Shockingly, the story isn't even in the top 5 stories on ESPN's NCAAF main page.  It doesn't upset me that they cheat.  It doesn't even upset me that the NCAA doesn't punish them.  What does upset me is that the "news reporters" don't even consider it big news when the SEC is found to be paying players.  They ignored the news about Bama paying players a couple weeks ago the exact same way.  Do your f-ing job.

Just another reason to cut the BS and pay players.

stands for "Some Extra Cash?"

I think that rule is dumb.  I mean, < $500?

That said, rules were broken, I assume the NCAA will properly punish... oh, what am I saying, I can't keep a straight face.

Allow me to place my tinfoil hat firmly upon my head. Okay, ready:

If you were running a program in which players were getting paid serious cash, whether from boosters, coaches, agents, or the Honorable Robert J Bentley himself, what would you do to lower the suspicions of outsiders? I think you'd actually WANT to get "caught" for a very minor violation with a very small sum of money, given to a player in a context different from your normal payment scheme, every now and then. Especially if it were something stupid, like "I took a small loan from a coach and paid him back later." That way, you can talk tough, suspend a player, get some quotes in the media about how "we're disappointed, and will work to make sure this never happens again." You give people the expectation that, yeah, there's a small problem here and we know that, but we're working to clean it up. This keeps people from digging as hard to find the true, massive extent of it, because they think they already know what your dirty laundry is. Our favorite pastor from Duluth made an excellent point yesterday about how you know at stereoid use is actually worse in the NBA than in the NFL, because in the NBA, no one ever gets caught. The NFL takes the position "we know it happens a litte, and we're working to correct it," which makes it seem like stereoid use is limited to a few individuals, and not a systemic issue. Whereas the NBA's total lack of real enforcement suggests that EVERYONE is using. If I'm the NBA, what I want to do to make it seem less like a massive cover-up is let a few people get caught, yell at them, and make it appear that it's just a few bad apples and you're working to weed them out. And if I'm a conspiracy theorist, I might say Alabama is doing exactly that, more or less to throw us off the scent.

/removes tinfoil hat

That said, Alabama is one of the few schools that actually doesn't "need" to pay players right now to be competitive. Not saying they do or don't, but right now Alabama has enough recruiting cachet that throwing a few $$ here or there is probably not that important for them. It's the Old Miss's of the world where the "need" to cheat is greater, because they can't compete with Alabama for recruits on a level playing field.

Probably needed the cash to get the 6 decal installed.