The College Football Coach's Conundrum

as usually well reasoned. The issue I have is that you start with the assumed but unproven idea that everyone cheats. I’m not willing to concede that. For one, it acts as a shield for the guilty, mitigating the deserved punishment. For another, it is the ultimate invitation to cheat.
I have known many in variously despised professions, notably attorneys. In my experience, truth is that the rank and file of people, no matter what their profession, choose to operate within the rules. I have found that to be especially true of those with real talent.

Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples made the assertion on twitter that every college coach operates in a gray area. The difference he argues, “is a matter of degree.” This is very much true although the moral component toward the existence of a grey area itself overwhelms the basic point.

Both spellings of the shade in the same paragraph. It’s things like this that make English so difficult to learn.

Almost every NCAA rule exists – in theory anyway – to limit exploitation of the amateur athlete.

As a starting matter, I recognize that you qualify this with the “almost,” and “in theory.” That being said, I think that one of the primary focii of the NCAA is to maximize revenues. (I don’t know that many NCAA rules, so I’m completely talking for unsupported supposition and bias.) An argument can certainly be made that attempts to artificially impose parity benefit the athlete – recruiting restrictions, scholarship limits, etc., would seemingly give good athletes better opportunities for playing time, even if at traditionally less competitive schools, and thereby increase their exposure. Matt Cassels are rare.

However, I think most would agree that rules designed to foster parity despite disparate interest and resource commitment are geared more towards maximizing revenues. Alabama and Ohio State fans are already watching. Now let’s get the folks of Idaho and Nevada (outside of Las Vegas and Reno) and Hawai’i watching and buying tickets and merchandise.

I think I will try to temper my enthusiasm for OSU’s humbling with this factor: the OSU case/scandal will be on the SMU (extreme) end of examples of NCAA violators.

Like SMU, OSU is looking like it is absolutely rife with varying levels of corruption and has been for a decade. Say what you want about Dye at Allbarn, OSU already has canaries flying to microphones with each passing day. By the time all of the evidence is collected, OSU will far surpass the USC example.

That said, I think applying the “this happens in most competitive programs” argument is quite misleading. If this were occurring throughout the typical top-15 schools, OSU would be joining the ranks of at least five-eight other programs as being under serious investigation by the NCAA. Personally, I think OSU operated to such an extreme of corruption, I can’t imagine what a program could do to surpass this… but you know what school I’m thinking of.

To be honest I’m surprised more college coaches don’t have emotional breakdowns. I’d assume most of them got into coaching because they love football and because they have a desire to help young people. There is some big money if you make it to be a HC at a big D-1 school, but most never do. So, I’m going to guess money was not the prime motivation to become a coach. But, when you make it to your dream job there is pressure to stay there. You can only stay there if you walk a very fine line between the rules and getting the tip players as you pointed out.

I would say there may be one exception to this conundrum. That would be a guy like Chizik. I actually think Chizik was tapped by Auburn because they felt he was just dumb enough for the “powers that be” to run the show without him ever even knowing it. So you have a HC that is so out of the loop he doesn’t even know his program is cheating. He actually thinks someone like Cam wants to come to the school just to be a part of the “family.” (Even though he clearly was comign for juist one year.)

And what a brilliant strategy because a coach like that can not be gotten by the NCAA because, unlike Tressel, he really doesn’t know anything is a foot.

I can’t be the only person who feels this way, so here goes…

I read voraciously, yet I am wholly unable to decipher Pryor’s twattings, or whatever the fuck they’re called. Am I that far-removed from Brooklyn, or is there a new language being spoken with primordial grunts standing in for what was once enunciated? OSU fans shouldn’t be as angry with Pryor for toppling the program as they should be for his merciless butchering of the English language.

…or am I alone in my disdain for the unbridled idiocy twitter has exposed?

This was a really good read.

I’ll stick my neck out there as I have before in response to an early post in this thread by Heffalump: I do think the majority of the big time schools commit infractions on a regualr basis. The level of these infractions and how they do it may vary, but they occur.

Now the sticking point is to what degree does the institution invest in compliance and how far does their regulation/oversight extend? That would be a good one to research.

One of the things I like about Saban since his arrival is his attention to detail: working WITH the president, putting an emphasis on compliance, etc. This reduces the risk, but the risk is still there. From what I have seen it’s more how your respond once the infractions incur that matters.

In the context of OSU, the blindly followed Tressel and they will get the hammer for it. Tressel seemed to have a knack of portraying himself in one way while encouraging/enabling shady dealings behind the scenes.

Again, this won’t stop. It will go in cycles. To me it’s kind of like traffic laws: We know what the speed limit is and how we should come to complete stops at the stop sign yet we break those laws everyday. Players, coaches and fans know the rules for the most part yet they are broken everyday.

As long as the payouts stay high and the pressure of winning remains constant, this will always occur. Just make your choice as to turn a blind eye to it or not. Most would rather not think about it or maintain plausible deniability. I just try to enjoy the game and let the other stuff sort itself out.

While we’re at it, let’s dream about the NCAA using case precedence in making future rulings on those programs breaking rules.

Thank you for something other than a Tressel bashing.

This tension exists everywhere else in the world, but I’d say it’s worse on college football coaches. Most people with regular jobs know when they are crossing a line. In amateur sports, you can commit a violation and not even know it. You have do extra just to be sure you’re doing what you’re supposed to do.

Your premise is that the coach is setting the position of the X. However, it’s not nearly that sanitary, as boosters, administrators, assistants, current and former players, etc have all been found to be “setting the X” further to the right independent of the head coach.

Also, at what point is the level of regulation so complicated, the rules so numerous, and their adjudication so varied that the X starts moving to the right in relation to the axes, not because of any change in intent, but just because in natural operation, there’s no chance that even the most conscientious boy scout can stay up against the left axis? Related; how often do we see a “secondary violation” report where the ones involved are essentially saying “oops, didn’t mean to, sorry”, but every reasonable observer knows that it was intentional (looking at you Lame Kitten)?

I know this isn’t meant to be a doctoral thesis* and you’re just getting this out to be yakked about, so that’s my yakking.

*but it’s a damn sight closer to it than anything printed in any of the “paid” sports rags, so kudos.

…I love the graphs.