New Yahoo Sports article on Oregon is out
It's a long read, but Charles Robinson's latest article is out.
A lot of new info from Will Lyles.
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=ys-robinson_scout_details_deal_oregon_kelly_070111
Popcorn supplies have been depleted in the midwest. What will this shortage mean for the PAC12 country?
the frozen orange juice market on the commodities exchange.
wow....RIP Chip Kelly
Yeah, the implications there are pretty damned heavy. That's not a glancing blow, that's a big fat cannonball to the squishy underbelly of the program.
Your move NCAA.
I am sure the bucknut slappies are all atwitter at the notion that the Oregon issues will make the NCAA ease up on them.
The day before 4th of July weekend?!?! WHY!?!??!! Oregon dodged a big one with the timing.
Well, it was nice for them the year it lasted, right?
So is the consensus that this is the "10" story that everyone was talking about? Seems pretty damning for Chip Kelly
I think that the WOW factor is a bit higher on this one, simply because of the direct and sudden implications. OSU was an oozing pustule. This is a gunshot wound.
That being said, I'm not sure that this can be a consensus '10' pick unless other stuff comes out.
Also, I don't think that any news agencies would know about something like this. It seems like he just decided to come clean on it. It's not like they would have had knowledge on the situation unless he came clean.
Unless, that is, he was forced to admit this because those agencies got too close to the truth. /Stream of conciousness posts.
Rumors are that UT was a catalyst in this investigation, i.e., they were pissed off that Oregon pulled this in their back yard so they tipped off the NCAA and then Wetzel. It is possible they might even have put some pressure on Lyles (exactly how, I don't know) or gave him incentives him to talk.
Actually, as Lyles says in the article, with his business gone, he's got nothing and no one to protect by keeping silent.
the instigating source in both SMU's and Oklahoma's NCAA cases?
Texas does seem like the type of university to be a snitch.
Definitely the 10. While SI's article was damning, the sources were sketchy and didn't do much in the way of proving anything really. This article not only shows the knowledge of the HC(!), Ast. Coach, Ast AD of Compliance(!), Ast. Dir. of Football Ops, and basically anyone else in their athletics building who has two eyes and/or two ears, but it provides the evidence with handwritten letters, phone records, and emails.
Ohio fans must be rejoicing with this one.
It's worse than OSU, but it won't get anywhere near the same media scrutiny. Oregon football doesn't get anywhere near the viewers, clicks & listeners that OSU does.
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<br>Do you think SI, ESPN, etc will send reporters to investigate every aspect of their athletic dept?
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<br>Has the national media looked into OU players cars? Do a quick google search on LaMichael James' ride.
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<br>How come nothing more has came from Cliff Harris' loaner car?
Compliance only responded to a question posed by the football staffers, not by Lyles himself. It doesn't look like compliance dealt with Lyles at all, which given the massive paper trail involved here, probably means that they didn't know.\
The question itself actually seems pretty innoculous. If a student athlete wanted to go to School A but their (possibly also corrupt) parent wanted them to go to School B, I could see that question easily asked of any compliance department.
God I hope this isn't the 10. $25,000? To a middleman? With Alabama it was $150,000 to the player's actual high school coach. Granted it was a booster and not the head coach, but this isn't what I'd call a 10. If this is the 10 then the scale's all wrong.
I think this is the "6", though I'm not sure at the time Robinson had Lyles lined up for an interview. The "10" was supposed to come out in August.
Only the SEC can pull off a "10"... *cough* Auburn *cough*
Could be. The fact that $25,000 changed hands is a matter of record but anything that happened after that is a matter of what Will Lyles and only Will Lyles says.
This is worse then OSU, UNC & USC. If OSU is an "8" then this is at least a 10. There gonna have to expand to scale to "20" to deal with The State of Alabama, although Troy might be safe.
Have fun with that one Jake Fisher...that sucks...
Any Oregon recruits that we can poach?
QB Jake Rodrigues and TE Evan Baylis are the only two Oregon commits that have previously been offered by Michigan.
USC, OSU, Oregon...
Those Carr teams are looking better and better
But call me when they find out that Armanti Edwards is really a robot werewolf...
His credentials are not in question.
When will they learn? The whole situation smells, but if Oregon had done the right thing when the potential violations first came to light, maybe Kelly & Co. at least could have argued the violations were unintentional and partly a result of murky NCAA rules. But to have Lyles say (and apparently provide documents showing) that Oregon scrambled and urgently requested backdated recruiting materials and then pass them off to the NCAA as legitimate -- it is just mind-bogglingly stupid.
LaMichael James dodged a test by moving to a different state! Oregon's academics must be quite recreational.
HA! I was thinking the same thing... wow.
It has questions on it like: If Bob has 5 apples and eats 2 applies, how many does he have left?
Seriously - if you fail the TAKS, you need to be hit with a tackhammer
Trick question, my friend.
The answer is 5, at least for about 12 hours.... or 5-6 if he drinks a lot afterwards.
But but but he's academic all pac-12...he's clearly turned it around and put more attention and effort into studying now.
/s
Clearly Lyles has creditability issues, but the fact that he shared everything with Yahoo helps back up his story.
Oregon isn't going to be able to stonewall this one much longer.
And how crazy is it that in the May meeting Lyles had with the NCAA "the stories concerning Kelly, James and Seastrunk... never came up in questioning." Talk about turning a blind eye.
I like how they mention that Chip Kelly has two cell phones. I wonder which one he does his shady dealings on.
But he's lying his ass off when he says he didn't know what he was doing was wrong
Yeah, he's not the innocent victim he's now portraying himself to be.
Do the letters look fishy to anybody else? They seem to be written by the same person. I'm looking at the word 'help' on both letters and they look eerily the same. Thoughts?
I thought maybe so too, but look at the D in Dontae.
In the top letter the tails are consistently hooked; in the bottom letter they're straight.
Am I the only person who feels kinda bummed thinking that the two participants in the national title game are now both mired in NCAA investigations, PLUS the winner of the NCAA Men's basketball championship has its own NCAA issues? Yeah, I know Santa isn't real*, nor is a totally compliant major NCAA program, but still, seems like EVERYONE is friggin' cheating.
Not sure if it's the crappiness of the compliance system, the increase in money (duh!) or just a historical phase (kind of like the lawless 1980s), but it puts a damper on the whole enjoyment of the game when I think "Gee, I wonder how much they paid for that running back"?
*Don't you f$#*ing tell me anything about the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. I'll kill you where you stand!
You aren't the only one. I have a feeling that TCU and Stanford are more than a little irritated about this, too.
You forgot Bois.... scratch that.
Of course, that assumes that TCU and Stanford are clean programs themselves. They may not be. Remember, they're recruiting against these same dirty schools.
Dood, you're about where I was a few months ago. The tSIO stuff, Oregon, Cam, etc., and then watching "Fab Five" where Mitch Albom talks about Chris seeing his jersey in the window for $75.
It's clear to me: The amateurism rules are STUPID and SUCK -- at least for football and hoops -- and frankly its highway robbery.
You have billions (with a "B") of $$$ in the system, funding all sorts of cushy activities at schools, putting smiles on faces, ensuring longevity of careers, fancy trips, etc. And they don't have to pay their players -- what a system! Look at the trouble the NFL and NBA have, right, when the players demand their fair share. The schools never, ever have to worry about that!!!!
Of course the schools don't want to change. Its a simple system, a simple concept, and they keep all the billions of bucks for themselves.
But... to do it, you need tons and tons of bizarre rules. Here's a trophy or ring for winning the game -- oops, but you can't sell it until you graduate! Here, you can't get a booster to pay for your hamburger, cuz we're worried he'll pay for your new Camaro. You can't get advertising revenue for your name or face, even though EVERYONE knows and loves you, because that'll mean you're in a profession and we're pretending you're not.
The massive $$$ in the system is attracting a ton of people to get their fair share -- dads and moms, "agents," etc. The mosre $$$ and more time, the more this is going to go on. It's insane. Frankly, yes, everyone probably is dirty, to some degree, and those who aren't are going to end up being anyway eventually. It's because this is all a stupid attempt to keep the money for the schools and not pay players. Capitalism needs to enter the picture at some point.
Except that for most football and basketball players, it's nowhere near highway robbery. Do you think, say, Stu Douglass and Patrick Omameh are being "exploited"? They're good players, but they're not headliners. People aren't desperate to buy their jerseys. They don't get mobbed wherever they go. Most football and basketball players are still pretty anonymous. The bulk of them either don't become professionals or have very short careers. For them, getting a free education, plus all the free apparel (these guys get a ton of swag from Adidas, not to mention those lavish bowl gift packages) is a pretty good deal. There are just a small number of super-elite players who truly are headliners, and who truly get a raw deal. Even when it came to the Fab Five, it was really just Webber and Rose that were the moneymakers. Not many people wanted Howard, Jackson or King jerseys, and no one cared about Riley, Voskuil, et al.
Realistically, it's probably better to just keep the amateurism rules as they are and accept that they are ill-fitting for the 2% of players that are superstars. I don't think that a little monthly stipend or whatever is really going to clean up the corruption. The need to gain a competitive advantage will always push schools to bend the rules.
Not to mention that it's awfully silly to demand capitalism take over for the small percentage of players who are "screwed" but leave the rest of the system in place for the rest of the players. If the superstars aren't being properly compensated, then by all means let's properly compensate them - but let's "properly compensate" everyone, which, for a start, basically means no more athletic scholarships for women.
Thank you for putting this the way you did. I usually try to argue the same point, but not as well as you did. The NCAA's rules may be silly but the benefit is a free or reduced cost of a very expensive education. I have no sympathy for the small minorty of athletes getting "exploited". I would gladly play by the NCAA's rules if it meant my education was free.