The Rest of College Football

[Hannibal]

I would be shocked if it's Texas, because there have been no suspicious signs as of yet. But maybe that's the "10 out of 10" nature of the story.

[Jamie H]

I guess I wouldn't be shocked at Texas, only because the general attitude in Texas seems to be that rules don't have to be followed.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Obvious choice is Auburn but I'm hoping for something out of left field

[WM Wolverine]

Clemson has had some smoke, netting some national recruits away from elite schools...

On schools on my wist list of schools that need to go down in flames: Auburn, Alabama, LSU and Oklahoma...

[Hannibal]

I hadn't thought about Clemson.

Iowa was another program that occurred to me. The Brown Pee incident got swept under the rug with alarming efficiency.

Point shaving at OSU is also a rampant rumor right now.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I hadn't thought about Clemson.

Iowa was another program that occurred to me. The Brown Pee incident got swept under the rug with alarming efficiency.

Point shaving at OSU is also a rampant rumor right now.

Yeah and Les Miles to Michigan was also once a rampant rumor and a done deal.

This rumor has been around for months and there's been nothing to validate it in any way.

Last year OSU was 10-2-1 against the spread. 9-4 the year before that. That's a funny way to point shave. You have to go back to 2003 to find a year we didn't finish at least .500 against the spread.

[JRB]

I wouldn't be surprised if something were amiss at Texas-- at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if violations were turned up at any school-- but I don't think Texas's hypothetical issue would be related to Will Lyles. Rumor has it that Lyles was steering kids away from Texas because the Texas staff refused to do business with him, and while Mack Brown has his faults, he's reputed to be one of those coaches who doesn't deal with intermediaries or runners at all, probably because the pool of prospects interested in playing at UT is so deep Brown doesn't have to dirty his hands that way.

I would add that if the allegations about Oregon are shown to be true, and Yahoo seems to have done a ton of investigative work against them, that this scandal would be worse than either USC or OSU.

I'm not sure I can agree with this. At least, I can't at the moment, because the allegations against Lyles and Oregon are still somewhat nebulous. Lyles still insists that he was not paid to steer any recruit to a particular school, and he makes a good case that it wasn't in his long-term business interest to do so. He may well be lying, but there's at least a chance he's represented himself accurately to Yahoo Sports. Oregon may have panicked into making the embarrassing mistake of paying for worthless recruiting information, but it's still not proven(though it's likely) that Oregon was specifically paying for a recruit. There's a bit of a gray area between paying for a recruit to sign and paying a third party for information about a recruit. Unless the NCAA can connect the dots, so to speak, it's going to be tough to peg Lyles as an Oregon booster. Now, that's not to say Oregon should be feeling good about this. The coaching staff clearly freaked out about the initial Yahoo report and may have committed a blatant violation by ordering the worthless documents in an attempt to deceive the NCAA. That may end up costing them more than the $25,000 payment itself would have. If Kelly is alleged to have committed a 10.1 violation, that's almost certainly going to cost him his job.

The most damning allegation against Lyles so far has come from a member of the Texas A&M coaching staff, which accused Lyles of soliciting a bid in excess of an $80,000 offer Lyles claimed had been made for the services of Patrick Peterson. If that sort of allegation is proven, with respect to Peterson, Seastrunk or any other player connected to Lyles, then we're definitely talking about a program-crushing sort of scandal, and one that might crush more than one program. As it is, I'm going to need to see more evidence before I'll think Oregon's going to get crushed. That evidence may well be forthcoming-- in December, I certainly didn't think the eligibility issues at Ohio State would bring about Jim Tressel's resignation. Six months from now, this situation may look a lot worse than Ohio State's or USC's. But I don't think we're there yet.

[WM Wolverine]

I don't think there is a smoking gun yet for Oregon, this might be pretty difficult for the NCAA to prove.

[Hannibal]

I would think that the garbage recruiting profiles are as close as you can get.

[WM Wolverine]

Oregon could say they paid for very lousy information. Situation is a lot like Tressel, Chip Kelly has already told the NCAA there isn't anything to it. If there is, well they are screwed because the NCAA really hates being lied to, especially about cheating.

[entropy]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/andy_staples/07/05/cheating-for-dummies/index.html?eref=sihp&sct=hp_t11_a1

Cheating for dummies

[Wild Hoss]

I wouldn't be surprised if something were amiss at Texas--

I guarantee it. In all the years I have followed college football I have yet to see any program recruit as ridiculously as Texas does that at some point down the road hasn?t been demonstrated to be buying players wholesale. Save perhaps Notre Dame with their whole Irish/Catholic thing, and they haven?t exactly been tearing it up on the recruiting trail the past ten + years.

I have a good deal of respect for Mack?s salemanship, but nobody save perhaps Jesus Christ himself could turn that situation around like he did, and as quickly, without underground rivers of cash. Oklahoma isn't far behind either.

JMO.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I find the entire issue of inducements for rising HS football players to play and then stay at college A or college B interesting.

Seems it has gone on for a very long time in different forms depending on the particular culture surrounding a football program.

I don't think its a stretch to say that the public has only recently started to raise eyebrows and that's not because of anything the NCAA has done; they seem to be followers more than initiators and that has a lot to do with their charter, philosophy of enforcement and the nature of the way things are done with regard to following agreed upon rules by the programs themselves.

The initiators in the most recent round of discoveries involving cheating and pay to play schemes at Auburn, osu and Oregon have been the sports press and most notably Yahoo Sports (which is interesting and revealing in itself).

I believe an argument can be advanced that there is nothing wrong with inducing a player to play and stay especially if this is coming from outsiders who are simply deep pocketed fans or alumni. Obviously, this flies in the face of NCAA rules designed to protect the amateur status of college athletes. OTH, I see the argument which extends from the one that college athletic departments make millions from ticket and memorabilia sales part of which should be paid to the athletes who are the ones providing the entertainment.

I think it is that kind of reasoning or rationalization that is going on in the minds of insiders and fans that tends to provide a raison d'?tre for pay to play. So, the argument would then go something like this: perhaps we should regulate it. It worked following prohibition, there is mountains of evidence that it would work for illegal drugs in the US, etc.

There are probably two extremes and not much middle ground. You either use iron fisted enforcement which would require a change in the way the NCAA does business and then approved by the colleges who are members or you design some mechanism that allows for athletes to get a share of the pot.

I feel strongly that maintaining amateur status for college athletes and not paying them anything to play is the way to go. But it may be so tough to reverse approaches to induce athletes to play and stay that have gone on for decades that that position is not realistic anymore.

[Mackenzie]

"I feel strongly that maintaining amateur status for college athletes and not paying them anything to play is the way to go."

I totally agree with you and I think some of the reasons for this, pro and con, have already been discussed.

The pay for play issue aside, the NCAA could stop much of what has been going on related to "player inducements" if they really wanted. They refuse to or do not have the will for whatever reasons. I would suggest that "money" is a major factor in that decision--multi-billion dollar tv contracts, big bowl payouts, mega-confereces, more games per season etc. In my opinion, all designed with one thing in mind and that is to generate more revenues. Pay for play is simply another step in "professionalizing" college athletics. I think if we would all live long enough, there would be a strong likelihood of a "players union" or something very similar in college football. If players are truly being "taken advantage of" then maybe one is needed now. I simply believe that a multi-thousand dollar scholarship is plenty of pay. Now if players are strapped for money, then I say relax the rules related to summer employment or something along that nature. Now that's a novel pay for play idea. I'm suspecting playing football/basketball demands too much of a "student's" time to make this practical. College sports, major college sports, has become to big to fail. It's a double edge sword I suspect.

Just ranting I know. But, I guess I don't think anyone should be surprised at the fact that money "big money" and "theatre" is what drives college football/basketball and that it has increasing less and less to do with many kids engaging in spirited athletic competition while they complete their studies at college. I know this is not the case for most student engaged in other college sports but those are not the kids/coaches who are making recent headlines.

[Jeff Buchanan]

........ the NCAA could stop much of what has been going on related to "player inducements" if they really wanted. They refuse to or do not have the will for whatever reasons.

Good rant, Mac ..... I always enjoy those.

I'm beginning to feel the NCAA should be given a pass on this. Following the osu mess and having to look up how stuff is done when it involves the NCAA, it has become apparent to me that the college presidents and their ADs are to blame for the schemes undertaken by the deep pocketed fans and alums I mentioned in my original post; I think they know this and use the confusion about what the NCAA really has the power to do or not do to obfuscate their positions.

When you listen to osu pres. gee utter his famous words, "I hope he (tressel) doesn't fire me," the implications behind those words are instructive. From gee's standpoint (and probably AD smith's, along with the other college presidents and ADs who have been caught up in this recently), winning, bringing the revenue to the school that winning assures and keeping the pipeline of talented HS football players flowing is more important than it should be. As you note, Mac, money talks.

Since the colleges themselves build the NCAA rule books (with NCAA assistance) and the NCAA helps to administer and enforce the rules, why would the leadership put in rules or more stringently enforce existing ones, that might choke the golden goose? This question is particularly pertinent to the leadership of colleges at the top of the pecking order in football and basketball.