The NCAA has changed.
The NCAA started off this year by slamming USC with sanctions. All due to Reggie Bush, a player who hasn't played college football since 2005. USC was put on four years of probation as well as being forced to vacate wins from 2004 and 2005. Although these penalties were harsh, they were unsurprising. Reggie Bush was guilty and the NCAA was going to come down on USC eventually. Just ask Pete Carroll…oh wait you can't, he ran to Seattle. In September, the NCAA suspended Georgia star wide receiver, A.J. Green. The NCAA had never been afraid to suspend even a star player. They came down on Alabama and UNC with equal gusto.
Then in November, Mark Emmert was made the new president of the NCAA. In a matter of days, the NCAA was forever changed. During Emmert's short stint as president, we have seen the NCAA back down on case after case. Cam Newton's father, Cecil, admitted that he approached Mississippi State for money and it earned Cam Newton a full 12 hours of ineligibility. Almost as soon as this was over, it was discovered that Terrell Pryor and 4 other Ohio State players had received illegal benefits valued well over the amount that A.J. Green had received. The players were suspended for the first 5 games of the 2011 season, but allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl.
The difference in the actions of the NCAA between the start of the 2010 season and the conclusion is striking. Looking at what changed within the NCAA during that time period, you are left with one answer. Mark Emmert, a former president of Washington University and Chancellor of LSU, is a well-known sports enthusiast. He believes that big sports money is critical to the mission of a university. He is also a college football fan, his favorite team being Ohio State. Emmert has changed the way the NCAA is going to do business. The money and public opinion of college athletics are now going to play a role in the decision making process of the NCAA. In a few short months, the NCAA has gone from regulatory body to arm of the BCS and power conferences. The SEC is the top dog in college football.
The SEC is the most powerful conference in college football. The SEC has amassed 5 straight BCS bowl championships, asserting its dominance over the sport. It destroyed the Big Ten on January 1st—beating them in five separate bowl games. It is starting to look like the SEC championship, not the BCS championship, is the more prestigious honor. After all, even if a team from another conference were able to win a BCS championship, they never would have played the schedule the SEC teams did to get there.
But, is this dominance a good thing for college football? College football thrives in the South. Without any NFL teams to speak of until the last 20 years, college football took center stage in the South. Traditions were born that created lifelong fans as committed to their college teams as any Packers or Steelers fan is to theirs. The rest of the country doesn't share this devotion. Sure, there are plenty of diehard Notre Dame and USC fans, but what about the Oregon States and Minnesotas of the world? Can you honestly say that Minnesota has the same kind of following as South Carolina has? No, of course not.
Don't get us wrong, college football has never been more popular. But, if the SEC continues to dominate, will college football continue to draw new fans from the rest of the country? The SEC dominance could have the effect of cooling the rest of the country on college football.
Mike Slive didn't, and isn't going to clean up the SEC.
When Mike Slive became SEC commissioner, he promised to clean up the conference. He went so far as to predict that in five years, no SEC teams would be on probation. It hasn't worked out. So far, all we have seen from Slive is a man on a mission to make money. He is constantly looking the other way if an offense would affect the bottom line of the conference. Mike Slive could have ended the whole Cam Newton fiasco by using by using this SEC bylaw:
“If at any time before or after matriculation in a member institution a student-athlete or any member of his/her family receives or agrees to receive, directly or indirectly, any aid or assistance beyond or in addition to that permitted by the Bylaws of this Conference (except such aid or assistance as such student-athlete may receive from those persons on whom the student is naturally or legally dependent for support), such student- athlete shall be ineligible for competition in any intercollegiate sport within the Conference for the remainder of his/her college career.”
When Cecil admitted he had told Mississippi State it would take $180,000 to get Cam, he was making that agreement. Mike Slive argued that, in fact, no agreement was reached and that it was okay that Cecil asked because that didn't imply that he would have taken the money. According to Slive, asking for money doesn't fulfill the requirements for making an agreement. What would Cecil have had to do, sign a contract? If this rule doesn't apply here, where does it apply? And what is the point of the rule? The argument is extremely weak. Only Slive and a handful of others actually believe it. The truth is that Slive didn't want to ruin the SEC's only undefeated team left. He wanted another title for the SEC. He wanted the cash. Mike Slives response to all criticism is priceless. Slive said, "The ones who want to be critical of the SEC found things they can talk about this year. When you’re successful and having the kind of success we’ve had and the kind of distribution we have around the country, when things happen that aren't in our best interest, we all hear about it." Sure Mike, it's that everyone is jealous. Haters just gonna hater right?
The rich will get richer.
Jim Delany was extremely critical of the Cam Newton decision, decrying it as a travesty. But, when suspensions threatened to affect his conference's bowl money, he was quiet as a mouse. The BCS and the major conferences are run by the biggest schools that have the most money. Everything they do, from shooting down a playoff system to making sure only teams out of a title hunt get in trouble, is all to protect the big boys. The major conferences and big schools are making millions of dollars. To expect them to do anything that would in any way endanger that is foolish.
We aren't going to get a playoff anytime soon.
On the issue of a college football playoff, Jim Dellany said, “All I’m saying is if you think you can continue to pressure the system and it will just naturally provide more and more and more, I don’t think that’s an assumption our presidents, our ADs, our football coaches and our commissioners are necessarily going to agree with.” Delany added, “I’m just saying we’ve got fatigue of defending a system that’s under a lot of pressure.” In other words, Jim is sick of talking about a playoff. He doesn't care if it would be good or bad for college football; he thinks it would be bad for the Big Ten. And that is all that is important to him. He is probably right considering how other conferences regularly beat the stew out of Big Ten teams. Mark Cuban announced his plan to create a college football playoff. It is a complicated system of mid-season games that change according to a team’s standing in the BCS. It is creative and different and also way too complicated. If we get a playoff, it needs to be on the end of the season. This isn't NASCAR.
Wagging the dog is still popular.
“Over signing, over signing, over signing,” is all we have heard this past month. It was the big talk of recruiting season. But why was it? Sure, we can all agree that something about the recruiting process needs to change. It is becoming a circus, but with everything else going on in college football, why is this the most pressing problem? All of the topics that could be discussed and reported on and this is what we are worried about? Over signing is not a major problem. The numbers of kids affected by it compared to the number who don't become academically eligible are not that different. If it is a great evil, a simple rule change could end it for all time.
So, why is it the popular talk? Because scandal sells. And too many of the recent scandals, involving money and the heads of college football, were hitting to close to home. The solution: create a new scandal and evil for folks to focus on until they have forgotten about all the other dirty stuff going on.
The bottom line:
Peer Pressure, Peer Pressure
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