Everybody no doubt is aware that SI.Com is running a series on Okklahoma State and various NCAA rules violations that their investigation has uncovered. Now Yahoo has uncovered players at Tenn (Tyler Bray and Maurice Couch) along with players at Ole Miss, Alabama and Miss State who also got paid while they were in college. More trouble I'm sure it's the tip of the iceberg, probably depends on how far somebody wants to go to investigate college football. I don't think it's really all about pay for the players either. I think it's about recruiting and booster involvement.
Terry, I agree it is only the tip of the iceberg. It has been around a long time, and in reality sport agents, boosters are all to blame. Very difficult to control this type of activity.
I'd suggest you re-read that article. One of the offenses is a PARENT/booster, abusing her position to hand out money to another player's parent..who was unemployed. It's everyone. It's systemic.
Like all of the other stories, I will withhold judgement until the facts come out. If this is another booster type of thing I will be pissed, if Alabama is involved I will probably just give up on college football for good.
KP, Did you read that? That's pretty damning, and it's already proven. Now, the trick is.. can Alabama get everyone to lawyer up before the NCAA knocks on their door? I'm not even kidding. The NCAA never proved the Bush case, Yahoo did. The NCAA had to go through Yahoo to get the USC case done. I wonder if that will happen now. Reading Wentzel's recent article, he seems to think they'll struggle to obtain the same info Yahoo did. I'm not sure how or why things are different now..but I promise you, no one will want to see you hang more than USC.
Corey, Forgive me but I've been through a few things where the press out and out lied. I won't take a story by Yahoo as the gospel just yet. I did the same with Ohio State, I did the same with Teo, I did the same with Manziel. Having said that, I repeat, if Alabama is in fact involved with paying Fluker, then I don't think I want to go through another prolonged process of having an institution, that I have loved my whole life exposed as blatantly lying and openly cheating. I will give up college football first.
Nah you're good. There's receipts. Text messages. Invoices. Incredibly labeled in Fluker's name. You're clear in that the school doesn't appear to have anything to do with this at all. You're issue (despite all the booster/agent rambling).. is that one of the clearest cut issues is Pennington's mom approved loans and a line of credit for Fluker's mom. (Pennington's mom is a VP of a bank). It should also be mentioned that Fluker's mom is/was unemployed. It also appears (and this is an oddity) that Pennington's mom and Fluker's 'agent' seem very well aware of the fact that there is a 'hospital job' for Fluker's mom waiting but she keeps coming up with excuses not to start it. I know people will focus on other stuff, but speaking strictly from the NCAA viewpoint (which I try to give people but no one ever wants to listen), the "mommy gate" issue may be a bigger deal. Pennington's mom is a booster. Period. There's no room for interpretation or twisting. She knows this. She abused her position as VP of a bank to float money to the mother (repeatedly) of Bama's best player. When Fluker's mom wouldn't pay her back or work, Pennington's mom turned to Fluker's agent..which certainly seems to indicate some sort of network between them.. but even skipping that speculation, just going off the receipts and things the people themselves are admitting to, Bama is in trouble... If anyone remembers Fluker's tweet back in January boasting about getting paid in college, only to later 'retract' that.. I tried explaining the process and difficulty of that to everyone back then, but no one wanted to listen. That's why I'll toss in my 2 cents tonight for fun and then move on. If I were you, I'd read it all just so you have it. This isn't speculation. Yahoo has it all documented. One thing I like about Yahoo vs ESPN is that ESPN reports on 'confirmed anonymous sources' while Yahoo tends to deal face up from the top of the deck. Anyway, people are just going to believe what they want. You and I have talked about this before. The problem isn't actually the school. It's the god damned fans and boosters. They are out of control.. and in case anyone forgot that, here's another reminder.
Corey, What we have is story stating that they have this evidence. We will see. I'm sure that I will have time to delude myself into some sort of rationalization whereby I can weasel out of my declaration on this. But hell that's just the way I am.
I'd check the sidebar of that article man. I could sit here and post these all day. They are doing a lot more than saying they have them. They're showing you.
it's not about winning (at least here), you said that these things either don't exist or weren't part of the report. They are very much a part of the report. This isn't a he said/she said. I've seen this countless times with SEC fans where they do this whole 'the world is out to get us and frame us up' thing.. Then when the proof is finally delivered, laid out and laminated for protection of vandalism.. only then do you get the 'well everyone does it and if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying' line. One of the things I've always enjoyed about you is that you are NOT that fan ever.. I know you're pissed. You should be. You're handling it better than I would have. If ND had fans and boosters who kept doing this to the school, I would have broken a foot off in someone's ass by now.
See Corey, you're wrong. I never said they didn't exist and I didn't say they weren't part of the story. I said all we had was the Yahoo story. This has gone high and right way too quick. I know you like to paint a whole region of the country with a broad brush. If I stick around this scab is just going to get picked over and over. Have fun. Later y'all. :arrow:
In deed he does KP and then there's Gippers remarks about saying it's the NCAA's part. But then a few years ago Notre Dame got nailed by the NCAA and yes indeed they same guys alway's that condemn us southerners were totally indigent when NCAA nailed Notre Dame. Go figure.
1 Scholarship over 2 years. Yeah, you can't get nailed more than that! The penalty committee voiced their opinion about the charges loud and clear.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to remind folks about the "Dunbar" scandal at ND. Kim Dunbar was a football groupee, dating and sleeping with some of the players. In order to get close to the players she joined a QB Club which met on Fridays before the games. Despite the fact that she knew a number of football players who had access to tickets, she never went to any of the ND football games. (HINT: she didn't give a crap about ND football only about dating ND football players.) Dunbar worked in a business office and apparently embezeled money from her employer. She used some of that money to buy gifts for football players and take them to events like Bulls games in Chicago. When the question of whether or not Dunbar was a "booster" of ND football the infractions committee voted 50-50 that she was. The chairman of the committee broke the tie voting that she was. Now of course it was determined that she was a booster, the ND coaches were held accountable for not controling the players in their contacts with boosters (ie. they didn't stick their noses into who the players were dating.) And so it came down to the last question for the committee. Did ND obtain an advantage from the "illegal" gifts that their players recieved? I loved this one. Since ND should have known that the players were receiveing illegal gifts (although 50% of the committee voted that they weren't) ND gained an advantage since they played those players. It's no ******* wonder that the "penalty" committee laughed at what had happened. The good news for some, is that they can actually point to this joke as an example of when ND was penalized by the NCAA.
You said they stated they had it. I showed you where they did. I've lived in every region except the northeast and I only make those comments about one region. What's funny is, when the scandals aren't in the headlines, you can hear the fans here laugh about these things. The closest thing to the insanity of the South in any other part of the country is Ohio. That isn't to say all of them, just like I say not all fans in the SEC are this way, but a whole god damn lot of them are that way. You see Bill, Notre Dame was busted because a girlfriend (and I use that term fairly loosely) of the players joined a group called 'The Quarterback Club' so she could be closer to the players. It turns out that this 'girlfriend' was stealing from her company. The media (and the NCAA) ran right out to paint this as a rogue booster pumping cash to players. It was only by the most technical of definitions that she was considered a booster. The NCAA itself had to break their own rules/precedent in order to even push the investigation through to the penalty phase. That's right, they never came to a majority agreement over whether or not a penalty occurred at all. To me, and most ND fans, the one thing we were guilty of is the one thing no one ever mentioned. We had a backup QB from MS who was selling his tickets to the game to his girlfriend. That's a violation. No one ever had an issue with that. We all took issue with the 'booster' claim of this other girlfriend. She was a groupie and a thief, but not a booster. We're pissed because we were guilty of major sanctions by only the most twisted (and newly created) definition and application of the rule. Yet, we sit back and watch ******** like this go on in the SEC in which you're only getting off by the most technical of definitions/interpretations of the rules. In everything, there is context, and that is what you ignore. You've heard me say that Ohio State was guilty as hell of many things they were charged with. You've also heard me say that the NCAA went over the top in punishing some of the kids in order to satisfy the mob and media. I defended Alabama tooth and nail in their last investigation while many, many SEC fans were piling on. It wasn't that I believed they were 'innocent' but it had everything to do with fairness and application of the rules as they are written. The past 7 to 10 years has seen this cancerous, 'make it up as you go along' type of attitude from the NCAA which surpasses all of their previously established hypocrisy. That's what we were/are pissed off about. If we were guilty, fine. Then where is this vigorous prosecution from the NCAA for everyone else? sidenote: The committee chairman of the NCAA's investigation into ND was the AD from Kentucky. He is the one who pushed ND's investigation onto the penalty round, even though the NCAA's investigative committee couldn't agree if a penalty even occurred. What's noteworthy about this is at that same exact time, Kentucky's own football coach was writing checks from the Athletic Dept and Kentucky football slush fund checking accounts to Kentucky players. (Hal Mumme).. That's why it is different. If you don't see that, you never will.