They are no doubt correct, and there is no doubt in my mind that the coaches let the players know that they expect more than the NCAA mandated effort. I think that quote that Bobda found where Urban Meyer laid down high expectations for the off season conditioning program is probably pretty typical of what coaches do all around the country. While maybe most staffs don't do any monitoring directly, you can bet that they have ways of finding out if some players aren't showing up or putting out the effort. When you and I were in college players went home for the summer and had jobs, no doubt some of them probably loafed all summer. Some like Rockne and Dorais got jobs as lifeguards and tossed a football when they could. Construction jobs were the rage when I was a student for athletes. Now days they all stay on campus go to summer school and do those 7x7 drills and weight lift. I can't imagine what the result would be if there was a football player who didn't need the summer school hours and just wanted to go home for awhile and maybe travel in the summer and forget about football, esp if he was expecting to be a starter or backup.
The issue at hand isn't the expectation of doing more. The issue at hand is exactly who was there monitoring this activity.