SI Investigation: Oklahoma State Has Been Paying Players
[Not seeing anything on site search about this, nor on the mod thread canning the subject, so here goes...]
Sports Illustrated is set to break a major, major story on alleged naughtiness by the Oklahoma State football program this week. The lowlights:
- Paying players
- Phony/nonexistant jobs for players (maybe it's an OSU thing?)
- Academic fraud: systematic outsourcing of player's classwork to others, and adjusting their grades upward
- Campus hostesses providing sex to recruits
There's a few things to note about this that suggest this might be, like, an actual thing and not just a media spectacle
- The timeframe stretches across more than a decade, since the Les Miles days.
- The University (and WVU, who currently employs Joe DeForest, an assistant coach at the center of the allegations) have already started damage control. They're shocked, shocked, that improprieties are going on in here.
- If you're going to flat-out state that the University is paying players (about the most damning allegation possible), you better have dang good evidence.
Now, it's much too early to say which of these allegations will or won't be substantiated, and the NCAA hasn't said a word on the subject. But SI is planning to run a multi-part exposé on the subject, so this might get ugly, at least publicity-wise.
Edit: Many of these violations are alleged to have occured between 2001 and 2007, outside of the NCAA statute of limitations. Howeva, SI insists that DeForest paid players as recently as 2011, which is fair game.
September 8th, 2013 at 7:16 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 8:12 PM ^
Exactly. NCAA is just college sports. There is nothing "major" about it. Except the money. And the popularity. And the significance in the lives of the athletes. And the pride it brings to some of the students, alumni, and fans. Other than those (and maybe a few other things), nothing "major" at all, so let's knock off the use of "major."
September 8th, 2013 at 8:19 PM ^
Whoring out students to get football recruits is pretty major.
September 8th, 2013 at 8:30 PM ^
i'd say that's the only morally irreprehensible part of this story. and i suppose academic fraud is pretty shitty, those those players utilizing cheating prolly didn't go to ok state to play school. the rest of the allegedly violations are just ncaa violations...which, whateva.
September 8th, 2013 at 9:22 PM ^
Aw, they have to do that to recruit all their students.
September 8th, 2013 at 9:30 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 9:50 PM ^
If SI's got the goods on that particular charge, I'd hope so. And I'd hope the authorities charge the whole fucking administration.
September 8th, 2013 at 7:18 PM ^
1 scholarship/year for 3 years and 5 years probation.
September 8th, 2013 at 7:22 PM ^
And if they violate the terms of their probation, they'll lose a second scholarship!
September 8th, 2013 at 7:26 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 8:50 PM ^
double secret probation
September 8th, 2013 at 8:50 PM ^
double secret probation
September 8th, 2013 at 8:52 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 9:25 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 7:19 PM ^
Just tell me it's not Lars Anderson that is breaking the stroy.
September 8th, 2013 at 7:20 PM ^
This will ultimately go nowhere, for two reasons.
- It looks like almost everything occurred from 2001 to 2007, outside of the NCAA's statute of limitations.
- According to the CBS Sports article, this investigation does not affect any current players and coaches.
This might sell some magazines, but I don't think it will lead to any major sanctions.
September 8th, 2013 at 7:20 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 7:55 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 8:46 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 7:27 PM ^
None of these things exist.
September 8th, 2013 at 7:52 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 9:18 PM ^
Then the women will come.
September 8th, 2013 at 7:38 PM ^
at a major school? Damn, it sounds like East Florida A&M of San Antonio is going to be squashed again.
September 8th, 2013 at 8:45 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 7:35 PM ^
Well since all of this took place from 2001-2007 I think the finger should get pointed squarely in the direction of LES MILES along with current coach Mike Gundy. Miles was the coach from 2001-2004 (Gundy his OC, prior to becoming HC in 2005).
Would it be such a surprise to hear a coach connected to pay for play scandal left a Big12 school for "safer" pastures in the SEC?
September 8th, 2013 at 7:35 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 8:12 PM ^
Wetzel and Charles Robinson I believe?
September 8th, 2013 at 7:37 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 7:40 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 7:42 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 7:48 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 7:51 PM ^
Find something fishy going on at an SEC school and I'll care. They better make sure they have solid evidence or else they'll hear it from Oklahoma State Head Coach Mike Gundy. He's a man, he's 46!
September 8th, 2013 at 7:58 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 8:17 PM ^
No way in hell is this not happening at Ol Miss.
September 8th, 2013 at 8:56 PM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 9:19 PM ^
Your stated assumption is that any school that gets recruits that is not a national power for the past 30 years must be cheating. Yet, we have many examples of schools rising and falling based on their coaching staffs from Michigan hiring RR to Alabama hiring Mike Shula and then Nick Saban. Coaches, their staffs, and their ability to recruit and develop talent matter a lot even if you are a Michigan or an Alabama or Texas or Nebraska or XXXXXX!
September 8th, 2013 at 9:29 PM ^
In the case of Ole Miss, this is most certainly not an assumption. There are several pieces of evidence, such as Instagram photos of recruits with piles of cash, super-sketchy details of the recruiting paths of bluechip players, and Hugh Freeze's rather reckless challenge to send emails with details of alleged violations, which ended up backfiring.
September 9th, 2013 at 5:43 AM ^
September 8th, 2013 at 8:04 PM ^
Nice job, Les Miles. Bo would be proud.
September 8th, 2013 at 9:43 PM ^
until I read the article and wait for the responses. However, my respect for Les will be diminished even more. The man has issues and it was known by everyone on campus even before he banged a coach's wife.
September 9th, 2013 at 5:38 AM ^
September 9th, 2013 at 9:00 AM ^
Les Miles banged a coach's wife??
September 8th, 2013 at 8:07 PM ^
I am looking forward to this investigation and subsequent punishment by the NCAA that will surely be fair and true
September 8th, 2013 at 8:11 PM ^
Wake me up when something happens to an SEC school. Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12, ACC teams keep getting investigated/penalized. A little too convenient for the mega-media SEC hype machine.
September 8th, 2013 at 8:17 PM ^
- To the story coming out
- To the NCAA investigating
- And to the NCAA ultimately getting nowhere before giving Okie St a loss of 2 scholarships for 1 year in hopes everyone will just forget
September 8th, 2013 at 8:18 PM ^
The story in The Oklahoman had a specific and - if it turns out to be the case - troubling subset of the "paying players" accusation:
"Former OSU assistant coach Joe DeForest is accused of running a bonus program – paying players for specific plays – as recently as 2011."
Like others, I am not exactly confident that the NCAA does anything terribly severe - if it even notices this piece in SI - about the things which it can punish (i.e., indiscretions inside the statute of limitations), but I do wonder how exactly how they would go about detailing any evidence of this in particular.
September 9th, 2013 at 7:29 AM ^
Oklahoma State isn't one of those Top Tier programs that is crucial to the NCAA making money. I can totally see them dropping the boom on these guys just to try and pump up their credibility with the public without doing too much to kill the money tree.
September 8th, 2013 at 8:24 PM ^
Hasn't it been well established that the NCAA is so beleagured that there are only like five people left working there and they're all like .25 FTE? I had the impression that the NCAA is in total survival mode and doesn't have to capacity--much less the will--to carry out a real investigation.
September 8th, 2013 at 8:33 PM ^
Yet another reason I said in 2007 and 2011 that I'd rather lose than hire Les Miles