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DALLAS -- Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby says "cheating pays" in the NCAA these days and doesn't foresee things getting much better in the future.

During his annual state of the league from Big 12 media days Monday, Bowlsby slammed the NCAA, notably the enforcement wing of college sports' governing body.

"Enforcement is broken," he said. "The infractions committee hasn't had a hearing in almost a year, and I think it's not an understatement to say cheating pays presently. If you seek to conspire to certainly bend the rules, you can do it successfully and probably not get caught in most occasions."

Bowlsby added he didn't think cheating was necessarily rampant in college sports. But he painted a bleak outlook for the future NCAA.

"We certainly are operating in a strange environment in that we have lawsuits," he said. "plus we have the [O'Bannon v. NCAA] lawsuit. I think all of that in the end will cause programs to be eliminated. I think you'll see men's Olympics sports go away as a result of the new funding challenges that are coming down the pipe. I think there may be tension among and between sports on campus and institutions that have different resources. It's really unknown what the outcomes will be."

Bowlsby, however, came to the defense of the collegiate model, which has come under criticism. He argued against the unionization of college athletes, noting that in his opinion "student athletes are not employees." He also said it wouldn't be fair to pay football players and not female student-athletes.

"It is hard to justify paying student athletes in football and men's basketball and not recognizing the significant effort that swimmers and wrestlers and lacrosse players and track athletes all put in," he said. "Football and basketball players don't work any harder than anybody else; they just happen to have the blessing of an adoring public who is willing to pay for the tickets and willing to buy the products on television that come with the high visibility."

"We have both a legal obligation and a moral obligation to do for female student-athletes and male Olympic sports athletes just exactly what we do for football and basketball student-athletes. I don't think it's even debatable."

BCS schools pushed through policies to defund NCAA enforcement because it was "bad for business" and then claim that the NCAA isn't doing a good job enforcing the NCAA rules. Its almost like the P5 schools want the NCAA fail. Hmm. Most fans have fallen for it hook line and sinker because there was this one time the NCAA punished my school (because they were cheating their [deleted] off) so the NCAA sucks. Pretty soon most every school has alumni who hate the NCAA because the NCAA has pretty much put 3/4ths of its schools on probation. Its the NCAA fault not the schools that cheat. Yay!!!

What he is really saying is the big money people at Texas are tired of Baylor winning and a token NCAA "we really care" investigation is about to torpedo their program.

Got to respect him for being honest. Of course if it was SMU in the NCAA's cross-hairs it would be different. LOL!

NCAA enforcement is a huge joke and always has been. It has been selective to the point that it is ridiculous, and has only taken action against the powerful schools that is too late, too little, and only in response to fear of being investigated by Congress.

Just like government regulators, they latch on to a convenient target and hound them to death while turning a blind eye to the really serious violators. Go back and look at their record in the 80s when they bragged about how many times they busted various programs. See how many of those investigations were wasted on the Houston Baptist Gymnastics program while Texas newspapers were reporting that Aggie football players were being paid for work they never performed during "summer jobs" at Federal Housing Authority projects run by Aggie alums who were using Federal funds to supplement the payroll accounts.

Does this Big 12 Commissioner really expect anything from those clowns? Of course not.

Bowlsby statements are creating a lot of chatter on the national shows today.

Saw an interview on a West TX Sports cast ... they were interviewing Cliff K and they asked him about these statements made by the BG-12. He responded by saying he thinks that 25-30% percent of the programs he recruits against break the rules.

These guys are little late to the party in my humble opinion.

Funding or no funding, it doesn't excuse the fact (nor should it prevent) the infractions committee from meeting for more than one year.

If the P5 conferences are purposely trying to cause the NCAA to fail, then the NCAA is acting as a willing accomplice.