Semi-OT: NCAA hits Missouri football with postseason ban
Probably could do with a better title, but I am a bit nonplussed at the moment.
TL;DR version: Missouri was punished for basically the same thing North Carolina got away with (Academic Fraud mostly).
“A former University of Missouri, Columbia, tutor violated NCAA ethical conduct, academic misconduct and academic extra benefits rules when she completed academic work for 12 student-athletes, according to a Division I Committee on Infractions panel,”
Granted, I don't mind that an SEC team is taking a hit, but the double standards are staggering.
A "Blue Blood" basketball school gets away with it, while a lower-tier SEC team gets punished.
The Mizzou case seems to be mostly centered around one tutor, while the NC scandal was institutional.
The seeming randomness of NCAA rules enforcement continues.
I am at a loss right now.
January 31st, 2019 at 1:59 PM ^
They were so mad at North Carolina that they had to hit Missouri?!
Oh, and Kelly Bryant can immediately transfer again. SMH.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:05 PM ^
Yep @umbig11,
I probably should have included that tidbit in the OP.
Maybe Bryant should go to OSU in case Fields isn't eligible this ye....
I couldn't even finish that because we KNOW the NCAA will make Fields eligible.
#BecauseNCAA
January 31st, 2019 at 2:16 PM ^
For now at least, Kelly Bryant might stay according to this unknown source. We'll see if it sticks.
https://www.thestate.com/sports/college/football/article225348765.html
January 31st, 2019 at 3:01 PM ^
247 linked article indicates thar Bryant may not transfer again. One grad transfer is the limit.
January 31st, 2019 at 3:43 PM ^
Thanks! There was word that the NCAA might waive that rule in light of the sanctions.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:02 PM ^
Trying to understand why they NCAA does what it does is never going to make senes. One thing for sure is the bigger the school, the lower the probability is that they are going to have something happen to them. Doesnt matter the size of the infraction they aren’t going to take money out of their own pockets by banning a school that makes them a lot of money.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:46 PM ^
Unless we're the bigger school.....
January 31st, 2019 at 2:47 PM ^
Unless it's stretching too much. That would be too dangerous to let slide.
Won't someone think of the children?!?
January 31st, 2019 at 2:47 PM ^
Unless it's stretching too much. That would be too dangerous to let slide.
Won't someone think of the children?!?
January 31st, 2019 at 3:04 PM ^
Assuming the OP's facts are correct, this is a textbook example of arbitrary and capricious enforcement of rules. I get that the NCAA is a private organization but it is impossible to operate a major college athletic operation without them. So, if I were Missouri (and in this case boy do I wish I were) I would slap a huge lawsuit on the NCAA for operating a cartel.
January 31st, 2019 at 4:12 PM ^
That's the thing though. We really don't need the NCAA for football. They could easily be removed from the process. Other sports not as much, but they are useless for football.
January 31st, 2019 at 4:40 PM ^
The first college to put out a gofundme for a lawsuit against the NCAA is going to get a record contribution
January 31st, 2019 at 5:27 PM ^
Mizzou deserved its punishments.
However, the tutor got a ten-year show cause penalty (!). For doing what she was instructed, basically. And then being the whistleblower.
So, what the NCAA has basically done is given a very clear signal: If you blow the whistle on bad conduct at your school, they'll get a slap on the wrist, and we'll take away your livelihood.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:02 PM ^
If I recall correctly UNC got away with it because non-athletes were benefitting from the same b.s. classes. Which in my opinion only made their scandal worse.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:09 PM ^
That's correct. So if I give non-athletes stacks of cash, I can pay football players? I think that's how it works.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:12 PM ^
you can pay off their families and their AAU coaches and not have a problem, either. just don't get caught stretching.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:20 PM ^
Honestly, I kinda don't see how that would be a violation in that case? I know it was either Kansas or Kentucky basketball built a ridiculous new dorm that has its own private chef, media lounges, all these ridiculous things that the entire basketball team gets to live in. The kicker? To make it legal in the NCAA's eyes they have to permit like three non-athletes to live there each year. It's like they're not even trying to hide how spineless and powerless they truly are
January 31st, 2019 at 5:04 PM ^
So if I give non-athletes stacks of cash, I can pay football players? I think that's how it works.
Hey this could work. I know there's something I'd want to go back to school for. -non athlete
January 31st, 2019 at 2:15 PM ^
I feel the exact same way. In my opinion, this wouldn't make it a violation in the NCAA's jurisdiction. This would be an issue of a university having an accreditation status revoked. How can you allow a university to charge people tens of thousands of dollars when the classes they are taking are literally being designed and graded by an office secretary? That is the biggest scam of all scams. You're not a real school if you're offering made up classes designed and taught by unqualified instructors for REAL CREDIT. How they are still allowed to be open to this day is a travesty
January 31st, 2019 at 3:15 PM ^
Oh yeah. And the non-athlete students taking these classes are paying for it. This is FRAUD. Who fucking cares about the NCAA. They're not around to protect the average student. But the University supposedly is. This whole edifice needs to come down.
White: "The Night Owl made you. You want to tear all that down?"
Exley: "With a wrecking ball. You want to help me swing it?"
January 31st, 2019 at 2:24 PM ^
Now you're talking, Kalkaska. Somebody actually thinking about this instead of pulling out the stock NCAA whining. I'm not an expert on the subject, but here's what I think I know:
UNC was holding sham classes, administered by an assistant or something. They were easy credits and the loophole that kept the NCAA from being able to exact punishment was that non-athletes were taking and benefitting from those classes as well. They were not preferential treatment or benefits for athletes. Nobody was cheating. Nobody was committing fraud. They were just nonsense classes that gave you an easy A.
If the University of North Carolina (or anybody else) wants to risk their accreditation by handing out lollipops to its students and devaluing their own institution's degree, that's idiotic, but I suppose they can do that. If Michigan wants to offer a pass/fail "Stare At The Wall" 3-credit class and open it up to the entire student body, the NCAA has no reason to interject. The NCAA's job is not to uphold an institution's academic standard. That's not what they do.
UNC basically told the world that their degree is dogshit in order to avoid NCAA penalties. They might be lying about it at the direction of their attorneys, but that's what they copped to. And the NCAA had no choice but to take UNC laughing in their face and go home.
This Missouri episode is a GA admittedly taking tests and passing classes on behalf of athletes at the direction of the athletic department. There was no excuse or alibi. She admitted it. That's academic fraud. That's cut and dry. Missouri cheated and they are being rightfully punished.
These two are not the same.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:33 PM ^
I want to add that I do not endorse any of that. It's not okay with me that the NCAA walked away from UNC. But the alternative is to levy punishment without proof or documented reason.
"Well, we think that's bullshit so here's a bowl ban and a scholarship reduction." That's dangerous, man. "We heard Jabrill Peppers took money for autographs. We have no proof, but we believe it so Michigan is retroactively forfeiting the 2016 season and loses 2 scholarships for 2020."
I don't think that's the road we want to travel either. I don't know the answer.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:35 PM ^
Unfortunately, the NCAA has sworn testimony of various infractions that it is ignoring, too.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:52 PM ^
I'd be interested in seeing proof of that.
I respect you and don't think you'd lie. But there are too many ghost stories out there about the NCAA. This same UNC-vs-Mizzou topic is all over the internet right now being painted the exact same way as the OP did. And they're really not the same.
Does the NCAA turn a blind eye to some infractions? Yes they do. Every school self-reports a litany of minor infractions every year - Michigan included. Are we talking about that kind of stuff? What specifically? What's the context? What's the "Everybody took those classes" excuse that made the NCAA stand down in the incidents you're vaguely referencing? Everybody loves to bash the NCAA. In most cases, there is some logic involved even though the splashy headline on Twitter makes it seem egregious.
January 31st, 2019 at 3:10 PM ^
Talking about more than academics here. This, for example.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:35 PM ^
Heard "Stare at the Wall" is a new OSU degree program designed for their QBs who aren't there to play school
January 31st, 2019 at 3:05 PM ^
Good points but that's not the whole story with UNC. Basically the classes were shams and while open to the general students, at least 50% of the enrollment were basketballs or football players and there was evidence that athletic/academic counselors were actively steering athletes to these classes. Now that doesn't differentiate it from the KY basketball dorm but it also wasn't as simple as some UNC athletes just happened to take some sham classes either. It clearly was intentional.
The whole "if it happens to benefit or be open to non-athletes" thing is generally a farce since the percentages are not close to the general population.
January 31st, 2019 at 3:15 PM ^
This is a reasonable argument, but not one that the NCAA chose to pursue in the North Carolina case.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:04 PM ^
It's not random. Missouri is a mid-tier SEC school at best while UNC is the cream of the crop in the ACC in a money generating sport.
Although you may have been using sarcasm. I can't tell.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:13 PM ^
The difference between a prostitute and the NCAA is that the average prostitute doesn't try to hide what she/he does for a living behind a blizzard of hypocritical posturing bullshit.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:20 PM ^
yeah, but SOME prostitutes absolutely do.
i mean.. i'm assuming that..
January 31st, 2019 at 2:32 PM ^
By "SOME", you mean politicians, right?
January 31st, 2019 at 3:07 PM ^
ALL politicians do .... some prostitutes do.
hookers >>> politicians ????
January 31st, 2019 at 2:16 PM ^
They should've just covered up for a serial rapist and various other malfeasances.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:16 PM ^
unless they stretch 1hr/wk too much
January 31st, 2019 at 2:23 PM ^
Mizzou probably got a fair punishment, but the NCAA so mishandled the UNC situation that it looks terrible.
This is why all those people calling for the sanctity or amateurism to be maintained seem wrong to me. The NCAA doesn't really care about any of it, and so all we're doing is punishing college kids.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:32 PM ^
It might be fair, but how can anyone tell? The NCAA's enforcement regime is an absolute joke. How many schools are getting away with blatant cheating?
If 30 kids on a school bus are breaking the rules by standing up and throwing stuff at each other, and two of them randomly get called into the principal's office, and one of them lies and says "I didn't do it," and another tells the truth and says "yeah, I was one of the kids doing it," and the kid who told the truth is the only one of the 29 that gets suspended from the bus and assigned detention, how is that fair? What does that tell the other kids who were standing up and throwing stuff? What does that tell the five kids who were actually sitting down and trying to obey the rules?
I'm a pretty hardknuckle right-and-wrong guy. Don't get me wrong, all 30 kids deserve discipline. But singling out the one guy that fesses up isn't fair or just.
January 31st, 2019 at 5:48 PM ^
I largely agree, but the guy who did admit to it should still get punished, if perhaps with some leniency due to his honesty. But if the NCAA is actually going to address issues they feel are important, then there need to be consistent repercussions. The problem has always been that the NCAA is a sham organization with no internal consistency, so you have situations like this where because a bunch of teams covered up sexual assaults, lied about classes, and generally acted like assholes it 100% feels wrong to punish Mizzou to this degree for these violations.
And yet, a 1-year ban for Mizzou in a couple of sports and some scholarship restrictions is probably the correct punishment for even a rogue tutor doing work for passing off her work for others. UNC, Louisville, Ole Miss, MSU, etc. should be have been hit far harder and the fact they haven't is why this feels so disproportionate, and the fact Missouri was so open and transparent and still got dinged will 1000% encourage other schools to be less helpful. But in a vacuum, this feels appropriate.
My personal opinion is the NCAA should be burned to the ground and replaced by an organization that basically helps schools negotiate licensing and media rights, keeps a general eye on athlete health and wellness, and not much else. If schools wants to pay players, let them. If they want to have no-shown courses, go for it. Make it transparent and let the schools run the programs how they want. It wouldn't be much different than it is now and at least most schools and athletes would know the score before they jumped in as opposed to having to deal with a bunch of meddling assholes in an office costing them millions of dollars semi-arbitrarily.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:24 PM ^
They should sue, honestly.
I have no inside info, no real idea how this works out legally (after all, the NCAA is a voluntary organization). But they are getting punished for cooperating and for not being North Carolina.
They're a school that was once in the Big 8/Big 12 and is now in the SEC, so they're big conference, but they're just Missouri, so the NCAA feels free to nail them and ignore... well, all the stuff it is ignoring.
Yes, it's true that there are different groups investigating and enforcing different areas.
But... this is ridiculous.
Look at basketball. I mean, Zion Williamson's family has been implicated in the recent trial. We know shenanigans have gone on at Arizona, which has responded by... landing the best recruiting class in the nation next year. Kansas was one of the targets of the recent trial because they tried to land guys like Williamson and Deandre Ayton and failed.
So Missouri gets a football bowl ban.
I'm tired of this.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:51 PM ^
Exactly.
Something I've honestly often wondered is this: With all the BS and hypocrisy from the NCAA for decades, why don't colleges just leave and form a new association that actually does what it's supposed to do? Why do we keep the NCAA when they're just a garbage organization?
January 31st, 2019 at 3:09 PM ^
1. Inertia
2. The people that make decisions benefit greatly and have little reason to change.
3. Money
(not necessarily in that order)
January 31st, 2019 at 2:27 PM ^
I couldn’t agree more...
January 31st, 2019 at 2:30 PM ^
Darn - next year's post-season is now ruined without Missouri being able to make their annual appearance at the AutoZone Liberty Bowl.
How sad is it that you have to cheat just to be mediocre?
January 31st, 2019 at 2:34 PM ^
So after literally doing the Bird Box Challenge during the FBI corruption case, the NCAA decides to drop the hammer on Missouri for fully cooperating after uncovering the issue. Consistent and logical as always.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:41 PM ^
And Michigan State gets an "excused" letter from the NCAA right before the Department of Education issues a report detailing a complete 'lack of institutional control' and rampant wrongdoing. Wash, rinse, repeat.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:41 PM ^
I can't believe the NCAA is still in existence. A private group of individuals running a business this way would be thrown behind bars for racketeering.
January 31st, 2019 at 3:20 PM ^
Not sure if you've followed any corporate scandals over the last 30+ years, but individuals are rarely thrown behind bars, even for some of the most egregious and heinous behavior.
From the Great recession to the BP Oil Spill to the more recent data theft by social media companies -- nobody sees jail.
So the NCAA is really more of a reflection of our society rather than an abnormality.
January 31st, 2019 at 2:54 PM ^
They aren’t a real SEC team. Just interlopers
January 31st, 2019 at 3:01 PM ^
On the one hand, this amount of punishment fits with precedent, as it's about the same (or proportional to) what Minnesota got for their basketball scandal 20 years ago. So I think this is a fair response.
On the other, the UNC scandal is a major embarrassment for both the school and for college sports, and it shouldn't be out of the NCAA's purview to assess punishment for that. There are minimum academic requirements to be part of the NCAA, and the NCAA gets to decide what those requirements are. You'd think one of those requirements is that courses are actually taught by qualified instructors, and that actual work has to be done for those courses. It shouldn't have been about extra benefits, it should have been that UNC wasn't acting as a legitimate university. Regardless of whether they lost accreditation, I think the NCAA should have hit their whole athletic department for that.