Published February 17, 2011 - 5:58am
NEW: Discuss this topic in the Google+ community for SEC fans.
Like the steroid era in baseball, it seems like fans are becoming somewhat numb to the continuous rumors and allegations of rule breaking in college football. Also like baseball, fans seem to be moving for the most part to the point of view that everyone is doing it, so maybe we should just quit talking about it.
Earlier, I was reading about more investigations regarding Auburn and their recruiting reported by Thayer Evans of Fox Sports. A few paragraphs into it, my eyes started to glaze over and I was no longer interested. But, they might be breaking the rules! Yeah, yeah.
We Americans are good at becoming used to things, even bad things. If enough people are doing it, we stop becoming shocked, even surprised, at the continued acts that should bother us.
And it’s not like the NCAA is helping. I mean could you be more inconsistent? From Dez Bryant to AJ Green to Cecil Newton to Lane Kiffin to Terrelle Pryor, I mean is there any continuity in the “rulings” of the college football governing body? Inconsistency breeds fan outrage and over time, that outrage turns to apathy.
So, yes, I do care about violations of various programs, athletes and coaches, but I definitely don’t care as much as I used to. I definitely assume almost all of the big players are doing it, and like MLB and steroids, I think the NCAA probably has no idea how to deal with it without wrecking the entire sport. Maybe Congress will get involved with the NCAA like they did with the MLB. Wouldn’t that be fantastic? Because if there’s anyone I want meddling with college football, it’s the likes of Barnie Frank.
Fans are as guilty as any party in making this a ridiculous topic. Auburn fans will defend Cam and Cecil Newton to no matter what, while Alabama fans will scream at Auburn fans for breaking the rules at the same time. Ohio State fans will somehow try to explain why Terrelle Pryor and his boys were justified in playing in the Sugar Bowl and not in the first five games of the 2011 regular season. Fans defend their teams and criticize their rivals. That’s what fans do.
So, fans essentially only care when it involves their team or their rival. OMG, Oregon State may have broke some NCAA rules! Great, what time is American Idol on tonight?
If there is a path to a boring and uninteresting website on SEC football, it would probably be the path of intense NCAA rules research and the continuous reporting of allegations of various teams breaking the rules. Snooze.
Sure, I’d prefer the sport to be clean, but is any industry that has billions of dollars at stake and is ultra-competitive really clean?
Frankly, it’s a tiresome topic and until the NCAA is going to really crack down on it, it’s pretty annoying and useless banter. I could probably go back through the posts on Cam Newton on this site and pull out hundreds of dumb comments from either side of the situation, paste them here, and you’d want to throw up. So, until there is real action with real penalties, I’m not sure it’s really a relevant topic.
So, what say you, Fan of SEC Football? Do you even care about NCAA violations anymore? Add your well-thought-out comments below…
OMG if you are not RIGHT! I hate to admit it but I am one of those fans that did and still do defend Cam. But I refuse to defend Cecil. I know in my heart his dad did wrong, I just can’t see it in my heart that Cam did. I may be wrong and so be it. But if I am like you and many others and find myself glazing over any team breaking rules and find it nothing really important than that is a sad day. :-(
Well cam didn’t do anything wrong it was all his fathers doing but I agree with this article I mean I care and think something should be done but nothing really is to stop the problem as a whole
Becoming numb to violations of the rules will slowly and surely lead to the degradation of football as a sport and a culture. The rules are in place for very good reasons, these athletes are barely even adults when they go to college and are role models to millions of children around America. There has to be a set of rules to govern them and make sure that they (or anyone else involved in the schools’ programs) do not behave improperly. If anything, the NCAA (and MLB, the NFL, NHL and NBA as well) should crack down harder on violators for the sake of preserving and respecting the integrity of the sport(s).
I really don’t think anything can truly be done, until outside offenders can be punished without punishing people not involved. Right now, if a booster posts a player without the coaches, or school administrators knowledge, nothing happens to the booster, but the school gets hammered. That is what is wrong with all of this.
I meant to say if a booster pays a player.
I’m a SEC fan period, I love college football, as to your article , yes we care about cheaters . During the season that’s all that folks were talking about on Facebook and twitter . As for Cam newton and his father , get over it auburn fans , Cam had to know what was going on , it’s his father for crying out loud… And should have been delt with… As for Terrel Pryor well that entire thing made the NCAA officials look totally incompetent … Notice the only folks on the side of these two players are the fans of these universities. It is time ethics come back to college football , these are still someones children that are still learning the road of life and getting away with cheating does not help them… We are all to blame , we defend our players for the sake of a bowl game , a winning season, or a national championship. What are we as fans doing to the character of these players. We hold them high on pediatals than most NFL players. This is a problem that we as fans parents and NCAA rule makers need to fix.
Billy, if you would, could you read me the part of the NCAA rules that says “if he didn’t know, he should have” is an NCAA violation. When someone shows me that rule, I’ll be more than happy say that Cam Newton should be punished in some way. Unlike you, I still believe in innocent until proven guilty. The NCAA has investigated the recruitment of Cam newton, and on three separate occasions stated that there was no evidence to suggest Cam newton knew what Cecil Newton and the Mississippi State players were plotting. Of course, they also never once uttered “if he didn’t know, he should have”, so we’re going to punish him anyway.
As for the Thayer Evans piece of sh*t article, I’d take anything he says with a huge grain of salt. He has no credibility as a sports writer. He was fired from the New York Times for doing a very similar hit piece on Texas, which was later proven to be a manufactured piece of BS. He’s still p*ssed off because the NCAA didn’t declare Cam Newton ineligible, despite his best efforts. Faux Sports even had the gall to send him to the BCS Championship game, and he wouldn’t even look any of the Auburn players or staff in the face, or ask them any questions. It was funny to see him hiding behind them with his microphone down low so he might not be seen. Here’s the video of the coward. He’s the POS that slips behind Chizik during his interview.
OOPS. Hit comment before I included the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49E3H5SRDuo
You Awbarn homer. Remove your head from ass and come back to reality. Do you honestly think he had NO CLUE what his dad was doing?? Think back to when your dad did some things (whatever they may be, outside smoking a cigarette or hiding a playboy) he thought he hid it from you but you knew. Cam knew what his dad was doing and he got damn lucky there wasn’t a rule in place.