Now that you’ve got that ol’ righteous indignation stoked…

Big talk from Greg McGarity:

“If you see it, you own it,” said McGarity, who took over at his alma mater in August 2010 after serving 18 years as Jeremy Foley’s right-hand man at Florida. “No matter what it is, from a piece of paper on the ground to somebody breaking the rules. If you see it, you own it, and if it is serious you are obligated to report it up the chain of command.”

No doubt he’s sincere.  And no doubt he reflects a general consensus among his peers (at least I hope so).  But let’s face it – being concerned about a Jerry Sandusky is easy.  Nobody wants to be seen as empowering a monster.

But how about turning some of that worry about the chain of command to something a wee bit harder, eh?  Something like, oh, say, this.

There’s another college sports scandal largely going unnoticed this summer. It’s not as horrific as Penn State. What could be worse than that?

But North Carolina’s academic scandal is a big deal. And it could be bigger if it becomes attached to Roy Williams’ basketball program.

Concealing the rapes of boys presumably (hopefully!) doesn’t happen often in college sports. Yet a big reason why that duplicity occurred is similar to why large numbers of North Carolina athletes attended bogus classes.

Keep the athlete eligible or a coach/administrator employed. Keep the school’s image intact while trying to win games. Keep printing money through the college sports machine.

I think Solomon’s kidding himself if he thinks Penn State grabbed all the oxygen in the room such that we don’t hear much about what’s unfolding in Chapel Hill.  The reality is that academic scandals sprout like weeds in the college football world.  Some brief attention may get paid to one thing or another, but they all wind up fading when the weather turns cooler.

But he’s spot on about the rest.  Just as much as what we saw at Penn State, academic scandals are about letting athletic departments have too much say over school management.  (And just like at Penn State, some of what occurred at North Carolina may violate state criminal laws.)

So, what say you, Mark Emmert and your band of merry men?  Is it culture changing time again?

I’m not holding my breath.  Like I said, condemning a serial child rapist and those who enabled him isn’t hard.  Lifting the curtain to assign blame for college football’s sausage making is.  Just ask someone close to us.

Georgia president Michael Adams, a former member of the NCAA’s Executive Committee, has made some unpopular moves concerning athletics in his time at Georgia. He forced former athletics director and Hall of Fame football coach Vince Dooley to retire in 2004. He was the force behind the hiring of basketball coach Jim Harrick, who he later fired due to NCAA violations.

But Adams has shown a zero tolerance approach to coaches or employees who behave badly. When athletics director Damon Evans, Adams’ hand-picked successor to Dooley, was arrested for DUI while with a woman who was not his wife, Adams immediately fired Evans…

Don’t you love the way Barnhart finesses that academic scandal?  Sure, Harrick got fired.  But does anyone remember that the only people who paid a price for the school turning a blind eye to what Harrick Junior was doing were the basketball players who weren’t allowed to play postseason ball?  They got sacrificed on Michael Adams’ altar.  But the administrators who allowed the situation to fester suffered not a whit.  That’s the approach that makes this quote from McGarity so laughable:  “It has to start with presidential leadership. If you have a president who has his priorities in order there is less of a chance that something like this [Penn State] could happen.”

So don’t count on Sheriff Emmert riding out again to clean up our fair town.  Child rapists, beware.  The rest of you folks undermining college sports?  Keep the noise down, or they might have to issue you a citation.

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Thursday morning buffet

A few nibbles here, a few nibbles there:

• Mark Emmert is keeping his powder dry on whether to put Penn State on double secret probation.
• September could be a cruel month for some schools.
• Edward Aschoff calls Mark Richt a “bargain-priced” SEC head coach.
• Hey, Mark Bradley!  Over here!
• Today in stupid athletic director tricks:  Hawaii AD gets suspended for a $200K scam involving a fake Stevie Wonder concert.
• Patrick Garbin explores the issue of whether Aaron Murray is a “gamer”.
• A Bobby Bowden statue… in Birmingham?
• A.J. Green’s “agent” goes to jail.
• Leonard Floyd is going to prep school, hopes to be back in Athens in January.
• Bobby Petrino, teaching experience.

Friday morning buffet

Just like George Costanza, the buffet is back, baby!

• Sonny Dykes doesn’t think Ole Miss and Mississippi State have better players than his Louisiana Tech team.
• Here’s something I did not know:  in 1989, the American Football Coaches Wives Association was created to provide “camaraderie, support, information and service.”
• Patrick Garbin points out something I think most of us suspected – Phil Steele isn’t that hot a predictor of how teams fare nationally.  (Although Steele’s been better on calling the SEC East’s pecking order.)
• I’d love to hear Jimmy Sexton explain the difference between college and pro coaches contracts.
• Sometimes, I wonder if I’m missing something.
• “No offense,” he said, “but this will be perfect for the bathroom.”  I’m not sure if that’s a metaphor for something, but it probably ought to be.
• Here’s a follow up on that story about the Memphis player who’s overcome reading challenges to be on the verge of earning a degree.
• Mark Emmert isn’t worried about a “splintering of the NCAA”.  Blissful ignorance or informed opinion?  You tell me.
• TAMU’s Kevin Sumlin talks about transitioning to the big, bad, fast SEC.
• Brian Fremeau thinks three teams in the SEC East have a shot at a national title this season.
• How do schools pay for improvements to their athletic facilities?  Kristi Dosh counts the ways.

Saturday morning buffet

A tidbit here, a nugget there… and pretty soon it adds up to a post.

• Auburn’s Emory Blake will have his fourth different opening-day quarterback throwing to him when the Tigers begin this season.
• It’s good to see that faculty were as detached from reality in 1951 as they are today.
• The Orlando Sentinel picks the Georgia-South Carolina game as one of ten that could change the BCS.  (It looks like I’m going to have to mothball my favorite GTP post permanently.)
• The California State Assembly is on the verge of passing a college athlete’s bill of rights.
• I know he occupies more than one position there, but, still, Vanderbilt’s AD makes a surprising amount of money.
• Bruce Feldman notes that Ole Miss’ new coaching staff is almost entirely made up of coaches from Orgeron’s Rebels staff.  Wonder what the Red Bull consumption is like.
• LSU is handing out raises to coaches like candy.  One example:  “Recruiting coordinator/running backs coach Frank Wilson is up for a $225,000 raise to $550,000 a year. That will go up to $600,000 a year in 2013 and $650,000 a year in 2014, according to the proposal.”  Whoa, Nellie.

Shiny toys and learning specialists

There are a couple of posts from the Chronicle of Higher Education’s blog definitely worth your attention.

• Two UGA doctoral students have published a study that suggests a change of conferences is good for a school’s academic health:  “On average, colleges that moved to a new league saw about a 3-percent decrease in their admit rate (meaning they became more selective) and a 5-percent increase in their admission yield rate (more admitted students enrolled) three years after joining the new conference. The ACT scores of incoming students increased by more than .29 points. And the colleges saw a net gain of about 130 applications per year three years after their moves.”  It appears that media attention about the shiny toy of a new setting pays off in more ways than just getting a bigger TV check.
• It’s no secret that plenty of student-athletes entering big time college football are woefully unprepared for the rigors of academics on their new level.  In response, many schools have stepped up their academic support for those kids.  How much of what is being done for student-athletes is something that can be translated over to the general student population?  If the answer to that is plenty, should that change schools’ admission policies?  (And make sure you read the article linked in the first sentence of the post.  It’ll get you.)

Mack Brown’s recruiting secret

So, Texas has a program that ought to get your typical eighteen-year old high school recruits flocking to Austin.

Oops.  Maybe this is the kind of stuff Georgia Tech fans are talking about when they bitch about their school’s limited curriculum.

(h/t The Agitator)

Wednesday morning buffet

Here’s your hump day nosh.

• And The Valley Shook’s Billy takes a crack at the “SEC – Year of the Quarterback” almost-meme.
• Rogers Redding is disturbed.
• North Carolina grads, I feel your pain.  But, if true, your school deserves to fry over it.
• Preemptive war, ESPN-style.
• Craig James thinks Mike Leach is evil.  But at least there aren’t any dead hooker rumors haunting the Pirate.
• I’m sort of surprised Cornelius Washington didn’t rate a mention on this list.
• SOD claims he needed a defensive coordinator who’s on the same page with him.  But check out the quote about Wilcox in Matt Hayes’ SEC coaches rankings.
• Will a four-team playoff mean extra championship chances for the SEC?

Through with Buzz.

There is something especially trollicious about the guy who wrote perhaps the definitive book on high school football pontificating like this:

In more than 20 years I’ve spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics.

That’s because college football has no academic purpose. Which is why it needs to be banned. A radical solution, yes. But necessary in today’s times.

Man, if you eliminated everything from college which had no academic purpose, what would you have left?  And by the way, how does high school football enhance that academic mission?

Bissinger has been, and will always be, a tool.  The AJ-C ought to hire him.

Wednesday morning buffet

Try it, you’ll like it.

• Sporting News ranks the ACC coaches and Paul Johnson comes in at number two.  I don’t know if that more a reflection on Johnson or the conference.  (Personally speaking, I’d give Jim Grobe a lifetime achievement award for Wake Forest winning the ACC.  Is there another coach on the list who could have pulled that off?)
• Will Muschamp doesn’t think much of Tennessee’s lack of academic prowess.
• This is not new, but since they brought mat drills back this offseason, maybe it’s worth another look.
• Surprise, surprise:  “College football players suffer knee injuries about 40 percent more often when playing on an artificial turf versus grass, according to a U.S. study.”
• Jerry Hinnen’s look at the SEC East, post-spring practice is worth a read.  (I’ve thought the same thing he mentions about South Carolina’s pass defense.)
• This is pretty cool.
• I’m sure Tommy Tuberville is ecstatic that Kevin Scarbinsky’s let him off the hook for Auburn football.
• Nick Saban is right about this, even if it is a little self-serving.  (Hell, it’s not as if what Delany and Scott want isn’t, aiight?)

Morris Claiborne channels his inner Nick Saban.

This is awesome.  Talking about his poor showing on the Wonderlic, the former LSU defensive back had this to say:

“They say it’s an IQ test. I came to the combine for football. I looked at the test, and wasn’t any questions about football. I didn’t see no point in the test. I’m not in school anymore. I didn’t complete it. I only finished 15 or 18 questions.”

The only thing that would make that quote better is if he looked some GM in the eye during a pre-draft interview and said the same thing in response to an awkward question.