OT: NCAA Thinks It Has Found the Bagman On the Cam Newton Deal
A summary is here:
The NCAA thinks Newton was bought and paid for; it's all a matter of proving it now. Some amount of money went to Cecil Newton, while another amount went to Cecil's church. This money was handled by a "third party". The investigation has "revved up" since Chizik's outburst in Destin. The total amount is approximately $180-200K, with $20-30K having gone to the church.
http://www.teamspeedkills.com/2011/7/20/2285291/cam-newton-danny-sheridan-finebaum
Also, a link to the podcast of the discussion referenced is here:
http://podcasting.fia.net/6960/4807908.mp3
Chizik's outburst in Destin is described in the link below. Apparently this is old news, but it was news to me - Chizik challenged an NCAA rep at an SEC meeting a week ago, and she had an "oh, snap" response:
He peppered Roe Lach with a flurry of questions about the N.C.A.A.’s investigation into Cam Newton and why the N.C.A.A. had not publicly announced that the investigation was over. Chizik complained that the inquiry’s open-ended nature had hurt Auburn’s recruiting and he followed up at least three times, leading to a testy exchange.
“You’ll know when we’re finished,” Roe Lach told Chizik, according to several coaches who were at the meeting. “And we’re not finished.”
USC also has a lot of other things going their way. A school near LA with weather and ladies like that is always going to recruit well.
To an extent you're right, but UCLA is in a much better part of LA (it's basically in Bevery Hills whereas USC is in south central), closer to the beach, more girls and they play in the frickin Rose Bowl and they don't touch USC in recruiting. They recruit better than a team with their record for the last 10 years, but those things you mention only go so far.
reeling in elite recruits after recruits but they can't because they have been bad for so long that they're not looking at their way unlike USC with much worse location. All things equal without any consideration toward the football program, most would take UCLA.
Playing in the Rose Bowl is a huge negative for UCLA football. It's basically an hour drive away from campus, so it feels really disconnected and I think that has a lot to do with why there is not as much enthusiasm for football at UCLA.
Furthermore, USC has now surpassed UCLA (and Michigan!) in academic rankings. The California budget situation has hit UCLA hard while USC has been thriving financially.
USC passing either od those schools in academic rankings says more about the USNWR than the quality of the institutions.
I agree with that. It's the private school and small enrollment that bumps USC up, but it's a travesty it's in the same convo as UM or UCLA, let alone above them.
USC is not particularly small, with 18K undergraduates and 37K total students.
The reason their reputation has been rising is because they have been poaching high-level faculty from other institutions and pumping money into key research programs. Along with that their admissions standards have progressively gotten higher, going from a 32% acceptance rate 10 years ago to an all time low of 22.7% this year.
However, the smartest thing they have done is to hire michigan grads as faculty. ;)
That is all.
Gingerism right there!
Have you seen UM's current roster and incoming freshman class?
How's that for a plot twist?
Every time I see that hat I think of Saban...
dickhead.
That is what is required, as it makes it possible to get to the root of the issue and allows for the truth to come out. That might eventually be what colleges will be looking for from congress is law that somehow allows this.
I'll let our myriad legal experts on this blog comment about how that could be done or if it is even possible....
All the NCAA has to do is to put it in the agreement with members that it has the right to sue the school for breach of contract if it suspects (has reasonable grounds to believe) a violation has occurred. Every lawsuit enables the parties to subpoena witnesses.
Guessing there would have to be a civil lawsuit filed after changes were made in scholarship contracts which currently have myriad "rights" and responsibilities that both parties recognize and would require the athlete to testify. How would that handle issues like third parties (Cam Newton's father) that are not part of that contract?
I hope this explodes on their crooked SEC asses. There's still a lot of time until signing day, maybe this will put Zeke Pike back in play for us. Obviously a lot needs to happen for that, but you can bet if it blows up, Pike will be looking for a new school. Buckle up!
No thank's for $1,000 alex
This will finally force the NCAA to do shit about cheating. It doesn't look good if the National Champion bought the Heisman winner. Not to mention the runner up committed major violations too. Hopefully the culture of cheating can finally be eradicated. Though that'll be tough in the SEC
is gonna get got!
and 0 championships.
The NCAA has absolutely no power. Let the cheating continue. $cam Newton will be the one laughing at the end.
unless big-time college football truly instituted the same academic requirements that apply to their student bodies at large. Virtually all the problems revolve around academically marginal players who have no real interest in getting an education at the school they play for, which means they're looking for non-academic inducements to play at any particular school, whether it be playing time, bowl game appearances, free tattoos, pliable campus girls, or cash. When's the last time we found out that a player who was booted off a team for NCAA-related stuff, or general disciplinary or outright criminal reasons, turns out to be a solid student making good grades and progress toward a degree? To the contrary, if we find out anything about their academic standing, we learn they're crapping the bed.
This is nothing new, though; schools have been taking academically marginal kids since at least the early 1920s, and very probably before that. Rival coaches accused Fielding Yost of playing "ringers"—guys who weren't bona fide students—early in his career at Michigan. The problems may be more egregious now, but they're not a recent development. There's too much money at stake.
Don. The reality of it is that they will never be able to stamp out the problems completely. A lot of these kids, I assume, don't come to college looking for these perks, but when a teammate says, "yo, lets go get some free tats and test drive some cars we can't afford," most players won't turn that down. Their kids, and only 1/5 of them is going to be smart enough to reject something for free.
Example:
At Ball State University, the amount spent on books by each player wasn't monitored. We were only allowed to get books required by our professors, but there was no system to ensure that players wouldn't pick up three or four copies of the book in order to give them to friends. The books would have to be returned at the end of the semester, and it was one player who abused the system by selling said books to other students, who in turn failed to return them.
THIS is what happened. It hurt being suspended for a game against a Big Ten opponent, let me tell you that. But an example this small goes to show that no matter what, if kids can find a way to do it, they will, and they will think they are going to get away with it until they get caught.
I wonder if the solution is to get them in on the punishment. Prevent show claused coaches from being hired in the pros, at least for a short period of time. Prevent ineligible players from being taken in the first round or limit their signing bonus. No one is going to look the other way if it actually costs them their job. Cash hand shakes and free tats will be a lot less attractive if it can cost you a guaranteed contract and a 7 figure signing bonus.
that preventing someone from playing in the pros because they took cash in college would not be good for the NFL. Also, I think that it would be grounds for a lawsuit.
it too far.A character concern bylaw that restricts signing bonus/draft position would be tangible deterrent to a player that doesn't care about college without destroying his future. The way I see it,the probablity of any given player being taken near the top of the NFL draft is pretty low, but since your average 4 star high school player hasn't fully developed yet and thinks the world of himself, he wouldn't take impropper benifits at the chance of ruining a top 10 pick payday 3 years down the road. The odds of the rule ever being exercised are pretty low, but should still be effective.
editted due to Iphone cut off
But what's the NFL's incentive (and what does the NFLPA have to say)? If I'm an NFL GM, I don't care about Pryor's dumbass tattoos, I'm more concerned with his blocking ability when my first-string TE gets hurt.
Edit: especially when a top ten pick is probably responsible for an extra game or two in his first two or three seasons. Why would I risk a playoff spot? Plus it rewards teams that draft immediately following the ban.
Fantastic bit of journalism here - http://outkickthecoverage.com/i-hate-the-sec.php.
Unless, of course, you do not hate the SEC. Living for the past 4 years in the South, I understand this article through and through. It's absolutely spot on.
I cannot post a new board, so threw the link out there where I felt relevant. Someone want to pass it along, feel free.