With everything up in the air regarding FBS championship rules and bowl access, it seems that the other conferences have an opportunity to exert some leverage against the SEC in order to level the playing field regarding standards for recruiting practices and rules enforcement. Out of all the conferences, the SEC stands head and shoulders above the rest in questionable practices. Most of their schools

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/wr...index.html

We have already seen how the SEC enforces drug rules in another thread. But the bottom line is that the SEC has built in a culture that is contrary to what the college game is supposed to be about, and as a result is using the rules that the other conferences impose on themselves to the SEC's advantage. I think it would be fair of the other FBS conferences to set up a system to exclude the SEC until they change their practices to be more in line with the other conferences. It's time to rope in the college game to make it what it is supposed to be - about college.

IMO the rules, and the penalties for breaking the rules, should be consistent across the entire NCAA. Common sense should dictate that...

Dear lord, Some of you will grasp at anything in hopes of bringing down the SEC. Nobody complains that Miami(ACC) can sign 30 something or if Troy does it. Here is a fact. The SEC has a hard cap of 25 for a year now. For the 2 years before the SEC has had a cap of 28 with 3 having to count backwards.

As far as the drug rules go. Nobody in that article checked other conferences.They only checked the SEC.

I don't have any agenda against the SEC, hawg. I like SEC football. I've lived in Vol country for 20 years now. If I didn't like SEC football here, I'd go nuts...

But a rulebook consistent across the entire spectrum of NCAA football would save everyone a lot of headache. Anyone should be able to figure that out...

The SEC just wants to win, and does everything within the rules to do so. The Big Ten can have their gentleman's agreements, we will push the limits of the rules until the rules are changed.

This is college sports, it isn't about the spirit of competition or enhancing the academic experience. Lets not kid ourselves, 80% of these athletes don't belong on a college campus. Just because your conference recruits guys who can read at an 8th grade level and ours only read at a 6th grade level doesn't make you some high and mighty collection of academic schools.

(06-03-2012 09:04 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  Dear lord, Some of you will grasp at anything in hopes of bringing down the SEC. Nobody complains that Miami(ACC) can sign 30 something or if Troy does it. Here is a fact. The SEC has a hard cap of 25 for a year now. For the 2 years before the SEC has had a cap of 28 with 3 having to count backwards.

Yes, even the article says:

"In the past five years, 25 of the 120 FBS programs have averaged more than 25 signees a year. That list includes eight of the 12 SEC schools (Ole Miss, Auburn, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama, LSU, South Carolina), half the Big 12's current 10-team membership (Kansas State, Iowa State, Baylor, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech) and six of Conference USA's 12 schools (Southern Miss, Tulsa, Houston, Marshall, UAB, UTEP)."

I have seen a whole lot of college athletes in the headlines, and they are not all from the SEC. Gun crimes, assault, grand theft, and just about anything you can think of. Maybe their should be a standard policy for all of the NCAA schools. Meanwhile, don't point a big finger at the SEC. When is the last time they took the Heisman Trophy away from an SEC athlete?

(06-03-2012 09:52 AM)10thMountain Wrote:  

Nice one....

(06-03-2012 09:38 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  The SEC just wants to win, and does everything within the rules to do so. The Big Ten can have their gentleman's agreements, we will push the limits of the rules until the rules are changed.

This is college sports, it isn't about the spirit of competition or enhancing the academic experience. Lets not kid ourselves, 80% of these athletes don't belong on a college campus. Just because your conference recruits guys who can read at an 8th grade level and ours only read at a 6th grade level doesn't make you some high and mighty collection of academic schools.

That is precisely the problem. It has been shown that all of the conferences have gone too far with recruiting and accepting athletes that has no business setting foot on a college campus let alone "study" at a campus. The SEC, though, takes this to a whole new level. Let's not kid ourselves that it doesn't. If you take this a step further, providing scholarships to athletes who cannot do the academic work is actually a disservice to these athletes. Instead of spending the 4 or 5 years to get their lives on track via honest work and/or technical training that they could handle, they end up spending this time focusing primarily on football and not building the skills needed when their eligibility runs out. Let's not kid ourselves and pretend that most of the 4 and 5 star recruits are automatically going to the NFL. The odds are still quite low, and most of these kids suffer when they delay facing this reality. Seriously, who wants to hire a 22 year old "General Studies" major who's dumber than a box of rocks?

(06-03-2012 09:41 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-03-2012 09:04 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  Dear lord, Some of you will grasp at anything in hopes of bringing down the SEC. Nobody complains that Miami(ACC) can sign 30 something or if Troy does it. Here is a fact. The SEC has a hard cap of 25 for a year now. For the 2 years before the SEC has had a cap of 28 with 3 having to count backwards.

Yes, even the article says:

"In the past five years, 25 of the 120 FBS programs have averaged more than 25 signees a year. That list includes eight of the 12 SEC schools (Ole Miss, Auburn, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama, LSU, South Carolina), half the Big 12's current 10-team membership (Kansas State, Iowa State, Baylor, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech) and six of Conference USA's 12 schools (Southern Miss, Tulsa, Houston, Marshall, UAB, UTEP)."

The SEC is the biggest offender, but true it does happen at other conferences too. The majority of the schools don't do this, and it's the majority of the schools that need to apply the pressure to stop these unethical practices that really hurts these student athletes in the end anyways. The SEC is the worst and the Big12 is the second biggest offender.

Yeah, the Big 12 and SEC will stop bringing in kids who have no business on a college campus to play for our belle cow sport and make money for our schools.

But as a sign of good will, we'd like the ACC to go first....for your basketball programs. After all, only a fraction of these kids are going to the NBA.

(06-03-2012 11:07 AM)10thMountain Wrote:  Yeah, the Big 12 and SEC will stop bringing in kids who have no business on a college campus to play for our belle cow sport and make money for our schools.

But as a sign of good will, we'd like the ACC to go first....for your basketball programs. After all, only a fraction of these kids are going to the NBA.

You don't see a problem with that statement? Seriously, the benefits are not there for the majority of these kids. The football factory schools make a killing off of unqualified student athletes, and what do the student athletes get in return? Four or 5 years of being treated like crown princes? Because that is basically what happens to the majority of these kids. Obviously some get their lottery ticket punched and go on to the NFL. Some probably thank their lucky stars and find a way to pick up a good education. But the majority don't, and after 4 or 5 years the only thing they are is older and still without prospects. That is not right, and if it continues I hope the state and federal governments do reclassify the athletics programs for these schools as profit entities.

Everyone likes to crack jokes about Vanderbilt not belonging to the SEC because they do it differently. They are not perfect, but they at least are doing a whole lot more than those wonderful SEC schools that think of themselves as Football teams first and universities second.

(06-03-2012 10:58 AM)miko33 Wrote:  

(06-03-2012 09:38 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  The SEC just wants to win, and does everything within the rules to do so. The Big Ten can have their gentleman's agreements, we will push the limits of the rules until the rules are changed.

This is college sports, it isn't about the spirit of competition or enhancing the academic experience. Lets not kid ourselves, 80% of these athletes don't belong on a college campus. Just because your conference recruits guys who can read at an 8th grade level and ours only read at a 6th grade level doesn't make you some high and mighty collection of academic schools.

That is precisely the problem. It has been shown that all of the conferences have gone too far with recruiting and accepting athletes that has no business setting foot on a college campus let alone "study" at a campus. The SEC, though, takes this to a whole new level. Let's not kid ourselves that it doesn't. If you take this a step further, providing scholarships to athletes who cannot do the academic work is actually a disservice to these athletes. Instead of spending the 4 or 5 years to get their lives on track via honest work and/or technical training that they could handle, they end up spending this time focusing primarily on football and not building the skills needed when their eligibility runs out. Let's not kid ourselves and pretend that most of the 4 and 5 star recruits are automatically going to the NFL. The odds are still quite low, and most of these kids suffer when they delay facing this reality. Seriously, who wants to hire a 22 year old "General Studies" major who's dumber than a box of rocks?

So you want worse quality football across the board and to keep people out of college? Sounds like a plan.

Seriously do you realize the hypocrisy in your argument to keep these guys out of college? A lot of the ones that don't go to the NFL get jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to get had they only had a high school diploma. Are you seriously trying to say that throwing these guys on the streets at 18 is better for them in the long run than at 22 and with a degree? Give me a damn break.

If you were so interested in the well being of athletes, let schools give out more than 85 scholarships. Because under the current rules we are essentially capping the number of kids who can go D1 artificially and in doing so excluding some. Let Alabama give out 150 scholarships if they want. They are paying for it, more kids will get the resources their athletes do, oversigning will no longer be an issue, and more kids will get D1 scholarships. The current system is a form of virtual socialism to enable schools like Pitt to compete. The problem is it wrongs the athletes and only lead to SEC and other schools cheating to regain the advantage they should have had.

Quote:You don't see a problem with that statement? Seriously, the benefits are not there for the majority of these kids. The basketball factory schools make a killing off of unqualified student athletes, and what do the student athletes get in return? Four or 5 years of being treated like crown princes? Because that is basically what happens to the majority of these kids. Obviously some get their lottery ticket punched and go on to the NBA. Some probably thank their lucky stars and find a way to pick up a good education. But the majority don't, and after 4 or 5 years the only thing they are is older and still without prospects. That is not right, and if it continues I hope the state and federal governments do reclassify the athletics programs for these schools as profit entities.

Everyone likes to crack jokes about Florida State not belonging in the ACC because they do it differently. They are not perfect, but they at least are doing a whole lot more looking around at other options than those wonderful ACC schools that think of themselves as Basketball teams first and universities second.

Edited for basketball schools/conferences that can't see the irony of their own statements.

Like I said: you go first and turn your basketball programs into REC club leagues.

Football and basketball recruiting and scholarships both need to be reformed, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to happen.

Lots of teams force athletes farther down on the depth charts to give up their scholarships and transfer out. Larry Brown pushed out about half of SMU's returning basketball players shortly after taking that job. Nick Saban has gotten some negative publicity for revoking scholarships.

But those guys are far from the only ones doing it. USC and Ohio State are facing scholarship reductions as part of their NCAA penalties. Do you think Lane Kiffin and Urban Meyer are going to recruit fewer 4 and 5 star players when they have fewer scholarships? No. They're going to go to the bottom of their depth charts and revoke the scholarships of several bench players so that they can continue to sign just as many recruits as they always do.

Players caught up in stuff like this will transfer, probably to a FCS or D-II school so they can play right away at their new school. That won't help their academic progress. The disruption in changing schools is bad enough, but there is much less tutoring and academic support available at FCS and D-II schools, so a kid who was barely scraping by academically even while getting regular tutoring support at Ohio State or Alabama isn't going to do much better in school at Montana State or Chattanooga.

(06-03-2012 11:17 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  

(06-03-2012 10:58 AM)miko33 Wrote:  

(06-03-2012 09:38 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  The SEC just wants to win, and does everything within the rules to do so. The Big Ten can have their gentleman's agreements, we will push the limits of the rules until the rules are changed.

This is college sports, it isn't about the spirit of competition or enhancing the academic experience. Lets not kid ourselves, 80% of these athletes don't belong on a college campus. Just because your conference recruits guys who can read at an 8th grade level and ours only read at a 6th grade level doesn't make you some high and mighty collection of academic schools.

That is precisely the problem. It has been shown that all of the conferences have gone too far with recruiting and accepting athletes that has no business setting foot on a college campus let alone "study" at a campus. The SEC, though, takes this to a whole new level. Let's not kid ourselves that it doesn't. If you take this a step further, providing scholarships to athletes who cannot do the academic work is actually a disservice to these athletes. Instead of spending the 4 or 5 years to get their lives on track via honest work and/or technical training that they could handle, they end up spending this time focusing primarily on football and not building the skills needed when their eligibility runs out. Let's not kid ourselves and pretend that most of the 4 and 5 star recruits are automatically going to the NFL. The odds are still quite low, and most of these kids suffer when they delay facing this reality. Seriously, who wants to hire a 22 year old "General Studies" major who's dumber than a box of rocks?

So you want worse quality football across the board and to keep people out of college? Sounds like a plan.

If I want to see better quality football, then I'll watch the NFL. No one is watching CFB because they want to see the best quality football out there. CFB is an amateur sport, and it will never, never, never be as good or a substitute for the NFL. The appeal for college football is the idea of rooting for your school - whether you are an alumnus or a resident of a state who has a genuine interest in wanting your state university to succeed. This principle holds true for high school football. No one is ever going to say that high school ball is fantastic quality - it isn't. That's not the idea though. Again, its about rooting for the schools. That is what sets CFB apart from the NFL.

But look at your statement again and tell me you can't find the contradiction to it. It's one thing to encourage more students to pursue higher education, and for those that have the qualitifactions to go the barriers that exist above and beyond academic performance needs to come down. But accepting students who clearly do not belong there and who clearly cannot do the work is a HUGE disservice to these kids. To say otherwise is naive. What is amazing here is that this sounds a lot like the PSU fans take on the Sandusky alleged crimes and the coverup that followed. I'm not saying that USC or any SEC schools have sex crime issues. However, the mentality is definitely similar.

(06-03-2012 11:17 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  So you want worse quality football across the board and to keep people out of college? Sounds like a plan.

Seriously do you realize the hypocrisy in your argument to keep these guys out of college? A lot of the ones that don't go to the NFL get jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to get had they only had a high school diploma. Are you seriously trying to say that throwing these guys on the streets at 18 is better for them in the long run than at 22 and with a degree? Give me a damn break.

If you were so interested in the well being of athletes, let schools give out more than 85 scholarships. Because under the current rules we are essentially capping the number of kids who can go D1 artificially and in doing so excluding some. Let Alabama give out 150 scholarships if they want. They are paying for it, more kids will get the resources their athletes do, oversigning will no longer be an issue, and more kids will get D1 scholarships. The current system is a form of virtual socialism to enable schools like Pitt to compete. The problem is it wrongs the athletes and only lead to SEC and other schools cheating to regain the advantage they should have had.

I think the NFL should start a minor league. If a kid can't qualify for college why should his dream of playing professional football die? I'd be interested in watching college level football in the spring and summer.

(06-03-2012 11:28 AM)miko33 Wrote:  If I want to see better quality football, then I'll watch the NFL. No one is watching CFB because they want to see the best quality football out there. CFB is an amateur sport, and it will never, never, never be as good or a substitute for the NFL.

In many places, especially in the south, CFB has historically been about more than alums rooting for their school. CFB was the football of choice for casual fans (the people we now call "t-shirt fans" or "Walmart fans") because CFB was the highest level of football in the south for a long, long time. There was no pro football in the south until 1960, and even then it was only the Dallas Cowboys and two AFL teams (the Oilers and Dolphins). Atlanta and New Orleans didn't get their teams until the late 1960s and for a very long time both were so bad that they were never a threat to take hold of casual fans' loyalties in the way the Cowboys did in Texas. The NFL teams in Tampa, Charlotte, Jacksonville, and Nashville came along much later, of course.

(06-03-2012 11:43 AM)joe4psu Wrote:  

(06-03-2012 11:17 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  So you want worse quality football across the board and to keep people out of college? Sounds like a plan.

Seriously do you realize the hypocrisy in your argument to keep these guys out of college? A lot of the ones that don't go to the NFL get jobs that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to get had they only had a high school diploma. Are you seriously trying to say that throwing these guys on the streets at 18 is better for them in the long run than at 22 and with a degree? Give me a damn break.

If you were so interested in the well being of athletes, let schools give out more than 85 scholarships. Because under the current rules we are essentially capping the number of kids who can go D1 artificially and in doing so excluding some. Let Alabama give out 150 scholarships if they want. They are paying for it, more kids will get the resources their athletes do, oversigning will no longer be an issue, and more kids will get D1 scholarships. The current system is a form of virtual socialism to enable schools like Pitt to compete. The problem is it wrongs the athletes and only lead to SEC and other schools cheating to regain the advantage they should have had.

I think the NFL should start a minor league. If a kid can't qualify for college why should his dream of playing professional football die? I'd be interested in watching college level football in the spring and summer.

I agree with this. I think the NFL should have a minor league system for kids who want to pursue an NFL career and bypass college to do so. I thought NFL Europe would have been a good minor league system as well as the arena league.