The Mess That Is The NCAA

Is there any group, business, or entity that is more corrupt than college football right now?

College football is currently a mess with less credibility and ethical standards than former representative Anthony Weiner.

“I think [NCAA President] Mark Emmert put it well,” SEC commissioner Mike Slive told ESPN.com’s Ivan Maisel. “We may have lost the benefit of the doubt at the moment with the public.”

The NCAA MAY have lost the benefit of the doubt? There should be no ‘may have’ in this statement at all. The NCAA has clearly lost the trust of the public.

If anyone still believes college football is not in a downward tailspin then they are either clueless or work for the NCAA.

While plenty of fans want to believe their beloved game of college football is played the right way, it is hard to ignore the facts of this year alone.

In his column, Maisel lists the image problems the NCAA is currently facing.

The 2010 national champion, the University of Auburn, is currently under NCAA investigation.

The 2004 national champion, USC, was found guilty of violations and was ordered to vacate their title.

The U.S Department of Justice wants to talk to the BCS about potential antitrust infractions and the Fiesta Bowl had to endure a scandal that involved executives taking private vacations and frequenting strip clubs.

Jim Tressell, the head coach at Ohio State, was forced to resign after it was discovered he lied to NCAA investigators amid plenty of other NCAA violations.

If that list seems long and exhaustive just remember it covers this year alone.

An Inside Higher Education analysis shows defiance of the rules is a widespread problem.

“The review finds that 53 of the 120 universities in the NCAA’s top competitive level, the Bowl Subdivision, were found by the Division I Committee on Infractions to have committed major rules violations from 2001 to 2010.”

The USA Today has also reported that, “0.03% of colleges in the nation’s six major football-playing conferences have never had a major NCAA infraction.”

Stanford and Penn State are the ONLY programs that have been clean throughout their history.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Arizona State University is leading the way with nine major infractions.

The saying may be “no news is good news,” but when watching an episode of College Football Live is more depressing, and full of more tragedy, than a regular evening newscast there is definitely a problem.

It was once said that “if you’re not cheating, you are not trying.” However, this quote was presumably said in a satirical context, but it seems as if the major college football programs are taking them literal.

Not only do people cheat when they want to win, but they cheat when they think they can get away with it, which is a big problem across D-1 football.

If the NCAA was able to better police the football programs, the desire to cheat would decrease immensely.

Unfortunately, the NCAA is about as useless as a kindergarten diploma, when it comes to enforcing the rule.

Teams do get punished when they are found guilty of violations, the problem lies in the fact that there are plenty of teams not getting caught, or that do not get caught until years later.

While the NCAA rules may be out-dated in the minds of some, they are still the rules and there is no excuse for people to break them on such a regular basis.