Penn State Punishment

Too harsh? Not harsh enough? Being that the Nittany Lions program was squeaky clean apart from this obscenely horrific situation, the NCAA apparently took the death penalty off the table.  And that is fine.  Shutting down the program would not have solved anything and the situation is rather unique--no, not that there are not other Sanduskys running around because sadly there are but that the era of a head coach being that entrenched to the point of everyone covering up a series of crimes to protect his and a program's reputation is over--so that you cannot use the punishment to dissuade others.  If Miami did continue to cheat after the NCAA stepped in a couple of years ago then they should be hammered to not only punish them but to make others notice.  That applies here only in the sense that the college football landscape needs to change a bit to respect its place in a larger society.  But of course that point can be made in terms of something horrific like child abuse but we tend to not notice the lack of commitment by programs jumping ship from their conferences or players being bought and sold in recruiting.  It is a mixed message and at times confusing.
As for Penn State, I firmly believe that they will emerge from this situation a healthier program as long as they continue to do all of the right things the program did for longer than Paterno's time in State College.  Recruit good kids who play hard and the wins will follow.  With the school now humbled they can focus on good play and a rebuilding of their reputation.  They remain the king in a state known for football and can rebound the way Alabama did after nearly being shut down themselves a decade ago.  The problem may be that we have not heard the end of this case.

View From Bennett Avenue

The state of big-time college football is precarious these days, with a number of high profile programs keeping the NCAA investigative arm busy. Just take a look at the schools who reached the BCS Title Game in recent years. Both Oregon and Auburn are facing investigations, there is video evidence of illegal contact between players from the previous year's winner, Alabama, and a booster, Ohio State, loser in January of 2006 and 2007, will soon find out the severity of their punishment for numerous violations, LSU, winner in January of 2004 and 2008, was just placed on probation for recruiting violations and, of course, USC, winner in January of 2005 and loser in 2006, had their championship from the 2004 season stripped among other levels of punishment.
Is it impossible to compete for national titles without cheating? Recent champions Texas, Florida and Oklahoma beg to differ, although Oklahoma was nailed in a phony-jobs-for-players scheme in 2005 and was tainted last year by allegations against former head coach John Blake that he may have paid for players for both recent employer North Carolina and former employer...Oklahoma.
Another disturbing aspect of this situation is that once there is an impression that a major program is cheating and possibly getting away with it, others are encouraged to do the same. That appears to be the case with Auburn as their possible pay-for-Cam scheme may have been the result of a perception that rival Alabama and coach Nick Saban get away with violations. I would love to be able to ask a behind-the-scenes power at Oregon whether the NCAA's inability to immediately punish USC encouraged the Ducks to get into bed with unsavory types like Will Lyles.
The good news is that punishments are being handed out. Allowing Auburn to compete for a national championship last year was ridiculous, but opefully they will pay for it. Just clean up this mess, please.

Cam Newton-Again

The stakes are certainly high regarding the eligibility of Cam Newton. Auburn is undefeated and would not be undefeated without Newton. They still have to play Alabama in the Iron Bowl, South Carolina in a rematch for the SEC title and X in a bowl game, possibly the BCS championship game. Newton is also a favorite for the Heisman Trophy.
The NCAA is supposedly putting this issue on the front burner. But based on what we have seen in the past, it will be hard to expect any resolution to this controversy before the Alabama game. And, let's be clear, if the NCAA had punished Southern Cal in a more timely fashion for the benefits received by Reggie Bush, it is very possible that the Newtons would not have tried to sell Cam's services (if in fact they did) nor would Auburn or its boosters paid cash for a player (if in fact they did).
Remember if the Newtons did try to sell Cam to Mississippi State, he can be ruled ineligible for Auburn even if they did not pay him. And, of course, if there is proof that Auburn has paid the guy then this whole season goes up in smoke. And if e was paid then the NCAA must act swiftly to punish the Tigers. Severely.

Got Those Reggie Bush Blues

Did anyone see this coming? Fans of the University of Southern California were expecting a slap on the wrist. Fans of everyone else feared a slap on the wrist. There was talk of how the legal team at USC was running rings around the NCAA. After all, if the NCAA had something on the Trojans for actions taking place years ago, something would have been decided long ago.

Or so the story went. Even when head coach Pete Carroll seemed to be jumping ship by taking the Seattle Seahawks head job just a few weeks after the 2009 season ended, the apologists chalked it up to Carroll getting a situation in the pros that he could not refuse. What did he have to prove in the college ranks? And why would Lane Kiffen leave the head job at Tennessee if he thought that the sky would fall on Troy.

But now the sky seems to have fallen. And being that Kiffen was around during the glory days, there is something appropriate about his holding the bag. And for those worried about the current USC players paying for past sins, well they did sign on with a program that was under investigation and some of the signees were attracted to the glamorous life of a Trojan football player--a life built, somewhat, on lies.

Which brings us back to Carroll. In looking at some of the posts by USC fans today on various sites, Bush seems to be getting the lion's share of vitriol. but the responsibility for this problem lays at the feet of Carroll, his coaching staff, athletic director Mike Garrett, the behind scenes powers that be and multiple men who have held the job of school president. To return to glory a decade ago the school decided that they would do anything to build a winner. Included in the design was the acquisition of the best possible talent. And so Carroll and his boys rounded up some impressive recruiting classes using whatever means necessary. Along the way Carroll established a laissez faire approach to running a program reminiscent of Oklahoma in the 1980s or Miami in the '80s and '90s. But like those two programs you can only go so far before you crash and burn. I hope the Trojans brought a fire extinguisher. So if you are going to surround yourself with the type of player attracted to wine, women and song, well you really cannot complain if some of those players took care of themselves beyond what is legal.

More to follow tomorrow.

Angst in Ann Arbor

Michigan has slapped themselves on the wrist for violations stemming from extra practice time and, as importantly, the failure of their compliance people to protect its athletes (by complying with NCAA rules). Michigan is trying to shape the view of what they did wrong by making these recommendations for their punishment in advance of their meeting with the NCAA on the matter in August. They even let a grad assistant walk the plank, ie, get fired, for lying to the NCAA, which as we know from the Dez Bryant situation is about as bad as it gets in the NCAA's eyes. And new athletic director David Brandon stressed three things during his announcement: that Michigan has always been clean so the embarrassment of these sanctions is worse than any real penalty, that coach Rich Rodriguez may have made some mistakes but does not fail to promote an atmosphere of compliance as charged by the NCAA and that the penalties should not be worse because Michigan did not get a competitive advantage from these wrongdoings.

Where do I begin to poke holes in all of this Michigan logic? Before I begin let me say that the Wolverines really did not do anything too bad and should not be overly punished, especially with all of us still waiting for some shoe to fall in the USC case. But, the problem folks from the Big Ten have with Michigan is their arrogance, and this press conference reaked of it. Let's touch on Brandon's three points to see how this is so. First of all, stretching back to the history of Michigan football to show how squeaky clean you are is a bit disengenous as no one was getting caught back in those beginning 50 years or so and Michigan was as bad as any other power when it came to paying players (see Heston, Willie of the juggernaut teams of 110 years ago). And why cheat when the referees bend over backward for you? Overall, however, Michigan has done well in regards to rule breaking and deserves credit for it, but that should not effect how the NCAA views this situation--unless of course Rich Rodriguez has been coaching Michigan for 95 years. In other words Rodriguez should not get a pass because Bennie Oosterbaan and Bo Schembechler ran clean programs. Secondly, Rodriguez is not winning and these violations are the type that come from desperate times. Brandon has to protect him regarding the overall atmosphere of compliance because that is where the big penalties will come if the NCAA finds him guilty here. Brandon even went so far as taking full responsibility for the problem despite the fact that he was running Domino's Pizza at the time of the violations. So staffer Alex Herron was fired for lying about his involvement while Rodriguez gets to keep his job--for now. As soon as the NCAA does judge this matter, his clock will be ticking unless he goes 12-0 and that's not happening. Lastly, to claim that they should not get punished too bad because they stunk is funny. He has a point, but that is not how punishment works. If you cheated, and they admit to a lot of it, then you should get punished for it whether you win three games or nine. How can you say that practicing more than your opposition was not an attempt to gain an advantage?

So Michigan deserves whatever they get this August for hiring Rodriguez. It has been less than four years since they won the first 11 games of the 2006 season and were playing Ohio State for a spot in the BCS Title game, but that seems like a lifetime ago. They will get the magic back at Michigan--and Brandon was a backup player during the early 1970s when they aimed for perfection on an annual basis--but it will be a few years before they can return to power. And that will only be with a worthy replacement to Rodriguez.