8) Only OU? Not quite -- Sooners have lots of scandalous company July 13, 2007 By Mike Freeman CBS SportsLine.com National Columnist The University of Oklahoma was punished this week following revelations that a car dealership paid players for work they never did. C'mon, Boomer Sooners. Your standards are dropping. You can do better than that. You once ran one of the grimiest, dirtiest, gun-toting, bootlegging, hooligan coddling, cash-under-the-table programs in the history of college football. Barry Switzer was your coach ("And We're Gonna' Do it Ba-By!"). That's about all you have to say. You are among the standard bearers for lack of institutional control with your sexy five probations. You are improper benefits. You are improper recruiting. You are failure to monitor, improper inducements, improper entertaining, unethical conduct, improper lodging and any other improper you can think of. You are stop your grinnin' and drop your linen. You are ... gats and strippers. Now, you have been reduced to the pedantic by partnering with car dealers. Imagine that. A car dealer involved with wrongdoing. You used to be automatic weapons, now you're time cards on a car lot. Shame on you, Oklahoma. You're cliché now. (Although Car-Gate does explain why Bob Stoops was recently asking recruits if, instead of a scholarship, they would like an extended warranty.) But here is the good news, Oklahoma. In the pantheon of great rules-bending, NCAA-infuriating, college football programs, you are not No. 1. Imagine that, Oklahoma. There are bigger NCAA violators than you. The following are the top rules-breaking college football programs of all time. While squeezing in just 10 is like fitting Barry Bonds' head into a key hole, I tried my best. 10. Colorado. Two names: Slick Rick Neuheisel and Gary "Who Me?" Barnett. Five major institutional NCAA infractions at Colorado, including two this decade, according to the NCAA. Numerous rape accusations against recruits and players. Very solid work, fellas, very solid work. 9. Florida State. Pains me to put them here because I think Bobby Bowden is one of the best human beings on the planet, but I can't skip over Free Shoes University. 8. Texas A&M. The state of Texas, football and rules violations go together like ham, egg and cheese. Might deserve a higher slot, but the Aggies' cheat-to-win ratio is low. In other words, it hasn't been money well spent. 7. Washington. There's that Neuheisel name again. 6. Miami (Fla.). This is an interesting one. In terms of total school major infractions (all sports), the mighty Hurricanes are tied at five with universities like Baylor, Mississippi State and the University of Texas-Pan American, and behind the University of Memphis and the Minnesota Golden Gophers (such a cute mascot for such blatant rules violators). Thus Miami loses some street cred. You cannot be but so much a bad ass when Texas-Pan American nearly out-cheats you. But ah, the Hurricanes. They are like the Smokey Robinson of rules breakers. They might not be the all-time best but they make the most out of their opportunities. 5. SMU. An old-school classic. Received the death penalty. Harkens back to a time when the NCAA had testicles and did not pucker up to the derrières of fat-cat college presidents. Those were the days, when men were men and cheaters took great pride in their work. Cash payments distributed in a timely fashion, luxury cars handed out like heads of lettuce, players bought and paid for. Made you proud to be an American. 4. Arizona State. Never has so much rules breaking gotten a school so little. But they are creative out there in desert. One NCAA investigation found that a compliance officer allowed a football player to utilize her personal credit account for buying $900 worth of car equipment. She also opened a utility account for the player. I don't understand. Can't a brother get his electric bill paid? 3. Oklahoma. Boy, was that Barry Switzer fun. 2. Auburn. The SEC is to cheating what Superman is to comic book heroes. The best. Just about every school in the conference has a major infraction. The SEC boosters are so wealthy that spending $20,000 on a recruit is the equivalent of a martini lunch. Auburn earns a solid silver in the cheating Olympics. 1. Alabama. This is all you need to know about the skill and greatness of Alabama. An NCAA committee found that booster forked over $150,000 to a high school coach as a guarantee that a defensive lineman would attend Alabama. Yes -- $150,000. Now that is how you break the rules, people. (So what does a great running back go for in the SEC? A small diamond mine?) No payment of water bills. Just lots of cold, hard cash. Even an Auburn booster says: "You guys are my heroes, Alabama." "Not bad," says Switzer.
I'll go with that list. The two guys who headcoached UF into trouble with the NC2A were assistants for Bryant and Switzer. Coincidence? MCG - Fishing was pretty good. Because of high winds we spent most of our time inside loading up on redfish and several decent trout. Before the 4th we did get out tiwce for tarpon but only had 3 hook ups; got one small one ~~40# to the boat.
LOL! Small? I guess it's all relative to what you're fishing for. Up here in Indiana, that's a lifetime of bluegill catches.
As my fishing buddies know, a 40# tarpon is a baby. But it's better than getting skunked. Man, I can taste those bluegill now, pan fried in a bread crumb coating. Oh baby!
Ha that's pretty good, blame another coach for your school's problems. Twice. By the way, Bryant was never in trouble with the NCAA at least not the way UF was.
George, there is a family-style restaurant near our lake cottage that serves pan-fried bluegill. It's one of my favorites.
That article doesn't mean much to me because of the muckraker who wrote it. Freeman writes nothing but negative articles and is a low life in my book. So I'll take it with one big grain of salt.
Mike Freeman is the sportswriter that left the NY Times in 2004 to become a columnist for the Indianapolis Star, only to have that job fall through when it was determined that he really wasn't a graduate of the University of Delaware as he had stated on his resume.
"By the way, Bryant was never in trouble with the NCAA at least not the way UF was." In those days who was? There were many untouchables prior to the days when SMU made NCAA witch hunts the order of the day and the media began to frenzy over such things. Of course UF has had only one true scofflaw who didn't pay enough attention to NCAA details and that was Pell in the early 80s. That's why UF is not on this top ten list and it's about time members of the media grew up on UF with regard to this subject. ON fishing......I wanna know what "loading up on Reds" means Gaterz. That can mean some pretty good fishing. FYI...last Sat. in Lake St. Clair I boated a 33" 7 pound Pike and a 30" incher as well. That was fun.
Freeman is also the same guy that wrote the brilliantly researched hatchet piece about Clarett while at the Times..... Given his insights into the inner workings of our corrupt football machine, I'm dumbfounded that we didn't make his top ten.
Freeman is also the guy who while at the Jacksonsville Times called Urban Meyer a liar because he did not disclose that Chris Leak had a sore shoulder. Remember this is a guy who was a proven liar. Also as soon as he went with Sportsline he wrote an article accusing the Gators and Gator fans of racial bias because the fans had fallen in love with Tim Tebow and Tebow was getting as much playing time as he was. He also said bringing Tebow in on the Goal line was costing Leak his chance at the Heisman, where he never had a chance, and insinuated Leak was unhappy. Meanwhile Leak appeared with Tebow at every opportunity and that combination went a long way in helping us win the National Championship where Leak was the MVP. Freeman plays the race card at every opportunity, is a proven liar and his job now is to write as much contraversial stuff as he can. In my mind he's a jerk and when he writes something I usually ignore it.
Bill... <t>There is a reason the opinion of the American public on so called journalists is at an all time low. You sure this ingrate doesn't work for the Houston Chronicle?<br/> I doubt UM loses much sleep over guys like this and should not.</t>
MCG and Gaterzfan, not a bad tag team. The strategy of if you did get caught it was because you "didn't pay enough attention to NCAA details" and if you didn't get caught you were an "untouchable" is hard to counter. On another thread I thought the old days were when the NCAA had balls.
The NCAA has never been on an even keel. Before SMU I think they were pretty much hit and miss and missed a few on purpose. Post-SMU the NCAA was tripping all over itself to nail schools and certainly Florida deserved to be nailed in the early 80s but that's about it for UF even though much was made later under Galen Hall..... much made of nothing but the overzealousness of David Berst and crew and the media frenzy that followed. These days it's hit and miss again for the NCAA although no one is immune and hits are more frequent than misses. Some coaches still have thicker teflon coats though.