Does crime pay? How can the cops (NCAA) stop the burglars (OSU)?

Very informative.  It's interesting to see how much everyone has willingly forgotten.  It's simply amazing how much a program can benefit from cheating and getting caught.  Then lying over and over and over again about what they decided to do about it.  

.....makes a concerted effort to apply rules consistently and competently investigates reports of violations, you will always have...Ohio.

The NCAA does what member schools want them to do. They're the detective, not the cop on the beat. The schools want it that way.

The other way economists argue to deter crime is increase the chances of getting caught. However, as the NCAA surveillance is nonexistent and only waits for violations to fall in their lap, you were probably right to focus only on punishment.

with a 3-year bowl ban, 10, 15 and 20 schollies for each year. The way they've made token concessions about their transgressions (vacating the season, throwing vestie under the bus while claiming innocence) but continued along the same path (more suspensions and no dismissals of repeat offenders, talking up their compliance department, hiring a coach whose track record with similar problems makes Tress look like the Saint they believe him to be, allowing Tressel anywhere near the team - let alone before The Game, keeping the staff intact up to the AD) proves they really couldn't care less about the rules, they will continue to do business as they always have, and that the vindication of their protests of innocence was always a foregone conclusion.

Hell the NCAA could hit them with anything they want.

They won't though, they will give them nothing at all. Too much $$$ and tv ratings.

With just Failure to Monitor ever been denied a bowl game? I think OSU would be the first.

The problem with the NCAA is there is no consistency. Its so arbitrary and there are no real 'rules' about punishment. Look at how the punishment USC received will vary from that of Ohio. I, for one, believe money plays a huge part in all this. Ohio is a big name school, plays on the major sports network and brings in lots of money. Not to say USC isn't big time, but being on the West Coast I don't think they bring as much attention as Ohio.

FWIW, too, vacating wins is the biggest joke of a penalty. Damn right I still say UM hoops made the Final Four in 1993.

The NCAA will employ the same technique they used against Sparty: The Ostrich Method.

when almost every SEC school faced some kind of probation, same with the old Southwest Conference, even half the Pac 10 was on probation at one point.  There was SMU, TAM, Oklahoma

We haven't returned but it feels like a fast track to those days.

The metaphor of  burglars and cops is not really representative of what the NCAA and its members are all about.  Burglars and cops assumes a criminal law type of mindset between the two, with all the due process and other constitutional protections built in within the American justice system.

This is just not at all what the NCAA is empowered or supposed to be.  First, it is a voluntary member organization that has rules that are expected to be enforced by its member institutions.  The member institutuions are required to self report any violations and police themselves.  Next, the NCAA investigative bodies do not have state or federal prosecutorial subpoena powers, so they can't force anyone to testify by granting immunity.  This makes it easy to stonewall them.  Also, since it is not a criminal law type of investigation, their are no hard and fast standards of judgement and penalty.  The standard of proof does not exist, and the NCAA is free to be the jury, so to speak. 

What has happened is that the rules have been written to be interpreted as if they were law, so they have become very cumbersome and very nit picky about what is or is not a violation and thus they lead to things like people not being sure how to count stretching hours as practice time, for instance.   Note that if a major penalty is involved, it usually means that someone has broken a criminal law and the NCAA comes in to review all the investigative testimony and work done by a federal or state prosecutor such as was done with Chris Webber and Michigan and with Reggie Bush and USC.

A better metaphor would be a fox in the henhouse. 

The NCAA is a joke.  They clearly don't police or punish when an offender comes to light.  I have no confidence that the punishment of OSU will fit the crime.  Schools should be able to pay players.  While I don't want to see this personally, I'm sick of the games and at least the playing field would level out so the cheaters and schools in compliance are at least playing by the same rules. 

This is an interesting take, but one that I feel gets too far down the rabbit hole in terms of damages to others.  Yes, the handling of Tressel by OSU was stupendously poor, but at the same time I don't think most programs would have acted that differently, at least ones that are nationally prominent and (real or perceived) in the mix for MNCs consistently.  This is surely not a surprise to anyone or overly insightful, but the NCAA isn't really a police force as much as a funded partner of the academic institutions.  And within that partnership is a smaller subset called athletic departments, which interface between the two entities.  They largely control the information shared between the schools and the NCAA, and both employ relatively little oversight over the ADs because the other implicitly expects the other to keep an eye on their charges.  

If the partner institutions really wanted to address the recruiting, player payments, criminal obfuscation, etc. that goes on, then it needs to create an agency completely independent of the schools, one that receives set funds from the schools but otherwise is on an island.  Give this organization subpeona power, access to member institution's financials and logs, and real teeth in terms of enforcement.  It is probably a pipedream, but make it clear that the enforcement organization can and will come down on you if you screw up, and those sanctions will follow your coaches and administrators to their new institutions (the professional ranks are obviously beyond the scope of power, but hopefully some handshake agreements could be made).  Until that happens, you won't see schools in any sport really "worry" about the sanctions except from a PR perspective; some (like OSU and parts of the SEC) could care less as long as they win, while others (like UM) are more aware of how their brand would be harmed across disciplines because of the bad press and respond accordingly.

I still have a hard time believing they won't lose a bowl game. I feel like a bowl game is mandatory just because of the Sugar Bowl fiasco that the NCAA took a lot of heat for.

I suppose it wouldn't be inconceivable, seeing as how the NCAA already caved into them for the Sugar Bowl in the first place, but given that turned out to be a bad decision, I feel like a one year ban is likely, even if it only ends up being a retraction from this year's 6-6 bowl. If not, that just goes to show that the NCAA needs to go and OSU can get away with cheating, which is why its all the more important that we destroy them on the field to show that still isn't enough to beat Michigan.

The NCAA has no subpeona power, so it will always be hamstringed to even investigate misdeeds. The easiest and cheapest way to increase compliance is to incentivize whistleblowers and disincentivize cheaters (as you say).

1. If a school is found to have violated compliance rules and thus benefited from it in some way (bowl, TV revenue, etc). then the NCAA can simply instutite a whistleblower rule that awards a whilstelblower half of all money that a school earned during the non-compliance period. In OSU's case, Cicero could have been awarded the Fiesta Bowl money for coming forward with his inside knowledge, or the journalists who obtained the FOIA emails could have collected. In Penn State's case, the GA could have come forward after no action on Sandusky was taken, and recieved Penn State's Bowl money. After all, if you're going to committ career suicide, it helps when you get a multi-million dollar paycheck for it. Of course, with that kind of lettuce, I'd imagine Prior would have turned in his coach and department as door was hitting his ass on the way out.

2.  As for punishment, the best way to go is simply ruthlessly slash scholarships. Bowl bans are unfair to players who played by the rules, etc. The best thing to do is just to lay out a very clear-cut scholarship reduction list that corresponds to each type of infraction. Sort of like a minimum sentencing guidline. Also, for any program placed on probation, waive sit-out years for students who want to transfer OUT of the program. In OSU's case, the lying coach and players should have cost them 20 scholarships. For letting Posey get a summer job in violation of rules, whilst on probation, thus incurring a "failure to monitor" charge, another 40 scholarships. If they can make it to a bowl with a team of 24 scholarship players and 60 walk-ons, good for them. The side benefit is that it would truly return the program to one comprised of "student atheletes".

It seems every coach has some kind of incentive clauses in their contracts to boost their pay.  Hit them in the pocketbook by disallowing payment of any incentives for a period of time based on the severity.  Could you limit their ability to get money through endorsement deals, too?   I think if the coach feels it in their wallet, they might get interested in keeping things clean.  I don't think it's right to punish the players.  Do something similar to the AD.

I agree that stiff scholarship reductions would be helpful, too.  Let them try and win with walk ons.

Getting schools to agree to cough up bowl revenue or other $$ won't happen.  That can hurt sports that didn't cheat at the offending school since it will fall on the athletic department.