{"id":2449,"date":"2010-12-28T19:34:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-29T01:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/\/?p=2449"},"modified":"2010-12-28T19:34:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-29T01:34:00","slug":"ncaa-decisions-give-newton-and-pryor-uncommon-leniency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/ncaa-decisions-give-newton-and-pryor-uncommon-leniency\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Decisions Give Newton and Pryor Uncommon Leniency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Organization’s Consistency\u00a0Called Into Question<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
NCAA's rulings have been fuzzy of late.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Perhaps more than at any time in recent memory, the NCAA has nearly everyone confused regarding their stance on\u00a0rules enforcement.\u00a0 With two lenient rulings in the past two months which appear to contradict\u00a0historical NCAA positions, college sports’ most powerful organization has its members, the public and media scratching their collective heads.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, there’s the hard-nosed NCAA which\u00a0severely punished\u00a0the\u00a0University of Southern California in late summer after a three-year investigation uncovered evidence that two of USC’s former student-athletes, football’s Reggie Bush and basketball’s O.J. Mayo, had accepted money and gifts from\u00a0agents while playing for the University.\u00a0 Bush’s parents were also mentioned for having\u00a0received substantial benefits from someone interested in signing their son Reggie following the end of his college career.\u00a0 Roundly applauded for its fist-full of sanctions which showered down on Trojans athletics, it was widely assumed that NCAA officials\u00a0were sending a clear message to potential offenders \u2013 stay clean or your school will pay a steep price.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
...but not for the Sugar Bowl.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The message obviously wasn’t taken very seriously by\u00a0Auburn’s Cam Newton or Ohio State’s Terrelle Pryor, both star quarterbacks for their respective 2010 teams.\u00a0\u00a0According to the NCAA, Newton’s father attempted to\u00a0put Cam’s services up for sale when he asked a friend\u00a0to demand upwards of $180,000.00 for\u00a0the JUCO transfer to play this season for Mississippi State University.\u00a0 No matter how you look at it, that’s a no-no.\u00a0 Has been for a good, long time.\u00a0 In short, parents and relatives of an NCAA-member\u00a0student-athlete are considered the same as the student-athlete when it comes to accepting what the NCAA considers inappropriate benefits from others.\u00a0 If or when\u00a0that occurs, the student-athlete is deemed ineligible, period.\u00a0 Regardless,\u00a0even with the acknowledgement of evidence in hand, the NCAA has allowed the\u00a0now-Heisman\u00a0Trophy winner and 2010 AP Player of the\u00a0Year to continue playing\u00a0out the season despite the organization possessing facts which have typically doomed\u00a0past athletes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the Pryor matter, Terrelle and four other star Buckeyes were found to have sold prizes and awards received for winning OSU games to people in exchange for cash.\u00a0\u00a0With proof secured, the NCAA has\u00a0hit the boys in the face with a two-by-four:\u00a0 a five-game suspension for each at the start of the 2011 football season.\u00a0 But, and here\u2019s the apparent rub for many, the NCAA has simultaneously given them temporary amnesty by giving them the thumbs up\u00a0to play Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl in January.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In what some would say is an uneven distribution of punishment, prior to the 2010 football season opener for the University of North Carolina, eleven players were named by the NCAA for having potentially accepted inappropriate gifts and cash.\u00a0 Two players were immediately\u00a0ruled permanently ineligible for their transgressions while the others sat\u00a0and waited without playing a minute\u00a0while the NCAA determined their fates over time.\u00a0 As the season progressed,\u00a0the NCAA\u00a0methodically doled out\u00a0their decisions.\u00a0 Some\u00a0were harsh.\u00a0 Others were tantamount to full pardons.\u00a0 Regardless, swift judgments were handed out to\u00a0some while others were insufferably bogged down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The nuances of these situations could fill a good-sized daily newspaper, cover to cover, so to be fair to the NCAA,\u00a0minutia can take an inordinate period of time to\u00a0filter through.\u00a0 Frankly, time is not the\u00a0primary issue.\u00a0 Consistency is, however.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A final analysis by those of us sneaking a peak really yields nothing more\u00a0than conjecture and to offer opinions as facts in such matters is about as valuable as guessing what the stock market will do 12 months from now.\u00a0 That said, there is a lack of consistency in the NCAA’s decisions in these matters compared to their actions in the past, at least from this writer’s perspective.\u00a0\u00a0It may not be to the point of\u00a0mind boggling as some talking heads have suggested, but they (the decisions) do raise questions and concerns.\u00a0 Someone once said, \u201cIf you don\u2019t stand for something, you stand for nothing.\u201d\u00a0 So, we ask, just where does the NCAA stand?\u00a0 We think it\u2019s a good question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organization’s Consistency\u00a0Called Into Question Perhaps more than at any time in recent memory, the NCAA has nearly everyone confused regarding their stance on\u00a0rules enforcement.\u00a0 With two lenient rulings in the past two months which appear to contradict\u00a0historical NCAA positions, college sports’ most powerful organization has its members, the public and media scratching their collective heads. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}