Marcell Dareus and HaHa Clinton-Dix, have been accused of and/or suspended for having illicit dealings with agents or their middlemen.

The NCAA’s Enforcement Committee hasn’t met in over a year according to Bowlsby, which seems to be an indicator to the commish that the game of college football has become akin to the Wild West. According to Saban, though, there’s too much at stake for coaches and their staff to go rogue.

“The No. 1 thing that blows up my future and any coaches’ future is if you violate NCAA rules,” Saban said. “That’s a big risk to be taking over winning a football game when you’re talking about your family, your future and your career and all the hard work you’ve done professionally to get where you are.” You've got to be kidding me

[Hannibal]

I don't expect any coach to acknowledge that he benefits from cheating.

Of course, it's not the coach who has to actively cheat. All that he has to do is look the other way. A cheating culture is just as important if nor moreso than a cheating coach. As far as Saban knows, he's probably telling the truth.