College football is broken.
That might sound a little sensationalist, as it’s not like football is dying, but allow me to elaborate. College football has major problems that the NCAA is failing to adequately address.
If you haven’t heard, Oregon was recently slammed with NCAA sanctions for violating recruiting rules.
And by slammed, I mean slapped on the wrist.
After a ridiculously long 27-month investigation, Oregon will lose just one scholarship in each of the next two years. The Ducks will also only be able to invite 37 recruits each year on official visits. They’ve averaged just 41 per year in the last four years.
I shouldn’t even say “slapped on the wrist.” I should say that Oregon got off scot-free. Business will continue as usual in Eugene.
Another scandal happened last year when Ohio State was handed a one-year bowl ban for allowing its players to sell more than $14,000 in autographed jerseys and memorabilia. That sounds innocent, but memorabilia from Ohio State is worth considerably more than memorabilia from smaller universities, and allowing players to sell that for cash would give Ohio State and other large schools a serious competitive advantage.
In 2010, a year before the Ohio State scandal, USC was rocked by the NCAA. The Trojans received a two-year bowl ban and a vast reduction in scholarships. They also forfeited a National Championship, and USC alum Reggie Bush had to vacate his Heisman award.
These punishments sound harsh — especially in light of what Oregon just received — but were they effective in deterring this kind of shady behavior in the future?
USC opened the 2012 season as the No. 1 ranked team in college football. And last year, Ohio State finished the season as the only undefeated team in the country. The Buckeyes would have certainly been in the national championship game had they been eligible.
This all leads to an obvious conclusion: NCAA sanctions are not working.
These teams instituted policies that gave them an unfair advantage in recruiting players. It would make sense, therefore, that punishments by the NCAA should try to correct that unfair advantage. And yet these teams are just as competitive as ever.
So why is the NCAA moving backward with sanctions? When the NCAA punished USC three years ago, it took a heavy amount of criticism from the media for being too tough.
But now, with hindsight, it is easy to see that the NCAA didn’t go far enough. USC shouldn’t be able to open the season as the No. 1 team in the country just two years removed from a major scandal, Ohio State shouldn’t be able to go undefeated and Oregon shouldn’t get off with nearly no punishment at all.
Are Oregon’s sins equal to those of USC? Of course not, and that’s why the severity of the punishments is so different.
But the message to football programs around the country is clear — if you want to win, cheating isn’t a bad way to do it.
Let’s turn the situation around. Imagine Sonny Dykes establishes a winning program here in Berkeley and then after a few seasons of success is exposed for having corrupt recruiting practices and runs to the NFL much like Oregon’s Chip Kelly and USC’s Pete Carroll. After he leaves, Cal is a perennial top-10 program, and the only real punishment would be the knowledge among fans that the program got to where it is in an unfair way. Most fans wouldn’t be happy with that now, but what if the other option is mediocre seasons for the next decade?
The point is that it shouldn’t have to be that way. Coaches shouldn’t be under pressure to cheat when it comes to recruiting. Yet in the scramble for top recruits, the challenge of building a top college football team the right way is becoming more and more difficult. And the NCAA is doing less and less to correct the problem.
Contact Riley McAtee at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @riley_mcatee