UNC Makes Ohio State look angelic...

[billybud]

OSU guys are breathing easier while, if I was a UNC fan, I might be holding my breath.

If the NCAA doesn't come down on this hard, it would surprise me. No LOIC in findings though, just Failure to Monitor.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/b ... ng-content

[RazorHawk]

That really makes me happy that Butch Davis did not come to Arkansas.

[donovan]

That really makes me happy that Butch Davis did not come to Arkansas.

I wonder if you did much better?

“Football is a game of courage, and one of the lessons I talk about with my players is you have to take the arrow in the forehead, which means tell the truth,” Coach Petrino said. “Don’t blame things on your teammate next to you. Tell the truth in all your relationships.”

"Louisville's Bobby Petrino denied a meeting with Auburn that had indeed taken place. The next year he signed a contract extension and said, "This is the place I want to be." He interviewed with LSU within a week of that statement."

I am afraid College Football has become a sewer...tough to be Ed Norton* and not get a little stink.

*Check with Mr. Billybud

[billybud]

LOL @ Donovan...Ed Norton, huh?

It isn't just us oldtimers who knew Ralph and Ed....due to reruns, some 30 somethings might know.

[Spence]

OSU guys are breathing easier while, if I was a UNC fan, I might be holding my breath.

If the NCAA doesn't come down on this hard, it would surprise me. No LOIC in findings though, just Failure to Monitor.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/b ... ng-content

I'm waiting for the whole investigation to come out. I know from this whole mess with Ohio State that the media doesn't get it right often. Ohio State did some stuff they need to be punished for doing, not near as much as the media had them doing, though.

If the same is true of UNC better wait til the end.

[billybud]

Heck...we know that Oregon is getting bad press for dealings with "street agents"....many folks are still convinced the Auburn guys get paid to play and yet no one is looking at .......all of the nuns lighting candles for Notre Dame.

Hey...I'm all for busting guys who are getting neat wheels but how about those nattily dressed in black "street agents" of Christ whispering for favors? "If it please you, Lord, could you just see that the good boys start ranked in the Top 10."

[Spence]

I haven't heard of any paper trail to Auburn paying anyone - except the hostesses. Rumors are just rumors til someone uncovers facts. I'm sure there isn't much going on at Auburn that isn't going on everywhere. As long as no one from the school is envolved, I don't know how big a deal that is. The schools can't possibly shut down everything, not when so many are there to "help". In cases, like with Tressel, where he knew and kept quiet, the school and the coach have to be punished. I think they have to try and control boosters and I think they have to remove them if they catch them breaking the rules, but you aren't going to stop booster involvement in schools. It just isn't going to happen.

[billybud]

Spence...there is an old saying here in the south.

"The best measure of what you are going to be is what you have been".

Auburn has a long sordid history of having organized money gathering from boosters, a payroll pad for athletes. Auburn may be clean, but that Tiger isn't changing its stripes.


The same pressures to compete, the same boosters, the same networks. Terry Bowden confessed to what was going on when he was there.

Shug Jordan, one of the greatest names in southern coaching, was caught cheating and the Tigers were on probation and not able to play in post season when they shared the title with Ohio State in 1957.

The next great coach, Pat Dye, was forced to resign in 1992 when Dye was discovered to also be involved in paying football players in 1991. Auburn made national news when 60 Minutes aired an embarrassing segment in which former Auburn player Eric Ramsey detailed how Auburn coaches worked around NCAA rules and paid players without detection for years.

Terry Bowden was hired to replace Dye...Terry said the program he inherited included an elaborate system of paying star high school players up to $15,000 to sign with Auburn and $600 per month while on the team.

Bowden said he learned of the major NCAA infractions within days of being named Auburn ’s head coach but kept quiet while trying to clean up the program from within. "I broke the rules," Bowden said. “I told Wayne Hall to pay it off to the players we already had and it will never happen again."

from article about it

This statement was made by Bowden after he was forced out by Auburn power brokers in 1998, verified the 60 Minutes and Eric Ramsey account that was aired in 1991 and was proof that players were still being paid at Auburn as late as 1998.

"Here is how it works, 50 to 60 men give $5,000 per year. Wayne would collect it. These are all good men. They didn’t ask questions. The coach tells them that everybody cheats so we have to. My first two years we went 11-0 and 9-0-1.

"My third year, (assistants Jimbo) Fisher and (Rick) Trickett said, 'Hall is on the phone a lot with Lowder.' I thought he was going back to cheating. I told Hall that when the season was over he needed to move on."

Terry Bowden claimed that he was fired for refusing to continue the practice of buying and paying players, and there were rumors that part of the reason Tommy Tuberville was forced out in 2008 was for similar reasons.

One of Tuberville's assistant coaches wives went on record as saying:

“This is how Auburn runs things,” she says, right before avowing that “nobody will beat Nick Saban in this state” unless Auburn hires someone to “shake hands and put a couple hundred dollars in a recruit’s pockets like they did in the past,” a not-so-subtle nod to Terry Bowden. “And they’re looking for someone to buy players.”

Both Bowden and Tuberville left Auburn with golden parachute-type buyouts that of course included confidentiality clauses as part of the deal, which only added to the negative speculation"

[billybud]

I, from some conversations at FSU, have no doubt about what was going on at Auburn. Those Tigers may have become housecats, but if so, it was only in the last year or so since Bobby Lowder was forced out as the kingpin of Auburn sports.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Lowder, he was Auburn's chief booster, but also had himself appointed a Trustee of the college. He had handpicked board members appointed and he basically ran Auburn. Coaches and AD's were his "employees".

As one former coach's wife put it.."Bobby Lowder ran Auburn like it was his professional team franchise."

[Spence]

I don't doubt any of that. I also think a certain amount of cheating goes on everywhere. I applaud Terry Bowden for trying to stop it when he found out. That is what a coach should do. Problem is most look away and try to pretend it isn't happening. I think the problem is two fold. One with the NCAA themselves and some of the silly rules they have made. One with the booster culture that promotes cheating. You may have five good boosters to every one bad one, but that bad one can do a ton of damage.

[donovan]

Larger programs are more susceptible, I think, to smaller programs. It happened with Don James at the University of Washington. Booster that had car dealerships and players with "almost" new cars appearing in the parking lot and James saying, "I never noticed what kind of cars the kids drive." The Willinghams that clean up the program and get fired because of zero wins.

BYU a few years back...maybe five, fires all their Athletic Directors, a VP of the School takes over the program because the schools rules were being broken, not with money, but recruiting players that were told they had to sign the code of conduct but no effort to enforce or report violations.

Smaller schools like Boise, plenty of money there, have the same issues on a lesser scale...mainly because they do not compete for the so called 5 star recruits...which in all likelihood is a paper tiger.

It it greed, power and corruption. Yes. No matter what you do, you will have these things. But Spence is right, for every rotten apple in Washington or Peach in Georgia or Buckeye...do Buckeyes rot?..and if so who cares...there are the ten or twelve or three good ones.

What I think is sad is good men, coaches and players become tainted because they are playing in an arena where honor and pride are whited sepulcher words.

[Spence]

I agree and Buckeyes will rot sooner or later. They are poison though so it really doesn't matter.

[Derek]

That really makes me happy that Butch Davis did not come to Arkansas.

I wonder if you did much better?

“Football is a game of courage, and one of the lessons I talk about with my players is you have to take the arrow in the forehead, which means tell the truth,” Coach Petrino said. “Don’t blame things on your teammate next to you. Tell the truth in all your relationships.”

"Louisville's Bobby Petrino denied a meeting with Auburn that had indeed taken place. The next year he signed a contract extension and said, "This is the place I want to be." He interviewed with LSU within a week of that statement."

I am afraid College Football has become a sewer...tough to be Ed Norton* and not get a little stink.

*Check with Mr. Billybud

Yeah but Petrino has a history of this. He did it to the Falcons. Say his name to any Falcons fan, and you'll get a look of disgust.

He is loyal only to himself.

[Derek]

LOL @ Donovan...Ed Norton, huh?

It isn't just us oldtimers who knew Ralph and Ed....due to reruns, some 30 somethings might know.

Jeez...I grew up watching that. 40.

[RazorHawk]

That really makes me happy that Butch Davis did not come to Arkansas.

I wonder if you did much better?

“Football is a game of courage, and one of the lessons I talk about with my players is you have to take the arrow in the forehead, which means tell the truth,” Coach Petrino said. “Don’t blame things on your teammate next to you. Tell the truth in all your relationships.”

"Louisville's Bobby Petrino denied a meeting with Auburn that had indeed taken place. The next year he signed a contract extension and said, "This is the place I want to be." He interviewed with LSU within a week of that statement."

I am afraid College Football has become a sewer...tough to be Ed Norton* and not get a little stink.

*Check with Mr. Billybud

Yeah but Petrino has a history of this. He did it to the Falcons. Say his name to any Falcons fan, and you'll get a look of disgust.

He is loyal only to himself.

I was not aware that Petrino was doing a lot of illegal recruiting while with the Falcons.

Most of the Falcon fans that I have talked to, felt that Petrino was not that good of a coach. Kind of makes you wonder why they then were so mad that he left the organization. Also, Petrino talking to Auburn about a possible job opening did not break any rules. If you are working for an employer and would like to pursue other better opportunities, I don't think most people will go to their current employer to tell him about it and probably deny they are doing it. I know I never did.