How bad is this for Oregon?

One thing that drives me nuts with this whole thing is the "steering of players to schools."

Don't these kids, and their parent(s), have a head on their shoulders? They can't make the decisions for themselves?

 

As with the Ohio State mess, nobody should be surprised at the depth and breadth of cheating in big-time football these days ... least of all the journalists who cover these teams.

I'm mostly just surprised that Kelly and other officials within the Oregon athletic department were dumb enough to leave a paper trail of their dealings with Lyles. The handwritten note from Kelly thanking Lyles for facilitating the recruits' visits will be especially damning when the NCAA determines that Lyles was indeed on the Ducks' payroll and had no business interacting on such an intimate level with recruits.

I'm also shocked that the Oregon people were so quick to hang Lyles out to dry when the crap started to hit the fan. When you know there's somebody out there that knows all your secrets, it's a risky move to give that person any reason at all to spill the beans.

Considering what Oregon had already done, why not cover your ass and get the guy another $25,000 under the table to buy his silence? That kind of cash isn't even tip money for Knight.

 

John Canzano had a good lead the other day that shows the depth of the denial and obfuscation.

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/john_canzano/index.ssf/2011/07/canzano_chip_kelly_loses_his_f.html

I spoke with University of Oregon football coach Chip Kelly in early March, amid reports that a Texas man named Willie Lyles was involved in a recruiting scandal that could bring down the Ducks program.

Kelly told me he didn't know who Willie Lyles was.

I believed him.

That same evening, a Yahoo Sports story reported that Lyles was paid $25,000 by Oregon. So I texted Kelly, asking him why he lied to me, and we ended up on the telephone, where Kelly insisted I'd confused him by asking about "Willie Lyles." He said, "around here, we call him 'Will.' We've already distanced ourselves from him, trust me."

Sounds pretty Tressel-like.

 

The headline on Canzano's column is too soft. It should read, ''Kelly loses ALL credibility."

 

Here's what's really frustrating for me, as I read all of this:

All sorts of writers are tweeting about what a great job Yahoo did, and what a problem Oregon has. Canzano says the Yahoo piece is a "kill shot."

And not one ever says why the Yahoo piece is so damning. Either (a) they think it's obvious, or (b) they don't actually know the NCAA regulations that would govern this, so they say it's a bombshell and Oregon is screwed but carefully avoid specifically why Oregon is screwed. I'm betting on (b).

Yes, it looks very shady. Yes, Chip Kelly looks like an asshole lying to Canzano. But... is paying $25k to Lyles an NCAA violation? No one actually says that it is, and I don't know. If it isn't, I don't much care that Kelly approved the payment, which seems to be the headline nugget from the Yahoo piece.

 

If Lyles is acting on behalf of the players, which certainly seems to be the case based on the Yahoo story and other available information, then yes it is very clearly a violation and a major one, worse than the Cam Newton affair because Lyles can't even claim a family connection as the reason he would be having all these conversations. There is a lot of defense too around the fact that he was running a scouting service like many others. But he wasn't running a scouting service -- he just said that after the fact, and Oregon was his first and only "client" and didn't actually receive any goods for the payment.

You seem to be trying to understand the issue and I don't mean to attack you personally, but the Oregon fan base as a whole has been embarrassing itself all over the Internet by trying to explain this stuff away.

 

"Acting on behalf of the players" is kind of tricky, though, isn't it? I haven't seen anything suggesting he was funneling the money to the players, which would be a blatant violation.

Two things seem clear to me, based on the article. Oregon was paying Lyles for something other than scouting, while pretending it was strictly for scouting. Also, Lyles was extremely active in helping these players navigate their way to eligibility.

So... if Oregon was paying Lyles as some kind of independent contractor, helping the students become eligible and steering them to Oregon, is that a violation? The Yahoo article says the NCAA could conclude Lyles was working on Oregon's behalf, but never actually says what the ramifications of that would be -- if any. (One thing that's interesting, too -- Lyles was helping LaMichael James during a previous Oregon administration. Kelly was still at New Hampshire.)

So, yeah, LTL, I'm just trying to get a handle on what the allegations are, and why this Yahoo piece is so damning. Oregon is certainly acting like it has plenty to hide, but so far I'm not getting a clear picture of what exactly is at issue here.

I'd obviously love to think my alma mater is above this sort of thing, but I'm not foolish -- it's a D1 program with big piles of booster money to burn. Sooner or later bad things are going to happen. Besides, they've done enough sleazy-but-legal things over the past few years that nothing here is going to surprise me. Still, it just seems to me that for a "kill shot" for Oregon football, that Yahoo piece was fairly short on clearly damning evidence.

 

The problem is Lyles seems to be acting as a broker, trying to serve both players and colleges.
I'm curious about other source of income for people like Lyles. I've got to believe he's living on more than just the $25k he got from Oregon.

 

From the NCAA D1 Manual

13.14.3 recruiting or scouting services. An institution may subscribe to a recruiting or scouting service involving prospective student-athletes, provided the institution does not purchase more than one annual
subscription to a particular service and the service: (Adopted: 1/1/02, Revised: 1/16/10)
(a) Is made available to all institutions desiring to subscribe and at the same fee rate for all subscribers;
(b) Publicly identifies all applicable rates;
(c) Disseminates information (e.g., reports, profiles) about prospective student-athletes at least four times per
calendar year;
(d) Publicly identifies the geographical scope of the service (e.g., local, regional, national) and reflects broad-based
coverage of the geographical area in the information it disseminates;
(e) Provides individual analysis beyond demographic information or rankings for each prospective student-athlete in the information it disseminates; (Revised: 4/13/10)
(f) Provides access to samples or previews of the information it disseminates before purchase of a subscription;
and
(g) Provides video that is restricted to regularly scheduled (regular-season) high school, preparatory school or
two-year college contests and for which the institution made no prior arrangements for recording. (Note: This
provision is applicable only if the subscription includes video services.)
13.14.3.1 Effect of Violation. Violations of Bylaw 13.14.3 and its subsections shall be considered institutional violations per Constitution 2.8.1; however, such violations shall not affect the prospective student-athlete’s
eligibility. (Adopted: 8/5/04)

 

Unless Oregon was funneling money to players thru this guy this is the NCAA equivalent of a parking ticket.

Academic fraud and institutionalized payment of players will get you drilled. Stuff like this gets you docked a few scholarships.

 

"Being docked a few scholarships" constitutes a major violation, and some form of probation.

And if UO is put on probation for a major recruiting violation, it will be for the second time this century this has happened. The assistant coach who recruited the players in question (Gary Campbell) was busted for forging an LOI. The NCAA does not look kindly on repeat violators.

It's pretty clear the $25 K did not go for legitimate recruiting information and that Lyles acted as an agent and booster on UO's behalf, if not to directly steer players to Eugene, then to at least present UO as an alternative school to athletes who might not otherwise even know where Oregon is. There is ample evidence, through files of texts and phone calls, that there was a relationship between the UO coaching staff and Lyles that supersedes a normal business relationship between a school and recruiting service.

And there is a reason many of the local schools recruiting the athletes in question dropped their recruitment once Lyles was known to be involved.

 

Jeez, Campbell's been there forever. He was coaching when I was in school, and that was a hell of a long time ago. I guess the "I'm new and didn't know any better" defense is probably off the table.