College Football Week 10: Sandy knew not to mess with Nick and Les

Bingo. Taking down "Team Nike" ain't exactly in the NCAA's best interest and, unlike normal enforcement agencies, the NCAA can do whatever the hell it wants. If they think they can get away with sweeping the Oregon thing under the rug without too much public outrage, my guess is they will.

They can still show how tough they are with the next Cleveland State.

 

Shamed into it. I will be interested to see what Yahoo comes up with next, because as we all know the NCAA doesn't go anywhere without a roadmap drawn by Yahoo. (Which is weird because Google Maps is way better.)

Start to finish on the USC investigation was four years, I think.

 

Hard to believe the NCAA was able to shut down SMU and nail Kentucky what with Yahoo not even existing back then...

 

Kentucky went on probation as a result of the Lexington Herald-Leader's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation. And SMU, as noted in hilarious detail in "Pony Excess," had the unfortunate circumstance of doing all its cheating during the height of The Last Great Newspaper War, when both papers were investigating the shit out of it. So, yeah, there's a long history of the media shaming the NCAA into action.

It's just that nowadays it's almost always Yahoo.

 

I won't speak to SMU, but using Kentucky basketball in 70s and 80s as an example of the NCAA's willingness to crack down on cheaters is one of the more disengenous arguments you'll ever hear.

EVERYBOYDY knew UK was rampantly paying payers and cheating throughout that period, yet the NCAA did EVERYTHING within its power to ignore it, indeed it was the source of the famous Tarkanian "the NCAA is so mad at Kentucky it' going to hammer Cleveland State" line that became so famous around here and other parts. Even after the Lexington Herald Leader published an award winning piece in 85 containing quotes from Sam Bowie and other cats detailing the regular "100 dollar handshakes" and other payments they'd recieved over the years, the NCAA STILL refused to do anything about it.

It took finally being caught red-handed in 88 with thousands of dollars spilling out of an Emery package mailed directly from the UK basketball office to a recruit, and the same being reported in EVERY national media outlet, to finally get the NCAA to take action against UK.

So forgive me if I don't see that as exactly the most compelling example of the NCAA being willing to slay its golden goose. If there was any way the NCAA could've continued to evade taking that one on, they would've.

 

Check your facts. NO, they did not. The NCAA swept under the rug the findings of the LHL's Pulitzer Prize winning investigation, one of the more remarkable whitewashes in NCAA history. The only thing that got the NCAA to finally take action against UK was the later Emery incident where they got caught red handed mailing money to a recruit. That had nothing to do with the LHL investigation.

 

Alright, my bad. I knew of the Pulitzer and I knew of the resulting probation and connected the two. Come to think of it, I do remember the envelope -- it was Chris Mills, right?

 

That may be so. And Oregon undoubtedly is better than USC at this moment.

USC fanboi? Hardly. But ask the average college football fans
in every state in the country who had the best program on the West Coast in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s and now, and the answer will overwhelmingly be USC.

It's perceived as the gold standard, and perception is reality. Even Paul Hackett, Larry Smith and Ted Tollner couldn't change that.

Same with Alabama in the SEC, even though it has not always been the SEC's best program, or with Michigan and Ohio State in the Big
Ten. Same as Kentucky in SEC hoops, even though it was clearly supplanted by Florida for a stage in the last decade.

 

Tht wasn't my point.

 

Correct. It was envelope stuffed with cash mailed directly from the UK basketball offices to Chris Mills--seriously, they didn't even try to hide the mailing address.

You are right, however, that three years earlier, in 85, the LHL published an acclaimed prize-winning investigation giving remarkable detail showing how UK had been blatantly paying players and cheating for years and years--yet, amazingly enough, the NCAA ignored all that. If they could get away with ignoring that, blowing off the evidence in this Oregon case should comparatively be kid stuff.

 

LSU +9.5. When's the last time LSU has gotten 9.5 points at home?
Clemson -13.5. Goddammit.
Ohio -16.5. Whatever.
Boise -13.5. Whatever.
U.Va. +9.5. Whatever.

 

Gerry DiNardo was probably involved ...