Supposed Sanctions

Like Pete Carroll before him, Chip Kelly was a few steps ahead of the law. Like USC, Oregon was hit with sanctions by the NCAA infractions clowns just after their head coach left town. Both coaches apologized to the people that they left behind to deal with their mess. Mighty big of them. Unlike USC, Oregon's punishment was something less than even a slap on the wrist. Was Phil Knight's money in play? Maybe? It's a mystery.

Just over two years ago, the Oregon football team was busted for writing a $25,000 check to Will Lyles for what turned out to be non-existent recruiting service material. I would have no problem coming up with some real recruiting service material and I wouldn't charge $25,000 for it. No, Will Lyles is a Texas-based "middleman" that is a mentor, of sorts, to high school athletes. He was a mentor to LaMichael James and Lache Seastrunk. Both were top running backs in Texas and both found their way to the campus of the University of Oregon. Shortly after Seastrunk signed a Letter of Intent to attend Oregon, Lyles received that nice, big check. Rather than provide any recruiting material, Lyles provided a five-star running back. The athletic director said that the violations were unintentional. So, I guess that the school didn't mean to spend $25,000 for a running back. For this pretty significant recruiting violation, the Oregon Ducks will lose one scholarship in each of the next three years. Wow! Oregon's depth chart probably goes at least five deep at every position. So, they have 24 scholarships to offer rather than 25 each of the next three years. New coach, Mark Helfrich shouldn't lose much sleep. The punishment is laughable. Oh, the NCAA also handed out an 18-month show-cause penalty to Chip Kelly that basically bans him from taking another college job. That's a stiff penalty seeing as he'll be working for the Philadelphia Eagles for at least the next 18 months. Many people, trying to explain away the way too light penalties, point out that the current players shouldn't have to suffer for the actions of others. Well, it's always going to work that way. No one finds out about violations before they happen. USC faced real punishment recently for sketchy things that Reggie Bush did, under Pete Carroll's watch, almost a decade ago. Punishment always comes after the crime. That's just how it works. USC people are probably pissed seeing these pathetic Oregon penalties. Ohio St. people, too. Oregon should have gotten at least the bowl bans that USC and Ohio St. received. Paying someone for a recruit is far worse than players trading gear for tattoos or Bush getting stuff from a wannabe agent. Boise St. recently lost three times the number of scholarships that Oregon lost. Boise St.'s crime? Recruits crashed on the couches of Boise St. football players during visits. Incredible. Even that pales in comparison to the Portland University golfer that was fined for using a school hose and school water to wash her car. Come on! Supposedly Oregon's penalties came back light because they cooperated fully with the investigation. Nice. Kiss ass and you get something closer to "bad dog" rather than anything slightly resembling a punishment. Part of Oregon's punishment was actually a public reprimand. That should teach 'em.

The NCAA is out of their minds. It's as if they blindly throw darts at a wall to determine sanctions. Miami has been a hot mess for the better part of the past decade. All of the seedy, boozy, booster-sponsored fun that you can ever imagine taking place in and around a football team took place at Miami. It's not the first time that these kinds of shenanigans have taken place on that very campus. You'd think that Miami would be under a microscope. The booster is even in jail now but who knows if any punishment will ever come down on the school. The NCAA has hacked up that entire investigation. Everything in that case is so out in the open that an investigation isn't even necessary. It really doesn't make much difference. They'd rather go after a golfer that has an issue with her dirty car. The NCAA has made their investigations and their penalties pretty much pointless. The punishments rarely fit the crime and there is absolutely no consistency in the punishments. If nothing else, the NCAA has moved Oregon a great deal closer to USC as the most hated team in the Pac-12. I never would have thought that was possible.