5 year post season bans, take away 40-50% of scholarships for 5years(school has to give scholarship money to prospective students), lifetime show causes for coaches. Thats how you deter it.
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They don’t really want to deter it though. They literally don’t care, better to have the players paid under the table.
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I 100% share the frustration that guys like Wade and Miller are getting away with this. It actually drives me nuts when the media (even our beloved Dylan) talk about recruiting with a guy like Davison and how “all of the schools on his list have something in common…wink wink” - meaning they’re all paying players and everyone knows it but no one does anything about it - including the media.
As for the Fab Five - it is true that Michigan hired Ellerbe and that was a disaster. However, the bigger question is why did Michigan end up with such a severe punishment (multi-year tournament ban, coach fired, banners removed, recruiting restrictions, etc.) and no one else has. USC got hit hard from the Bush situation to an extent, but anyone else?
This latest scandal involves actual FBI wiretaps and these guys are still coaching and recruiting as if nothing happened. Wake me up when they are penalized. Michigan’s football program got in more trouble from the extra 20 minutes of stretching under RichRod than these programs have. The program has to be willing to say “we’re cheating, we know it and you know it, we’re going to keep doing it, and go ahead and try to punish us NCAA.”
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If you and I are frustrated, we can only imagine how Jim Harbaugh feels about it – we don’t have to answer questions from the media after OSU games in an environment in which everyone pretends it’s a level playing field.
I honestly don’t have an answer for who has to take the lead on calling a spade a spade, though. Traditional media aren’t in the business of vague hinting, and sports media aren’t set up to do the investigative reporting legwork required, and you don’t have a publication if you’re so frank about things that you can’t access the insiders you need to. And nobody has the money to fight the lawsuits that are going to come up if they’re reckless in tossing out allegations.
It’s a real problem.
I disagree. i think if you took an anonymous poll that schools would widely favor measures that deter cheating. The problem is in agreeing on what they should be and how they should be administered.
They agree on tough penalties for coaches. That’s the easiest possible path for them. Do they care enough about cheating to put their own necks on the line? Maybe not.
They don’t like long and onerous penalties as suggested above. The media turns against them every time they’ve tried it. Any strong penalty invariably gets compared to those considered lenient. Fans and the media care about penalties that really do multi-year damage to a program. Unfortunately, they’re not on the NCAA’s side.
The most effective punishments are going to hit the bottom line of the school’s AD. They also scare the schools the most. If they care enough about cheating, they need to consider them again. The cost of TV bans bleed over to other schools in the conference. But it can also be up to them whether to impose related financial penalties to the offender.
I suspect we’ll see more of the NCAA outsourcing enforcement. It’s a way to insulate themselves from critical comparisons to past punishments. It might also be a way to add some deterrence by putting the schools another step away from influencing the decisions.
I didn’t want to come across too hard on blaming the media…ultimately it is the NCAA, their rules, their ability or inability to enforce them, their willingness to enforce them, and the schools themselves. If you read John Bacon’s book and some of the stories that even he is careful to dance around at other schools it makes you proud that Michigan tries to hold themselves to a higher standard and frustrated that there is no benefit for doing so.
I don’t know what I’d like to see the media do to expose the problem…and I know they’re in a tough spot. Many Michigan fans still don’t read the Detroit Free Press because of their efforts to get Michigan football in trouble. I guess I’m just annoyed at the blatant cheating that everyone knows about and no one is punished for or even openly discusses. ESPN isn’t going to start a piece on LSU and say “let’s get a pregame chat with Coach Wade, who is still under NCAA investigation for accusations of improper payments to recruits.” But maybe they should…
LOL. The halftime interview could be entertaining. “Coach, what was going through your mind there as the shooter whose mom you paid $30k went 0-4 from 3 in the first half?”
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That would be amazing!
“Coach - any word on whether the $50k tractor you gave to that recruit’s father is still doing well at their farm?”
“Hey coach - before we get to the analysis of first half, wanted to follow up on the car dealership. Any news on whether your 6th man was able to upgrade his SUV to an Escalade?”
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Random question for anyone who knows: It seems like a lot of these AAU leagues are playing during the summer and some of the gyms look like they have some fans in the stands. How is this possible? Are they playing in states with lesser restrictions? How are there no liability issues? I’m not arguing for or against it, I just was curious if there was pushback or criticism with these events happening?
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As far as I can tell it just comes down to the state where they are playing and whatever local legislation is in place.
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I don’t think it’s the media’s role to out cheaters. ESPN and Yahoo have done some work on it, but local media outlets would be jeopardizing their revenue.
The issue I see with the media is that no matter how egregious the cheating, their focus is soon on how the punishment only affects the poor innocent players that had nothing to do with it. And the fans and the local business owners and whoever else they can interview. Then they talk about the schools that have gotten away with cheating or just gotten a slap on the wrist. And they usually include schools like LSU who haven’t been punished yet.
None of this would much matter except that the NCAA schools seem preoccupied with avoiding bad PR whenever possible.
A system where punishments were more or less automatic based on the offense and the program’s history and where allegations of serious infractions were adjudicated by an independent entity is what they need. It would at least change the typical media narrative.
I can’t speak specifically to AAU, but here in Illinois they have all of the sports placed in tiers of risk. Football is in Tier-3 and can’t be played. Soccer is in Tier-2 and you can only have intra-club scrimmages with less than 25 people. Baseball is in Tier-1 so you can actually play full games, but you have to stick within your “region” of the state.
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Interesting that there is a wide split between when to start the season
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If it’s that easy to get a waiver, do you think there’s an element to the Chaundee Brown situation that they’re taking their time to decide if they actually want him immediately eligible?
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No, you get the precedent set by others than your application is easier to put together
It’s hard to see how that could be true. Brown could still redshirt even if he’s immediately eligible. That would only give them more flexibility. Plus look at what’s happening in football. Players are maintaining an extra year of eligibility even if they do play. It’s not impossible that happens with basketball too.
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But what if the precedent you get is bad? I really don’t see any strategic benefit to Michigan’s delaying the wavier request.
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Well, the logic with that statement was that if some players get waivers and others don’t, you can figure out the strategy used by each and tailor yours accordingly. Hauser wasn’t successful last year. In football, a lot of QBs have be granted immediate eligibility but other players haven’t.
With that being said - I tend to agree with you. I’m not sure why they haven’t already submitted it given that just about everyone else has…and just about all of those people have been approved.
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