NCAA discussion

[Northeast Stinger]

I’m aware that this might require its own thread but what is the opinion of this site about when the NCAA became so hopelessly corrupt / inept?

I know it didn’t happen over night but it seems to me by the time a certain team has to forfeit a season due to a t-shirt while national title contenders are over the scholarship / roster limit and paying recruits under the table without consequence, the NCAA was well down the road toward our present debacle.

Now no one seems to care about destroying a 115 year old conference, potentially killing off some school’s’ athletic programs and forcing student athletes into near impossible travel schedules.

And the money under the table thing is now legal.

 

[bobongo]

I’m aware that this might require its own thread but what is the opinion of this site about when the NCAA became so hopelessly corrupt / inept?

I know it didn’t happen over night but it seems to me by the time a certain team has to forfeit a season due to a t-shirt while national title contenders are over the scholarship / roster limit and paying recruits under the table without consequence, the NCAA was well down the road toward our present debacle.

Now no one seems to care about destroying a 115 year old conference, potentially killing off some school’s’ athletic programs and forcing student athletes into near impossible travel schedules.

And the money under the table thing is now legal.

I'm sure it started well before this, but what made me realize the NCAA was completely corrupt and useless was when they let UNC basketball off with no penalties for players getting credit in bogus classes, declaring it an "academic problem".
But since NIL payments are state sanctioned, they can't do anything even if they want to (which they don't).

 

[MWBATL]

I’m aware that this might require its own thread but what is the opinion of this site about when the NCAA became so hopelessly corrupt / inept?

I know it didn’t happen over night but it seems to me by the time a certain team has to forfeit a season due to a t-shirt while national title contenders are over the scholarship / roster limit and paying recruits under the table without consequence, the NCAA was well down the road toward our present debacle.

Now no one seems to care about destroying a 115 year old conference, potentially killing off some school’s’ athletic programs and forcing student athletes into near impossible travel schedules.

And the money under the table thing is now legal.

I'll take a stab at it....

It has forever been full of cheating. In the very beginning, there were often complaints and charges that college teams used non-students in their games (it's the reason GT and Uga cannot agree on the lifetime series record between our two schools). Academic requirements were usually relaxed and sometimes ignored back in the 1930's according to my Dad who attended Tulane (who, believe it or not, was a national power back then). Bear Bryant ran his football program like a military operation and bent or broke rules all the time, using scholarships in other sports to get 100 guys on scholarship in the football program and weeding them out year by year. In the late 80's and early 90's Tarkanian at UNLV complained about the unequal treatment of the power schools in basketball vs teams like his.

I think the first stake came when the NCAA lost control of football back in the 1970/80's (I don't recall exactly when). Schools sued to have control over their TV rights, and won. So, increasing money was the root of the evil that has happened since then. And money has been underneath everything that has happened since.

So, it really has never been "clean". I think the NCAA did a better PR job for years, always referring to the "student-athlete" even though that has long been a myth in many places and for the best players. It has been a long slow roll into the pit that we are in now. To me, the biggest turning point was the clamor over paying college athletes. Like many topics, language was corrupted and the arguments was that athletes were not being compensated. They were, always. The got free educations, free room and board. But like many issues that became quasi-political, facts went by the wayside for pithy political slogans (that are almost always false no matter which side of the aisle you're on). Once the racial element came into it as well, I think the path was set and the outcome was inevitable. This is not to make ANY comment about the moral rightness (or wrongness) of those issues and that path, simply to argue that it became inevitable once that corner was turned.

In the SEC, the best athletes have been paid for 50 years or so (at least). Under the table, of course. Everyone knew it and accepted it. This is why most SEC fans are not really ruffled by the changes nowadays. For most SEC programs, it is actually business as usual. My guess is that other conferences have been doing it as well, but to a lesser degree until now. Hence many fans held onto this idealistic view of the college sports scene.

 

[slugboy]

I’m aware that this might require its own thread but what is the opinion of this site about when the NCAA became so hopelessly corrupt / inept?

I know it didn’t happen over night but it seems to me by the time a certain team has to forfeit a season due to a t-shirt while national title contenders are over the scholarship / roster limit and paying recruits under the table without consequence, the NCAA was well down the road toward our present debacle.

Now no one seems to care about destroying a 115 year old conference, potentially killing off some school’s’ athletic programs and forcing student athletes into near impossible travel schedules.

And the money under the table thing is now legal.

I don't know how much being corrupt is tied to being inept, but the ineptitude is the bigger issue to me right now. (they're both huge issues). The complexity of college sports has exploded over the past 30+ years, and the NCAA's capabilities have been stuck in the mid 1970's. Every year, the NCAA seems to fall further behind.

One inflection point was the BCS. They failed to take charge then, and then they failed to take charge in the CFP.

 

[CEB]

I’m aware that this might require its own thread but what is the opinion of this site about when the NCAA became so hopelessly corrupt / inept?

I know it didn’t happen over night but it seems to me by the time a certain team has to forfeit a season due to a t-shirt while national title contenders are over the scholarship / roster limit and paying recruits under the table without consequence, the NCAA was well down the road toward our present debacle.

Now no one seems to care about destroying a 115 year old conference, potentially killing off some school’s’ athletic programs and forcing student athletes into near impossible travel schedules.

And the money under the table thing is now legal.

Honestly, I think SMU took away any gumption the NCAA had for difficult enforcement decisions. I didn’t pay attention in real time... I was too young when it started and not interested in the fallout as a teenager. Learning how it all went down after the fact, I think that situation was always in the back of NCAA minds. SMU wasn’t a big deal prior to the 80’s. They started the unapologetic pay for play scheme, rocketed to the top of football, then disappeared into obscurity for decades after the penalties. They were certainly worse off and nearly quit football altogether, but In a way, they ended up back where they started... Still, the NCAA was fearful ever since that enforcing real penalties might do long term damage to an actual college football power, and they set about enforcing a bunch of ticky tac garbage instead. Vacated wins and scholarship limits don’t hurt factories... and they know that... not that the NCAA has been hellbent on enforcing anything against the factories anyway.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Honestly, I think SMU took away any gumption the NCAA had for difficult enforcement decisions. I didn’t pay attention in real time... I was too young when it started and not interested in the fallout as a teenager. Learning how it all went down after the fact, I think that situation was always in the back of NCAA minds. SMU wasn’t a big deal prior to the 80’s. They started the unapologetic pay for play scheme, rocketed to the top of football, then disappeared into obscurity for decades after the penalties. They were certainly worse off and nearly quit football altogether, but In a way, they ended up back where they started... Still, the NCAA was fearful ever since that enforcing real penalties might do long term damage to an actual college football power, and they set about enforcing a bunch of ticky tac garbage instead. Vacated wins and scholarship limits don’t hurt factories... and they know that... not that the NCAA has been hellbent on enforcing anything against the factories anyway.

Yeah that’s complicated and I have mixed feelings about the SMU thing. They openly flaunted the rules and were brazenly corrupt. Had they been more discreet like other schools would the NCAA have allowed them plausible deniability? If they had been an historic power or a perennial conference champion would they have gotten a lesser penalty? I don’t think we know the answer because the NCAA was a different organization back then. The death penalty seemed appropriate at the time because of the massive exploitation that was going on with student athletes while making a mockery of academics. But, I think, for a host of reasons the NCAA was never the same again.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I don't know how much being corrupt is tied to being inept, but the ineptitude is the bigger issue to me right now. (they're both huge issues). The complexity of college sports has exploded over the past 30+ years, and the NCAA's capabilities have been stuck in the mid 1970's. Every year, the NCAA seems to fall further behind.

One inflection point was the BCS. They failed to take charge then, and then they failed to take charge in the CFP.

Ineptitude for sure. The corruption, to me, stemmed from where their bread was being buttered. At some point they acted like they were a wholly owned subsidiary of the factory schools. And the “march of progress” has been out of their hands ever since.

Seriously, what do they even do anymore?

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I'll take a stab at it....

It has forever been full of cheating. In the very beginning, there were often complaints and charges that college teams used non-students in their games (it's the reason GT and Uga cannot agree on the lifetime series record between our two schools). Academic requirements were usually relaxed and sometimes ignored back in the 1930's according to my Dad who attended Tulane (who, believe it or not, was a national power back then). Bear Bryant ran his football program like a military operation and bent or broke rules all the time, using scholarships in other sports to get 100 guys on scholarship in the football program and weeding them out year by year. In the late 80's and early 90's Tarkanian at UNLV complained about the unequal treatment of the power schools in basketball vs teams like his.

I think the first stake came when the NCAA lost control of football back in the 1970/80's (I don't recall exactly when). Schools sued to have control over their TV rights, and won. So, increasing money was the root of the evil that has happened since then. And money has been underneath everything that has happened since.

So, it really has never been "clean". I think the NCAA did a better PR job for years, always referring to the "student-athlete" even though that has long been a myth in many places and for the best players. It has been a long slow roll into the pit that we are in now. To me, the biggest turning point was the clamor over paying college athletes. Like many topics, language was corrupted and the arguments was that athletes were not being compensated. They were, always. The got free educations, free room and board. But like many issues that became quasi-political, facts went by the wayside for pithy political slogans (that are almost always false no matter which side of the aisle you're on). Once the racial element came into it as well, I think the path was set and the outcome was inevitable. This is not to make ANY comment about the moral rightness (or wrongness) of those issues and that path, simply to argue that it became inevitable once that corner was turned.

In the SEC, the best athletes have been paid for 50 years or so (at least). Under the table, of course. Everyone knew it and accepted it. This is why most SEC fans are not really ruffled by the changes nowadays. For most SEC programs, it is actually business as usual. My guess is that other conferences have been doing it as well, but to a lesser degree until now. Hence many fans held onto this idealistic view of the college sports scene.

Cynical but not wrong in my opinion. I might quibble over a few nuances of this but the truth holds that if you have a little bit of corruption that the authorities wink at, and that only a few fat cats are benefiting from, sooner or later, everyone wants a piece of that same pie and the system gets out of control.

 

[CEB]

Yeah that’s complicated and I have mixed feelings about the SMU thing. They openly flaunted the rules and were brazenly corrupt. Had they been more discreet like other schools would the NCAA have allowed them plausible deniability? If they had been an historic power or a perennial conference champion would they have gotten a lesser penalty? I don’t think we know the answer because the NCAA was a different organization back then. The death penalty seemed appropriate at the time because of the massive exploitation that was going on with student athletes while making a mockery of academics. But, I think, for a host of reasons the NCAA was never the same again.

You’re right. Not defending what SMU did, just saying thats where I think NCAA was derailed for good. A big part of what SMU did was in response to the cheating that was already going on. There was a whole lot of rule breaking prior to SMU, but SMU took it to a new level. The other guys were at least trying to be somewhat discrete, just enough plausible deniability to keep the NCAA at bay. I’d equate the 70s to what we have going on right now. There is all kinds of tampering and paying and drawing in the margins but the NCAA doesn’t know quite what to do about it. SMU came along and took it to another level... enforcement was a “no-brainer,” but looking back at the results of that enforcement caused the NCAA to take a step back.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Sorry for the slight diversion. Thank you to everyone for playing .

So the NCAA is no longer a factor in any way, which we knew, and the noble myth of the student athlete is dead for the foreseeable future.

Since it’s all about market forces now, without any oversight, there are no sacred cows left to preserve.

The SEC probably won’t expand any further because the money is good if they stand pat. Tradition or institutions or regional boundaries have nothing to do with it. Getting Texas, for instance, made perfect dollar sense and, if conferences started blowing up, kept them out of the hands of another conference.

Notre Dame, maybe now more than ever, doesn’t need a conference.

The B1G has made it clear they will do whatever they need to do if larger market forces push them but they prefer stabilized conferences.

The ACC is the wild card. I could see this going any number of ways, from collapsing to constricting to expanding. But I do not see any argument that is persuasive that says the ACC is stable just like it is. Not with the market forces that are at work. Not with college presidents going all in on protecting their brands. Not with the NCAA being a non-player. Not without any foreseeable government action on the part of states or Feds to regulate in a meaningful way. Not with fans having so little influence at this point.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

You’re right. Not defending what SMU did, just saying thats where I think NCAA was derailed for good. A big part of what SMU did was in response to the cheating that was already going on. There was a whole lot of rule breaking prior to SMU, but SMU took it to a new level. The other guys were at least trying to be somewhat discrete, just enough plausible deniability to keep the NCAA at bay. I’d equate the 70s to what we have going on right now. There is all kinds of tampering and paying and drawing in the margins but the NCAA doesn’t know quite what to do about it. SMU came along and took it to another level... enforcement was a “no-brainer,” but looking back at the results of that enforcement caused the NCAA to take a step back.

Completely agree.