Tip to NCAA: It's all about the money

◊ The Orlando Sentinel had a good article today by Alan Schmadtke, who explained that if anything is ever going to change in college football, it must start and end with the money.

"Hitting the Seminoles right where they hurt most -- Bowden's record -- isn't the most effective way to punish schools across the board when it comes to NCAA penalties... Hit schools where it hurts: in the checkbook."

I couldn't agree more with Schmadtke. While I don't personally mind, for obvious reasons, if the NCAA upholds the forfeit of those 14 Bowden wins, I do believe that it's not an effective way to solve these problems.

College football is one of the best run businesses next to the NFL. You could actually say it's better, due to the ever-ridiculous cloak of "student athletes = more wholesome sport." Bullshit. By taking away wins from another team that committed a similar ––we'll use USC as the example–– it would not really hurt the football program the way a financial punishment would. Do you think USC and other juggernauts would be so lax about the rules, if they faced the possibility of a hefty fine on top of all the other normal punishments?

You throw a $500,000 fine at USC, including loss of scholarships and probation; now there's incentive to behave.

Schmadtke continued,

"The NCAA screams about the arms race in college athletics. Schools spend too much money on athletic facilities, it says. They're escalating coaching salaries too high, it says. Budget trends are non-sustainable, it says...Well, OK. Force schools that cheat to cut back. Fine them. The bigger the penalty, the bigger the fine... Fine them and put all of a school year's fines into an escrow account to pay for NCAA initiatives that will benefit athletes and schools that don't cheat."

Now that's a winning point right there. If the NCAA did that, it would be viewed as a shining beacon of light in an otherwise dark world of college football. I really hope someone from the NCAA reads this.

Now, I don't want to hear people contend that the NCAA can't do things like fining and stuff. Bullshit. When college football went to bed with the BCS, and rakes in billions of dollars each season, they forfeited any right to complain about financial sanctions for rule breakers.

But there is one last thing about Schmadtke's article I should point out. He wrote the following passage:

"Steve Spurrier was railing about this way back in 1990 when he arrived at probation-laden Florida when his first team was paying for the sins committed under former coach Galen Hall."

This is simply a misinformed statement. I don't know how you could be a college football writer at one of Florida's leading news organizations, yet mess something up this big. The NCAA violations which resulted in the sanctions placed on Florida in the 1980s, were due to infractions by the Gators' previous coach, Charley Pell. Galen Hall did not commit those "sins" while at Florida. In fact, he went on to several very successful seasons with the Gators, despite the fact that he had to deal with Pell's mess.

(link) Orlando Sentinel

Have a great weekend everyone!