OT: Oregon Rumors

Submitted by artds on

Various message boards and the twitters are blowing up with rumors of impending NCAA penalties. Scholarship reductions, possible bowl ban.

Rumors beginning to circulate that #Oregon could get whacked very hard by NCAA within the week ... worse than many expect - Rich Cirminiello

Sources telling me #Oregon could face scholarship redux and bowl ban ... also key current players under investigation -- Rich Cirminiello

Also, there's this:

https://twitter.com/SportsBrewery/status/235495381503463425/photo/1/lar…

 

 

joeyb

August 14th, 2012 at 9:50 PM ^

They were using a loophole. They pay the guy for "scouting players". He takes a particular interest in said players. He gives money to the family of said players. Said players decide on their own to go to Oregon. It didn't matter that there was a paper trail until they realized that they had nothing to prove that they were paying him for "scouting players". If they had even the least believable set of data on recent recruits they would have got off with a slap on the wrist. Instead, they were caught with year old reports and they get F'd in the A.

go16blue

August 14th, 2012 at 8:50 PM ^

 

That would be completely absurd. The NCAA just hit Central Florida with only a one year bowl ban for school officials literally having cash payments made to recruits, so unless they want to usher in a "new era" of punishments by hitting Oregon extra hard I just cant see it happening.

Then again, the NCAA is completely ridiculous and inconsistent when it comes to punishments, so this could very well end up happening.

MichiganTeacher

August 14th, 2012 at 8:55 PM ^

I heartily agree with both paragraphs. I feel like the NCAA is insulting its public, saying Nyah Nyah Nyah we're the only game in town so watch how stupid we can be and you all have to take it. Only question is I can't decide who's the worst, FIFA, IOC, or NCAA.

In reply to by MichiganTeacher

maizenbluenc

August 15th, 2012 at 7:42 AM ^

rythmic gymnastics is an international "sport", and baseball is not an "international" sport, and perverses scoring boxing and now apparently wrestling gets my top vote.

superstringer

August 15th, 2012 at 9:29 AM ^

IIRC, the decision to de-Olympicize baseball was not the work of the IOC, but MLB and its international bretheren.  Basically, all the Olympic-caliber players are fully engrossed in the MLB season during Olympic games (which are held anywhere from July through September).  MLB didn't want to take a break for 2-3 weeks, as NHL does during winter olympics.  So deprived of its best players, Olympic baseball was sort of a joke.  If MLB had agreed to "play ball" (pun very intended), it would still be an Olympic sport.

* not so fast my friend (w/ eraser of pencil held upright by pinched fingers)

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

August 15th, 2012 at 11:42 AM ^

That's a big part of it. But softball was included in the decision as well, and was dropped partly because the IOC thought the Americans were too dominant.  Naturally, the IOC sees no problem at all with table tennis.

In other words, my position in the debate is: fuck the IOC.  In the "inept, corrupt assholes" competition between the NCAA, IOC and FIFA, the NCAA takes a deep and distant third.

M-Wolverine

August 15th, 2012 at 12:24 PM ^

When the IOC is going to dump badminton, since the Chinese swept all the gold medals in all those events. Because there's a sport that's big in Eastern Asian countries, and not really that much anywhere else, which is no more or less than the Japanese, and Western Hemisphere love of say, baseball. 

Yeoman

August 15th, 2012 at 1:20 PM ^

Table tennis is played pretty much everywhere. The Chinese and Koreans may dominate at the highest level but can there be any doubt that it's an international game? Pretty much everyone I knew growing up had a table and played at some admittedly very crappy level. It's possible that more people in the world have played a game of table tennis than have played any other sport (well, maybe soccer? and of course not counting the I'll-race-you-that-stick version of track and field).

Softball, on the other hand, is played nowhere else, and the Olympics consisted of teams of Americans playing against teams of Americans that happened to have other citizenship. As an Olympic sport it made as much sense as Australian-rules football or hurling or rounders.

M-Wolverine

August 15th, 2012 at 1:44 PM ^

But it doesn't mean it's played competitively.  I played checkers as a kid...doesn't mean I aspired to be a pro someday.

Softball, on the other hand, is played in over 124 countries around the world. I don't know if it's more or less, (though I'm guessing probably more than trampoline), it's beside the point. As soon as you start rating sports by whether they're "legitimate" or "popular", you're at a point where about have the Olympic events should be cut.  Because they're just excuses for more medals for more countries in made up competitions.  Cut it back to the "higher, faster, stronger."  But if you really want to be inclusive, you shouldn't only exclude the ones where the countries you don't like excel.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

August 15th, 2012 at 3:19 PM ^

Table tennis is played pretty much everywhere. The Chinese and Koreans may dominate at the highest level but can there be any doubt that it's an international game? Pretty much everyone I knew growing up had a table and played at some admittedly very crappy level.

Might as well have billiards and pool by that logic.  There are plenty of countries, though, that play softball and baseball - it's really no less widespread than basketball.  Neither is it true that the players are Americans with other citizenship.  Many of them came to the US to attend college, sure, but they're still legitimately of other nationalities, not along the lines of say Italy that uses Americans of Italian lineage to fill its baseball, hockey, and basketball teams.  The Japanese softball team was legitimately Japanese, the Australians were legitimately Australian, and so on.  Softball and baseball are just as much international games as basketball and hockey.

Yeoman

August 15th, 2012 at 3:54 PM ^

After Japan and Australia there is no "and so on," and while the Australian team might have been "legitimately Australian" students in the US they didn't come here already playing softball.

There is no comparison between the spread of basketball and softball. None. I have seen basketball played on the street nearly everywhere I've ever been except for the UK and as an American I've almost invariably been asked if I play and invited to a game. Michael Jordan was at one time the second most famous person in the world, second only to the Pope.

I don't think I've ever met a single person outside North America who has ever heard of softball, unless they manage to remember it as that sport no one plays that got into the Olympics somehow. (I'll admit never having been to Japan or Korea though.)

It is, of course, played "throughout the world" on US military bases. That hasn't created a lot of local interest (honestly, try to find a softball diamond in Europe or Africa not on or next to a US army base) and doesn't make it the kind of international sport that belongs in an Olympics.

Bombadil

August 15th, 2012 at 7:59 AM ^

I guess it's been several years since I've been around PDX radio. I sometimes listen to Primetime online and I remember last year Suke actually talked about sanctions being highly probable. They must have new info and changed their story.

LB

August 14th, 2012 at 10:28 PM ^

by cheating? Is it unreasonable to think that having an unfair advantage made him look better on game-day than he actually was? Was the moat around ohio patrolled by dragons, or were the denizens kept inside with "advantages"? He stained his legacy.

JimBobTressel

August 14th, 2012 at 8:57 PM ^

At this point it's like...just cross your fingers that the NCAA doesn't catch you on a bad day for them. UNC got them on a good day. PSU did not.

turd ferguson

August 14th, 2012 at 9:29 PM ^

Maybe the appearance of insanity is their deterrence strategy. Do something wrong, no matter how major or minor, and you have no idea whether you'll lose a scholarship or get a 45 year bowl ban. They're just that crazy.

dennisblundon

August 14th, 2012 at 8:59 PM ^

As long as they didn't shower with anybody, the NCAA will do nothing. This is because there will be no trial for which the NCAA can actually obtain evidence. Is it me or do they do some of the worst detective work in the free world?