UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

quozzel

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Re: UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

Jun 7, 2018, 2:44 PM

SEVERE LONG POST WARNING: THIS IS A SERIOUSLY LONG POST. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. TWEETERS, MOVE ALONG.

Not every team cheats.

College coaches who were interviewed (anonymously) by ESPN recently put it thusly:

In response to the question, how many colleges cheat?
Their answer: 20%....but 80% of the SEC.

I am not paraphrasing.

There's plenty of stuff on record about this subject. Ohio State got busted for cheating under Jim Tressel, for instance, but he also had a network of highly-involved boosters. For all his crying and occasional bouts of asshattery, Urban Meyer has always been regarded as a highly-aggressive (and occasionally cutthroat) recruiter...but never a cheater. The NCAA has never even given him a sniff, and go through his coaching roster sometime...not a single one of his coaches has ever had so much as a whiff of NCAA impropriety attached to them either. There's just no bagmen in the group. Does that mean Ohio State is clean? No...but Urban and his staff certainly are not running around making it rain like Hugh Freeze was...or certain other SEC coaches presently are (allegedly). Urban appears like he very much simply doesn't want to deal with all that garbage...and in fact has been quite vocal about how he wants the NCAA to deal with coaches who "willfully break NCAA rules." He wants them permanently banned.

Meyer also once kicked Cam Newton off his team at Florida for stealing a laptop, a distinctly un-SEC move. When it came time to commit elsewhere in the SEC after a year in junior college, Newton sent a text to one of his former JUCO teammates that said, and I quote: "Sorry, not gonna do it for free this time." (This was when former Auburn super-booster Bobby Lowder still ruled Auburn with an iron fist, by the way.)

Interestingly about Ohio State, Urban Meyer's staff also seems to offer - and fight with us over - a lot of the same recruits. We run similar systems...and recruit a similar profile of player.

And interestingly about Auburn...when Terry Bowden took over there in 1993, he discovered a troubled locker room and a pay-for-play system in place, one allegedly ruled over by the aforementioned Lowder. Terry put an end to it, emphatically...apparently much to the chagrin of Lowder. Terry Bowden immediately got Auburn to 11-0 in 93, though, and 9-1-1 in '94, which bought him some protection...but Lowder got Terry Bowden fired the very year after he got Auburn to 10-3 in 1998 (coincidentally, beating Clemson 21-17 in the Peach Bowl) and finishing tied for first in the SEC when Auburn finally stumbled in early '98. In Terry Bowden's own words, though: "It was the kids we were paying who were causing all the trouble."

The SEC also enjoys the equivalent of omerta, the Mafia "code of silence". It's also kind of known as the "Phil Fulmer rule". For those who don't know their history, Alabama almost got the Death Penalty in 2001 over DT Albert Means, who apparently got auctioned off by his coach at Tresevant High (yeah, that high school again) to Alabama for $160K. Fulmer turned Alabama in to the NCAA...and was able to do so because Tennessee had finished second in that auction, which took some gumption on Fulmer's part. After that, the SEC, under former commish Mike Slive, instituted a rule where any SEC member-school accusing another of NCAA impropriety first had to turn their findings in to the SEC, who only then would forward the report to the NCAA "if appropriate".

The NCAA should have kicked the SEC out right there for that, but instead that rule stands to this day.

Needless to say, the SEC does not forward many reports to the NCAA. And so the SEC has duly gone all Wild West in the years since.

Clemson enjoys no such political protection. Tobacco Road has never liked us. The ACC brass showed us exactly how they regarded us, in fact, when they tacked another year of probation onto us in the Danny Ford years, beyond even what the NCAA had instituted. (That still rankles.) Not only do we not have the booster base of most of the SEC schools - we're much smaller than most SEC institutions - we also have no one running interference for us. You think Duke and UNC are going to cover for us if we get caught with our hands in the cookie jar? Yeah, sure they will.

So the bottom line is: we're never to going to beat the SEC at their own game, dipping into the Dark Arts. Not only does our much smaller alumni base mean we simply can't spend with them, if we buy a kid out from under the nose of someone else, they're utterly free to turn us in, as SEC schools are not. Which means we have to recruit on - guess what - merit.

We have to sell graduation rates. We have to sell a family atmosphere, a largely insulated crime-free environment where there's simply not a lot to do except football and school. We have to sell our history of success, both on the field and in placing players in the NFL draft.

Does that sound like what we're selling? Yeah? Odd. And keep in mind, again and again and again: the NCAA has never even given Dabo a sniff.

We won a national title with teams that had an average national recruiting rank of around 13th, nationally. Decent...but on paper, we had no business hanging and banging with the true heavies. A lot of articles have since been written about Clemson's incredible "hit rate" with recruits under Dabo Swinney. Keep in mind, the guys we were sending to the NFL included a parade of former 2-and-3-star guys like TJ Green, Grady Jarrett, Kevin Dodd, Wayne Gallman, Jordan Leggett...that list goes on and on.

I could go on...and on. But everybody does not cheat - that's the excuse used by those who do...and in fact there's plenty of evidence it poisons locker rooms. Meyer very likely doesn't cheat and he has two titles. Spurrier didn't cheat, and ran off the one notoriously dirty recruiter - Brad Lawing - that he inherited. In fact I really haven't heard a ton about Muschamp cheating either. He's definitely not Hugh Freeze, whatever. Plenty of other guys don't cheat either - I heard several places that Charlie Strong was clashing with Texas Longhorn boosters because he wouldn't get into bed with them, for instance.

"Every team cheats" is cynical simplicity...and it simply isn't true.

Again, this does not refer to boosters, who are another - and often uncontrollable - entity. In the real world, you simply can't stop one person from giving money to another if they really want to. But the schools don't have to get involved - and the smart ones, IMHO, simply don't. And I'd remind everyone, once again, just how small Clemson's alumni base is compared to our regional competitors.....

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clem81NC said:

Nvm I got curious and read the whole thing. Interesting opinion and sounds nice. My only points were that I dont think we or muschamp cheats, and I dont think there are coaches at either that do either. But I do know that donors have a mind of their own, and theres no policing it. I guess itll take a very public metaphorical lynching of a private citizen that gets caught giving a bunch of money to a recruit before donors wise up and leave these athletes alone.

Thanks for the read. Solid post.

Then I rescind my irritated response. Apologies.

Just saying, there's actually a lot out there about this. I don't know how to control boosters short of the FBI getting involved and tracing money transfers...but break up the SEC's code of silence, and stuff would get a lot better, very quickly. Schools turning one another in is the best line of defense, and unfortunately, the SEC forbids all that...

Re: UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

Re: UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

Why are you still here?

Re: UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

This plays over and over and over in his feathered head

Re: UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

You’re going to have to do better than this

I Wouldnt trust tater news either, but this came directly

I mean, this involves every single coot scholarship player

clearly

You know this and you are still a coot?

Re: UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

You.....less t-net, more work

Re: UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

Well, one got a lawyer, who paid for him? and is he a coot

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Re: UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

TL; DR***

Another Excellent post!!!!***

Re: UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

Re: UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

Re: UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

Re: UH OH. SCAR fans arent going to like this

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