WSR Gridiron Report

The light at the end of this tunnel is "an Infraction committee" burning the midnight oil.The Ducks are about to get a Royal plucking. Lyles just will not shut up

I wonder if Phil Knight will be able fund something the NCAA wants bad enough to get Oregon out of this. I'm only half tongue-in cheek here because the money trail between Nike and collegiate athletics is huge. Most college coaches get a lot of money from Nike and the last check for $50 million to Oregon athletics made them a big time player.

The NCAA is going to show its political colors here by doing the right thing or rolling over to the biggest supplier of athletic wear to the NCAA community. I believe that very little happens in Oregon athletics that doesn't have Phil Knight's stamp of approval.

I hope they take a big bite out of Oregon because I believe they are dirty. Quite frankly they are taking a bigger bite out of Ohio State than I thought they would. I wonder what that will look like when the dust settles.

I blame the fans....

They knew full well just over a decade ago when Eugene goes from this so-so program to all of sudden attracting these elite level athletes with very questionable backgrounds and some flat out criminals...

Suddenly players from all over the country were showing up to Eugene Oregon like it is LA and USC. Showing up to Eugene Oregon...a small town in the Northwest...oh come on...why else would they come...

They knew full well that the program was dirty but they didn't care...they just wanted to win. And now it is big time business...they have facilities that rival NFL facilities and ticket prices that rival NFL and then some.

They reap what they sow and hopefully the NCAA will have the guts to end it and end it hard...

If you have ever wondered about the NCAA and how serious they are; here is the telling paragraph from the Lyles story on Yahoo:

Lyles said he spoke with NCAA enforcement staffers for six hours in early May as part of their ongoing investigation. He said he didn’t reveal the stories concerning Kelly, James and Seastrunk to investigators because the specific topics never came up in questioning.

Six hours and not one question about LMJ or Lache? Or Kelly's interaction with him? What the hell was the NCAA asking him about for cripes sake? Pathetic? If Columbo had interrogated them in his prime he would have gotten the whole story without even knowing anything about the rules or the players involved just by standard interrogation techniques. Maybe the only way the NCAA will ever get the truth out of their suspects is waterboarding.

I'm still trying to figure an over/under on the severity of the NCAA sanctions for Oregon.

You see, it is too graphic. If you start to point out that the emperor has no clothes, or that all the big college football moneymakers are embroiled with rule infractions as the norm, then the NCAA really has two options. Change it or ignore it.

I can see that NCAA whiffed on Cam Newton and Auburn and then followed a predictable pattern of leveling USC and OSU with sanctions to demonstrate adherence to to the rules by offering up big time sacrificial lambs. With the recent BCS bowl scandals and now, Oregon, plus other accounts that are leaking from former college players, I think the dam is about to burst on the NCAA football business status quo.

This year could really become quite the expose. Giving the NCAA reluctance to change and some big media money contracts, I'm thinking I may take the under on severe penalties for Oregon.

Rickyk, exactly what I wondered. Was the NCAA exchanging cookie recipes? Pathetic is not strong enough! Perhaps they did not want to know with all the other "dirt" floating around. Why else?

Gary-

You have to wonder how the SEC gets away with their cheating year, after year, after year. As far as conferences go, they are the masters of deceit. Somehow, and I will celebrate when this happens, Alabama, Auburn, Florida, et al are going to come crashing down...they are extremely adept at the "handshaking" technique whereas the athlete receives funds from athletic supporters at every turn.

Sooner or later, they are going to go down ...

As for Oregon, they are appropriately in deep crap. And their recruits should take a HARD look at their future.

Mark

Oregon was actually rebuilt by Rich Brooks (now at Kentucky). Brooks took them to the 1995 Rose Bowl then bolted to the Rams, that is when Belotti went in and made things really dirty. Kelly just continued what Belotti established. I'm surprised it took this long frankly.

Is it pathetic or was it the first of many inquiries? If you start asking about LMJ or Lache, does Lyles contact Kelly with specifics and a story can be built. If the NCAA learns everything about his business in those 6 hours, then grill Kelly on the business they can find discrepancies and start to put together a bigger picture...

Or the NCAA sucks.