How Much Cheating IS Going On

[dylan]

The NCAA has the ability to go all SMU (or even PSU) on these cheaters, but they hold back. Why rock the boat when money's pouring in? I also suspect that they fear what could happen if they slam a school and that school files a lawsuit that leads to the dissolution of the NCAA as we know it. Much easier to keep the money rolling and hand out slaps on the wrist when you have to.

[strigori]

The NCAA does not have that much power. Remember, the NCAA is not a 'ruling body' like a real government, it is a membership organization, where the members are free to leave at anytime. And that 'anytime' will probably show up in the next couple years with a 'super division' made of the Power 5 and have a different set of rules than the rest. And if the other members don't want to let that happen, then the Power 5 simply break off and form their own governing body.

[Omaha-Husker]

The current $EC has only been rivaled by the $WC in the '80s. Someone is going to get caught and hit hard eventually, and it will probably be someone like Kentucky because the NCAA wont want to bury a big boy.

[HuskerShark]

I was listening to Sports Nightly earlier and they were talking about the 5 major conferences breaking away from the NCAA in the near future to create "Division 4" football. The NCAA ought to do something productive while it still can.

[CockInYourEar]

It's good to get out of the box and get y'all's perspective on issues like cheating in college athletics. It goes on everywhere, for just about every sport, but with different levels of severity. Teams like So Cal, PSU and OSU lose games, championships, post season eligibility and this is recently, b/c the cheating was blatant enough. Teams like Auburn do it and get away free and clear, but karma kicks their teeth in the next couple of seasons. Bama is just good at it, there's a process, and they are the best, nobody is close to their level and they will never catch them again. Even Mississippi State cheated, had boosters giving recruits from Memphis money to specifically commit to MSU, and I think MSU is still bowl eligible. Oregon just was busted recently for their payment(s) to handler(s).

 

Then you got hundreds of confusing secondary violations, like texting a recruit on the wrong week, and I think everyone has something like that about every year.

[jmfb]

I graduated from a school other than NU

Widespread cheating going on EVERYONE knew it

When they were bad, we all joked "worst team money could buy"

Lots of brand new sports cars and pickup trucks parked behind the athletic dorm

Ive had former HS teammates play at NU and know several former players

None of them got anything from NU

I employed an NU player when he was on the team- a starter- scholarship kid

The compliance office made us jump through hoops- making sure the kid was working and getting paid same exact amt as others doing same job

Cheaters say 'everyone is doing it" to help justify the cheating

It obviously is going on at lots of places- not so sure at all and I dont think at NU at all

 

Note- that cheaters BREED cheaters

Start with Bear Bryant and see the cheaters that came from his coaching tree:

 

THE MYTH AND LEGEND OF THE BEAR BRYANT COACHING TREE- Chris Holden

 

Everyone knows that Bear Bryant is much revered in college football circles for his teams’ success on the gridiron, but many do not realize that he is just as revered in some circles for his so-called coaching “tree,” a legacy of coaches who learned much of their trade as players and assistants under Bryant.

 

Unfortunately, there is a VERY dark side to the Bryant coaching tree. Virtually all of the prominent members of the Bear Bryant coaching tree saw their tenures coincide with NCAA rules violations. In some cases this coincidence occurred more than once.

 

It all started with Bear Bryant himself…

 

Bear Bryant

 

The NCAA did not start handing out probation for rules violations until 1953. Lo and behold, in 1954, Bear Bryant became head coach at Texas A&M University. In 1955 Texas A&M was found guilty of recruiting violations and were put on probation in 1956, including a ban on post season bowls. Not surprisingly, Bryant skipped town in 1957 and headed to Alabama. The rest is, as they say, history.

 

But what is not so well known is that Bryant, in retrospect, appears to have been running a farm system that bred future coaching greats--and perhaps also, in at least some cases, serial NCAA violators.

 

One wonders what would have been found had Bryant’s activities been scrutinized at his previous stops in Maryland and Kentucky, before the NCAA began punishing schools for cheating…

 

Bryant never was investigated at Alabama for possible violations, something that would have been very difficult for the NCAA to prove in the insular world that was Alabama in the 1960s and 1970s. But judging from Bryant’s coaching offspring, it is hard to believe that wholesale cheating wasn’t going on.

 

Just look at this shameful, disgraceful record of rules violations under the most famous coaches who were brought up under Bryant…

 

A Football Syndicate: The Bear Bryant Coaching Tree

 

Pat Dye

 

Dye's first coaching job came as an assistant at the University of Alabama in 1965, under Bear Bryant. Dye served as a defensive assistant at Alabama through the 1973 season.

 

Dye became head coach at Auburn from 1981-1992. Dye's tenure on the plains ended when Auburn was penalized for payments by boosters and assistant coaches to a player, Eric Ramsey. The controversy landed the Auburn program a spot on 60 Minutes and an eventual NCAA investigation. The fallout from the NCAA probation against the football team pushed Dye out as athletic director in 1991 and as head coach the following year.

 

Gene Stallings

 

At Texas A&M, Stallings was a member of the famed Junction Boys under head coach Bear Bryant.

 

In 1958, Stallings joined Bear Bryant's original staff at the University of Alabama as a defensive assistant. He was on hand for two of Alabama's national championship seasons, in 1961 and 1964.

From 1990-1996, Stallings was head coach at Alabama. After an investigation that ran from late 1993 to August 1995, the NCAA found Alabama guilty of four major rules violations during the 1993 season. Stallings was implicated, along with athletic director Hootie Ingram, in falsifying the eligibility of Alabama cornerback Antonio Langham during that season. Langham had signed with a sports agent and applied to enter the NFL Draft following the 1993 Sugar Bowl, but was not subsequently declared ineligible per NCAA rules. Alabama officials only declared him ineligible the week before the 1993 SEC title game. As a result, Alabama's football program was placed on three years probation, and docked a total of 30 scholarships from 1995 to 1998. Alabama was also forced to forfeit eight wins and one tie from its 9–3–1 1993 season in which Langham participated, resulting in an official record of 1–12. The Crimson Tide were also barred from postseason competition, including the SEC Championship Game and bowl games, during the 1995 season.

 

Jackie Sherrill

 

Sherrill played football at the University of Alabama under Bear Bryant from 1962 to 1965.

 

He served on Bryant’s staff as a Graduate Assistant in 1966.

 

From 1982-1988, Sherrill was head coach at Texas A&M. In 1988, Sherrill's Aggies were put under probation by the NCAA for a period of two years. Violations included improper employment, extra benefits, unethical conduct and lack of institutional control and, in December 1988, Sherrill resigned.

 

Eventually, Sherrill found himself in Starkville, MS as head coach of the Mississippi State Bulldogs from 1991-2003. The Bulldogs were eventually placed on 4 years probation for violations that occurred from 1998-2002, while Sherrill was head coach.

 

Charlie Pell

 

Pell played for Bryant's Crimson Tide from 1961 to 1963.

 

After graduating from the University of Alabama, Pell stayed in Tuscaloosa, serving as a graduate assistant under Bryant in 1964.

 

After taking the defensive coordinator position at Clemson in 1976, he was elevated to be the new head coach of the Clemson Tigers football program in 1977 when Red Parker was fired. In 1982, it emerged that Pell and his staff had committed major NCAA infractions in player recruiting, for which the NCAA placed the Clemson football program on two years' probation.

 

Pell coached the Florida Gators football team from 1979 to 1984. After the 1982 season, the NCAA began an investigation into possible rule violations by Pell and his staff at Florida, for which he took full responsibility in August 1984. Pell originally asked to be allowed to resign at the end of the 1984 season, but when the NCAA announced that Florida was alleged to have committed 107 major infractions, university president Marshall Criser fired Pell after three games. In January 1985, after it was ultimately determined that Pell and the Gators coaching staff had actually committed fifty-nine infractions, the NCAA placed Florida on two years' probation and banned the Gators from bowl games and live television in 1985 and 1986. The NCAA also reduced the Gators' football scholarships by twenty over three years. The loss of scholarships proved to be the most crippling sanction in the long-term; with a depleted roster, the Gators wouldn't win more than seven games from 1986 to 1989.

 

Danny Ford

 

Danny Ford played college football at the University of Alabama from 1967 to 1969. He was an assistant under Bryant at Alabama in 1973.

 

He served as the head football coach at Clemson University in South Carolina from 1978 to 1989. Just days after the 1982 season ended, however, the Tigers were found guilty of massive recruiting violations. While most of them occurred under Pell, the NCAA found they had continued under Ford. The Tigers were barred from bowl games in 1982 and 1983, and kicked off live television in 1983 and 1984.

 

It was also later found that violations has occurred under Danny Ford during his tenure at the University of Arkansas (1993-1997). Arkansas was placed on probation from 2003-2005 for violations that occurred in 1994 and 1997.

 

Mike Dubose

 

Mike Dubose played football for Bear Bryant at Alabama from 1971-1974 and served on Bryant’s staff as a Graduate Assistant in 1975.

 

From 1997-2000 he was the head coach at Alabama. Unfortunately for Alabama, the effects of the DuBose era would not dissipate so quickly. The NCAA would, shortly thereafter, begin investigating the recruitment of Albert Means, a star defensive lineman recruited out of Memphis, Tennessee. Alabama was hammered for the violations that occurred on his watch, which included a loss of 21 scholarships over three years, a two-year bowl ban, and five years of probation.

 

Howard Schnellenberger

 

Howard Schnellenberger was the offensive coordinator for the Alabama Crimson Tide under Bear Bryant from 1961-1965, after having played under Bryant at Kentucky in the early 1950s.

 

Schnellenberger has had many stops over the years as a head coach, but his most famous was in Miami, where he coached the Hurricanes from 1979-1983, winning the national championship in 1983 and laying the foundation for the hugely successful Miami teams of the 1980s and 1990s.

 

It was also partially under Schnellenberger that Miami was placed under NCAA probation for rules violations. The violations that occurred under Schnellenberger’s tenure took place in 1980 and Miami served two years probation from 1981-1983.

 

Can it possibly be a coincidence that so many Bryant disciples saw their coaching tenures coincide with NCAA infractions?

 

Can it possibly be a coincidence that the University of Alabama has proven to be a serial violator of NCAA rules since Bryant’s death—and that those violations occurred under members of the Bryant coaching tree?

We will leave those conclusions up to the reader!

[Husker NoNo]

I live near a prominent FCS team, and when you hear rumors around town about a FCS team...it makes me really wonder about the true fat cats of the $EC.

[Omaha-Husker]

I live near a prominent FCS team, and when you hear rumors around town about a FCS team...it makes me really wonder about the true fat cats of the $EC.

 

Well Montana just got busted.

[In the Deed the Glory]

I have been told by many friends that played at NU in the 90s that their teammates would receive an envelope of cash under their door after a good game.

 

Take that for what it is worth.

[HUSKER FREAK]

I have been told by many friends that played at NU in the 90s that their teammates would receive an envelope of cash under their door after a good game.

 

Take that for what it is worth.

 

nice post

[jmfb]

To the guys who want signing autographs to be legal ala Johnny Manziel:

 

One alumn pays $200,000 a year for autographs for a 5 star player- or the promise to do so. Personal use or resale, it doesnt matter.

Player goes to the highest bidder.

So simple to rig the system to tie it into paying for the best recruits all fair and square legal wise

Then Texas, A&M and a handful of super rich alumn schools dominate the game

[kchusker_chris]

Such as?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/college/news/1997/12/10/osborne_flashback/phillips.html

[jmfb]

Benning was 100% not guilty- TOTALLY made up story by scorned woman

Several of the others- same deal- 100% innocent- proven in court as well

 

Did NU have a few guys go astray?

Yep

Was it a pattern over the long haul?

Nope

Was it to the extent as others?

Nope

 

What about that 97 team- if having thugs on the team in 95 won you a title- why not do it again in 97?

 

I trust a PHD in Psychology who has worked with kids over 40 years over an arm chair QB anytime

[In the Deed the Glory]

I have been told by many friends that played at NU in the 90s that their teammates would receive an envelope of cash under their door after a good game.

 

Take that for what it is worth.

 

nice post

 

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Just stating what I had been told. Not stating it as fact, just rumor from semi-credible sources.

[HUSKER FREAK]

I have been told by many friends that played at NU in the 90s that their teammates would receive an envelope of cash under their door after a good game.

 

Take that for what it is worth.

 

nice post

 

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Just stating what I had been told. Not stating it as fact, just rumor from semi-credible sources.

 

It means that if you don't have the facts you probably shouldn't be trying to incriminate the University by making a simple comment about what you heard