The NCAA can barely handle one scandal...the flood gates may very well have just been opened.
Huh? Did the NCAA do what I think it did? Did it basically rule that a father and a third party can actively, brazenly and with impunity shop a player around for hundreds of thousands of dollars -- and the worst thing that happens is the father has to lie low and the third party has to disassociate himself from the programs in question?
Did it just get embarrassed by a rules loophole the size of Jordan-Hare Stadium, the gist of it being: Your old man and another guy can put you on the open market, but as long as you don't know about it, you're good to strap it up for the next big game?
...
Duh. Of course it's unacceptable. But nothing the NCAA or the SEC did Wednesday is going to make this go away in the future. If anything, Cecil Newton provided a detailed road map for those parents or others looking to make a buck (or nearly $200,000) off their sons. Now everyone with their hands out knows the NCAA is powerless to do anything -- just as long as the kid has that plausible deniability.
And maybe it's just me, but the NCAA's phrase, "Based on the information available to the reinstatement staff at this time" caught my attention. Does that mean investigators are still digging? Or does it mean they've run out of shovels?
And if they are still digging, what happens if they find something after the Heisman vote? Or after the national championship game? Then what?
The answers: yes and yes.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/ ... ortCat=ncf
