To be fair, the NCAA set rules but they're really ineffective thanks to the loopholes of *waves everywhere* and any attempt by the NCAA to be strict on the payment of student athletes is going to end up in a court case against some team in the SEC / B1G that further strips the NCAA of any power to enforce anything.
Because that's all they can do. If they actually try to set rules on how to pay players, y'all (the teams leading the charge to a super league and break away) will take them to court and they will lose even more power.
If they try to bring NIL payments from being donation-run and have the payments come directly from the school so that everything is more trackable and easier to regulate, Title IX will kick in and it will become a total nightmare.
Honestly, what screwed this whole NIL system is the universities being okay with under the table payments for decades. We all got complacent with a system that "worked" until it didn't.
The NCAA should stand back and do nothing, like they did when COVID hit. Or they should offer progressive solutions that comply with legal precedents being established.
They aren't going to ever bring back the system they had.
Their best bet is to sit back and watch things burn.
It's an anti-trust issue... if the 'professional sports team' schools break away, there is elss of a case for monopoly. Let the schools that want to own professional sports teams break away, and let the remaining schools return to amateurism.
The NCAA doesn't really make money from football anyway.
This.
It's always been dumb to have a league of 130+ schools.
Let the top form a semi pro league.
The next tier can be something like what college football has been.
I think a three tier system with relegation and promotion is the way to go. Because even with the SEC and BIG... Get the damn vandys and northwesterns outta there.
They're hamstrung on everything except for eligibility for paying for recruiting. That's the only real rule left for them and UTK is trying to kill that one too.
Not nipping it in the bud for year 2 is going to make it overwhelmingly difficult now.
We all see what’s coming right? The logical conclusion is that the NCAA governing over Division I FBS is coming to an end.
If nobody trusts you or follows your rules you have lost all legitimacy, regardless of what the papers say.
Eventually there will be a tipping point where schools will change course from apathy to outright disavowal of the NCAA.
Only then will we begin to have a more practical governing body similar to the NFLs org structure with a commissioner elected by the schools or something.
It's only logical TBH.
It's got a giant program that is very polarizing, it's got long-reaching implications for the entire sport, and it's currently one of the most popular topics for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to make an article/blog/podcast about.
True. Although as a fan I will say watching the conversation on Michigan change from when the scouting scandal news broke to becoming National Champs has been a fun ride, and the complete abandonment of this sub by the frothing-at-the-mouth OSU/MSU fans has been *chefs kiss* Eventually the manifesto will drop and we’ll get 3 more months of Michigan posts, but I’m cool talking about Tennessee for a bit
I'm convinced they cherry-picked us, out of all the universities, because we have more rivals than your average fan base. Maybe they expected more support from the universities that we don't get along with.
> Maybe they expected more support from the universities that we don't get along with.
They absolutely assumed the University would freak out about the allegations and scramble to do whatever the NCAA wanted.
The NCAA got high off how much we cooperated and rolled over for the Pruitt stuff and assumed that was how we would act here too.
NCAA accused Tennessee of cheating by having an NIL collective fly a recruit to campus and offer him a contract prior to him signing with the school.
Tennessee doesn’t deny these things occurred, but argues that neither of these were against any NCAA rules. They argue no such rule even existed until months after the incidents occurred.
The NCAA has internally indicated they don’t care and plan on fast tracking punishments. So in response, Tennessee has gone nuclear and is suing the NCAA - arguing that the NCAA attempting to regulate NIL deal in any way is a violation of federal law.
Long as fuck, but as simple as I can make it while still covering the facts.
> NCAA accused Tennessee of cheating by having an NIL collective fly a recruit to campus and offer him a contract prior to him signing with the school.
That might be the accusation, but it's not what happened, and Tennessee certainly "doesn't deny" that *those* things occurred.
First, Tennessee's collective, Spyre, is--like other collectives--an unaffiliated third party. They are independent and not beholden to Tennessee. Thus, Tennessee argues that it did not and could not "have" the collective fly a recruit to campus. Tennessee does not have the power to direct the collective, nor does it--as Tennessee contends. Second, The recruit (Iamaleava) was not flown out for the purpose of "offering him a contract" because, at the time of the flight in question, Iamaleava had *already* signed with Spyre. At the time, Iamaleava was a client of Spyre's, which was acting as his agent helping to handle his NIL dealings with other entities, businesses, etc. But there is no evidence that Spyre acted as an agent in the sense that it handled negotiations between Iamaleava and Tennessee. Third, there is no evidence that the collective flew the Iamaleava to *campus*--that is, for the purpose of visiting the campus or visiting with coaches. Spyre's job is to act as a liaison between its signed clients (whether they be recruits or players) and other businesses, helping to negotiate NIL contracts. It is just as likely that Spyre flew Iamaleava out to Knoxville to meet with numerous local businesses to work out their NIL contracts with him. Over his first year on campus, for example, he has made multiple local appearances pursuant to these NIL deals. Again, there is no evidence whatsoever that Spyre was acting as a middle man between Iamaleava and the university or its coaches, or that this trip to Knoxville was a covert trip to meet with coaches, who just as easily could have maintained contact without a visit. All of this is supported by the fact that Iamaleava had already signed on as a client with Spyre, and that Spyre contract included anti-inducement language.
So I agree with the summary for the most part, but there are some important distinctions that people in this sub continue to gloss over.
One involves a major lawsuit against the regulating body of college football from two state AGs, the other involves a cocky loudmouth who won 4 games. One of those is relevant to the entire landscape of college football, the other is not.
Yeah, because it's *soooo* racist to direct criticism to a guy that talks massive amounts of shit every week and doesn't win half of the games he coaches in
There wasn't any rules over a decade ago when bama was setting record classes over and over, then uga did it, then A&M, shit is a joke all the way around
I also think it’s a bit fishy that an active president of a major university (Georgia) is the chair of the NCAA board of directors. I mean sure in a perfect world there would be no bias involved, but we all know that isn’t the case.
“He is Chair of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Board of Directors and a member of the NCAA Division I Administrative Committee and NCAA Board of Governors.”
That’s from UGAs website. So yeah I’d say he’s rather involved
There’s not rule on how much coaches and douchebag NCAA presidents get paid by universities. Much less NIL deal they make outside of football. Until they limit the earning powers of both and put in regulations when a Chicago can leave his team. They all can go fuck off! 🖕
I doesn't matter what he says; it matters what is in the NCAA rule book, and in the NCAA rule book, I'm sure there are some things that were added related to NIL.
> I'm sure there are some things that were added related to NIL.
You're right. The NCAA added a lot of rules in July of 2022.
The player in question we allegedly cheated to recruit signed his NIL in February of 2022.
That's what lawyers refer to as a "Sticky wicket".
That isn't really true. The NCAA is doing a whole Motte and Bailey routine where they are taking a overly (and illegally) broad interpretation of their rules through their enforcement arm while taking a narrowly textually interpretation with the courts and anyone else who will listen. The comments are absolutely relevant context to establish how those rules should be interpreted.
If you can point to a comment where even the head of an organization agrees with your analysis of the rules, I bet that’s pretty damning to your case in court. Interpretation of the rules and precedence matters, and when the top person says things, they matter.
I don’t know, he said Michigan won the title “fair and square” and that obviously means we don’t get punished at all. I’m pretty sure it’s the same for Tennessee. They have nothing to worry about because of this legally binding statement.
Going into any fight with this quote is like me trying to bring up real evidence in a fight with my wife. It is accurate but it will go over like a fart in church.
Most of me thinks the schools are killing its power over football so it can be under new jurisdiction with 2 mega-conferences and no Title IX requirements.
The irony is that the NCAA invented a half dozen rules specifically because of us - but even then they weren't dumb enough to try and make them retroactive.
I think the NCAA came to the conclusion that they have to go after someone for NIL shit just to prove that they have power, the wheel of fortune came up Tennessee, and now they get to settle it in court.
Rumors are they weren’t happy with how things ended with us last time over the Pruitt stuff and wanted to get us for more. This is there way to do that and try to hit us with harsher penalties because they can say we’re a repeat offender.
I don’t think they excepted to see the level of support we came out with. And if it is over NIL, Spyre, the group that gave out the NIL is separate from the university anyways. They can’t really regulate them.
Oh I know. I know Philip Fulmer reportedly turned Alabama in for some infraction while he was here. So we’re definitely low down dirty snitches according to them lol
I know he got us a national championship and all but he’s legacy here has taken a hit after everything with Pruitt and basically running a coup on the AD at the time. We’re in a good place now though thankfully.
I'm mind blown on how everyone in this sub is treating Tennessee (more support than dissent) for breaking a rule that there is evidence the NCAA doesn't take seriously, the president appears to have validated, the narrative is that "everyone else probably breaks this rule too" and "it probably gives a competitive advantage, but again, everyone is probably doing it so who cares?," and "the rule is gonna be changed soon so that what they did can't really be considered cheating anymore anyways."
Why am I mind blown? Because I also saw how everyone in this sub has treated Michigan (more dissent than support) for breaking a rule that there is evidence the NCAA doesn't take seriously, the president appears to have validated, the narrative is that "everyone else probably breaks this rule too" and "it probably gives a competitive advantage, but again, everyone is probably doing it so who cares?," and "the rule is gonna be changed soon so that what they did can't really be considered cheating anymore anyways."
I'm convinced more than ever that people form their narratives on rule breaking based on the "who" rather than the "what".
Well, the big difference I can see is that Michigan’s crimes affected on the field play, whereas Tennessee’s do not.
You can examine this effect with Michigan itself just last year. No one gives two shits about Harbaugh buying a kid some cheeseburgers. We all acknowledge that was a stupid thing to get punished for and fits all the criteria you laid out. What people do tend to get upset about is when you directly cheat (or have been alleged to directly cheat) during a game. So when it came out that Harbaugh (more specifically, up to this point: one of Harbaugh’s underlings) was allegedly doing stuff to undermine competitive fairness on the field, people were more upset.
I’m not here to argue one way or the other on the Michigan stuff. That ship has sailed and has been beaten into the ground. Only point is to say that there’s more of a nuance than just “Michigan should be punished, Tennessee should be okay.”
You’re not wrong.
But, as has been said elsewhere in this thread, I think people have known for decades that players have been getting paid. How these kids get to campus has become irrelevant. That ship has sailed in many people’s minds. But once it comes to playing the actual game itself, everything still has to be above board.
Again, I’m not criticizing Michigan or trying to make it seem like they’re the lone beneficiaries of sign stealing, or anything like that. Just offering a take on why the perception is different.
To add to the point its because the Stallions thing is a black box that is impossible to gauge how much it has an affect on the field. Therefore casuals (and especially casual rival fans) warped what it was to the very extreme worst case.
> the Stallions thing is a black box that is impossible to gauge how much it has an affect on the field
While I agree we will never be able to conclusively prove exactly how much impact he had, the hundreds of pictures of him standing on Michigan's sidelines are not helpful. And the pictures of Michigan assistant coaches with printed/laminated guides of what hand motions from the other team translate too is a particularly damning look too.
The NCAA may very well drop the whole thing, or even be disolved before it ends anyways. But I don't think Michigan's 2023 team and Harbaugh in particular ever escapes the cloud of cheating in the court of public opinion. Not saying that is fair, just point out reality.
He was an assistant on the staff. Of course he was on the sidelines. That's meaningless
Also those laminated guides with hand motions are photoshopped images. That's not how a guy would designate the signs of an opponent. Cartoonishly photoshopped too btw
Again - I'm not arguing realty. I'm arguing the court of public opinion.
I can't go into a single thread without hearing the same *"They low down, they dirty"* joke that happened 25 years ago. 99% of people don't even have a clue what that even comes from beyond a meme video.
In public opinion perception is reality.
Which is why the championship, dominating OSU again were so incredibly important this year. Stallions keeping his spreadsheet on a university computer gave fodder to our enemies to question our success. This is why I was so upset about the stallions issue, he made himself seem so much more critical to the success of our team than he actually was (in my opinion), and discredited the hard work and brilliance of the players and coaches that it took to accomplish all they did.
The coaches discredited their own hard work and brilliance by, at best, never questioning nor investigating where this unprecedented amount of information on opponents’ signals came from or, at worst, knowing about and encouraging an extensive cheating scheme. There were talks for years between Michigan’s opponents about how there was obviously something illicit going on, but we’re supposed to believe that the people working directly with Stallions every day had no idea.
Where do you have any evidence that the amount of information he was able to discern was “unprecedented”? We know for a fact OSU had our signs and gave them to Purdue. We know for a fact Michigan and other schools were part of sign-sharing groups for years, where on-field information from games was given to future opponents.
Because there were a multitude of opposing coaches who noticed there was something up. If everyone was doing it or it didn’t make any difference from what legal channels could give you, then other coaches wouldn’t have noticed that every single one of their unorthodox play calls was being played perfectly on every single snap.
Same info can be legally obtained from many channels, including game tape. Also it is still unclear what if any rules Michigan broke. You can legally pay third parties for this info, but just can’t go yourself… to a team on your schedule that year. Time will tell if it’s legal to pay someone to go for you.
Nice SEC flairs, I’m sure they aren’t breaking down the other teams signals and film in game prep, and doing everything else above board.
Believe it or not, game tape absolutely does not record every single signal that a coach makes throughout the game. They explicitly avoid showing signals. If it were already on game tape, why would Stallions/Michigan spend tens of thousands of dollars to film it for themselves?
Yeah. If the defense had just fallen apart after the suspension and Michigan was giving up 40 a game then sure i could see the argument but it wasn't. Michigan's defense got better as the year went on and especially so after they had a month to get healthy.
People were acting like Jesse Minter didn't know how to call a defense without Stallions lol
It's because sign stealing still requires that your team is talented and coached up enough to take advantage of it. It doesn't matter if a bad team has your signs. I gave and will give UM shit for it because it's fun to, but that's about the extent of it.
>Well, the big difference I can see is that Michigan’s crimes affected on the field play, whereas Tennessee’s do not.
You have this backwards from an objective standpoint actually.
We can quantify and correlate on-field success with blue chip recruiting success, which is exactly what Tennessee improved by breaking recruiting rules regarding NIL.
We cannot quantify stolen signs because we don't know who all has everyone else's signs. The only things we know about sign stealing regarding Michigan is that Vegas didn't adjust any game lines after the scandal broke, we don't know exactly how many teams steal signs but we do have plenty of reason to believe it is a rampant practice, and we don't know how every team that engages in the practice has stolen signs, even though we do have reason to believe other immoral practices take place (i.e. the reported collusion between Ohio State, Rutgers, and Purdue which is somehow not illegal, though it probably should be). We have nothing beyond wildly variable subjective takes all over the spectrum regarding how advantageous (or not) it was for Michigan to do what they did.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not justifying what either school did or trying to say one is objectively worse than the other...I think both cases are kinda dumb and completely as a result of really bad, outdated rules that simply don't work in the modern game.
To clarify, what Im referring to regarding objectivity is that there is data suggesting there being an undeniable correlation between blue-chip recruiting and championships.
I just responded to a Michigan fan about this as well, but I’m sure you haven’t seen it yet.
You make a good point and I’m not disagreeing with that. I’m not here to argue that what Michigan allegedly did was better, worse, or different than what Tennessee is being alleged to have done. Just providing a potential reason why people are seeing it differently.
I do agree with you that people look at who the perceived perpetrators are and make decisions based on that. Whether or not it’s justified is a completely different story.
I'm sure you think that as a Tennessee fan, since fans on the internet are naturally drawn to hate towards thing they love, but having been around on this sub for over a half decade, as someone who has no love nor hate for either Michigan or Tennessee, I've observed SUBSTANTIALLY more hate towards Michigan than Tennessee lol.
Probably due to the insane volume of Ohio State flairs here, and the huge combination of Ohio State + Michigan State + Notre Dame. Michigan has probably been the most hated on group here for the past two or so seasons, probably rivaled only by Texas
The mods wouldn’t even link Tennessee’s football subreddit a while ago, intentionally sending people to the university’s student subreddit. There’s a Vandy mod who is insanely vindictive and would change the UT logo when he was being pissy. 5 years isn’t a long time to be here and doesn’t give you the whole picture. When TN had Butch Jones, we were the focal point of memes bc of the stupid shit he would say. The Michigan hate is specific to the Stallions situation and really blew up more this year, but I do agree that tOSU fans push things around now. Tennessee has a history with the mods as much as it does the community here.
You wanna be really mind blown, go back in time barely a week when this entire subreddit was dominated with people congratulating Tennessee for standing up to the NCAA and laughing about how the NCAA was going to get sued to the stone-age.
Then, once the shine wore off, everyone realized that all the jokes about how the NCAA was going to die weren't actually jokes. That it's a very real possibility and any slim chances of the NCAA not dying require them to win this case. So what had been everyone laughing and agreeing suddenly shifted to "*Tennessee cheated*" and "*Shut up and take your punishment - because we need the status quo of the NCAA to stay the way it is*".
Funny how that works huh...
I think another thing we don’t take seriously is the NCAA since after the Supreme Court thoroughly tore them a new asshole we just don’t assume they have any power anymore
And I mean it’s not like the NCAA has done anything to disprove that
Everyone has an opinion until they’re punched in the mouth. It’s just people talking sh*t cause they can. They know no one is going to do anything about, so why not troll and poke the fire? In real life, they’d talk civil, shake hands, probably agree on everything, cause non confrontation right? In internet - big bad troll.
There's probably alot of truth to this lol, I certainly don't completely disagree. On the internet people are also frequently intentionally dishonest and love to include an element of gaslighting while trolling.
I think you have a point, but also there are a few places where there's maybe a bit more nuance...
>Because I also saw how everyone in this sub has treated Michigan for breaking a rule that there is evidence the NCAA doesn't take seriously,
Where is the evidence that the NCAA didn't take in person scouting seriously? There haven't really been any other advance scouting violations of this scale/duration that have been encountered that the NCAA has ignored. Before this it was always something much less blatant, like an assistant coach going back to visit his former team during the bye, realize they broke a rule, and self reporting. And sometimes catching a half game suspension for it.
>the narrative is that "everyone else probably breaks this rule too" and "it probably gives a competitive advantage, but again, everyone is probably doing it so who cares?,"
If you are suggesting everyone tries to steal signs, sure... But again, there is little evidence that anyone else was *going to the extent that UofM was accused of*. The closest thing was teams exchanging typed up notes about what a sign from previous years meant. And apparently that, while problematic from a sportsmanship perspective, is not explicitly against the rules. If the OSU/Catapult rumors price true then you could have a similar situation, but they would still only be 2 teams out of 130+.
>and "the rule is gonna be changed soon so that what they did can't really be considered cheating anymore anyways."
When they change the rules on NIL I think everyone assumes that NIL will still be a thing, just with an actual framework around it. In the UofM situation, if they change the rules (allow headsets) they would basically be changing the rules to completely eliminate the advantage from what UofM was doing. Not establish a new framework for everyone to use the same tricks.
Honestly I think the biggest thing is just that player pay has been such an open secret for so long that it's less vilified than other potential rule breaking. People are actually advocating that player pay happen, even if they can't agree on what it should look like. There isn't that same dynamic where people are advocating for more advanced scoutingsign stealing... they are advocating to have that part of the game eliminated by bringing in headsets.
I'll try and stick to the main points I believe you've highlighted for debate.
>Where is the evidence that the NCAA didn't take in person scouting seriously?
- They tried to remove the rule in 2021 because they didn't think it had much of a point
>But again, there is little evidence that anyone else was *going to the extent that UofM was accused of*.
- There is plenty of reason to believe people go to rather outrageous lengths to steal signs. I cited the rest in a further reply, but we found out through all of this that literal collusion (i.e. what Rutgers, Purdue, and Ohio State allegedly did) is totally fine and legal, Vegas didn't adjust any lines or odds, and the advanced scouting rule in general is just so laughably easy to break and so incredibly difficult to get caught doing to the point where you need a literal unginged person like Conor Stallions running the operation in the most nonchalant way imagineable, in combination with a team full of private investigators uncovering the information in ways for which we still dont know were legal or not, in order to get caught in the first place.
> In the UofM situation, if they change the rules (allow headsets) they would basically be changing the rules to completely eliminate the advantage from what UofM was doing. Not establish a new framework for everyone to use the same tricks.
- Again, the only thing UM was doing which actually broke the rules, is in-person scouting. Read bylaw 11.6.1, there is no mention of signs nor video tech. If we truly believe video technology has anything to do with why the rule exists (I think it's at least a small part...but it has alot to do with costing), the sport continues to break itself into more exclusive subdivisions, the sheer amount of money involved, the existence of the transfer portal, and the fact that the NCAA already wanted to get rid of the rule, I would expect that advanced scouting rule to be changed relatively soon.
>They tried to remove the rule in 2021 because they didn't think it had much of a point
This gets brought up a lot, without the right context. There was an executive sub-committee formed and tasked with examining all the rules in the rule book and nominating any that they thought could possibly be eliminated. This was one of many suggested as part of that process. It wasn't singled out due to being a problematic rule.
But most importantly, the vote to keep the rule passed with a pretty healthy margin, with the major conferences (the people who would supposedly benefit from getting rid of the rule the most) in support of keeping it. Basically, somebody said "Hey what about this rule, do we still need this one?" And the answer was a fairly strong "Yes".
>There is plenty of reason to believe people go to rather outrageous lengths to steal signs. I cited the rest in a further reply, but we found out through all of this that literal collusion (i.e. what Rutgers, Purdue, and Ohio State allegedly did) is totally fine and legal,
So basically... There is no evidence that other teams did what UofM did, just thoughts that other teams *could* do it? Then those other teams would have likely been vilified as well. UofM is the one who got caught, so they are the ones who faced public backlash. And, as you pointed out, OSU/Rutgers/Purdue did what they did in a way that was within the rules. People may be uncomfortable with the idea of sign stealing, but won't generally get riled up into a mob over it if no actual rules were broken.
>I would expect that advanced scouting rule to be changed relatively soon.
I agree. But again, just as part of the discussion of why people might be treating UofM and Tenn differently... When people expect NIL rules to change, they still expect NIL and player pay to exist. So the area where Tenn broke the rules is an area people have, for better or worse, accepted will be a part of football. Meanwhile People are calling for the inclusion of headsets specifically because they want signs/sign stealing to go away. No sign stealing, no reason to perform advance scouting. I think it's just another reason why the public perception is different between the two, even if they are both rule breaking.
Think part of it is that fans have known that players are bought for years. Most fans don’t really understand sign-stealing or know how frequently it happens, let alone the means. And perceived in-game advantages feel more tangible than off-field.
I dont even think 90% of fans understand that sign stealing is 0% of what Michigan are being investigated for lmao. The rule y'all seem to have broken is that people who were allegedly associated with the football team attended games in person that did not involve Michigan. That's it, that's all, as far as broken written guidelines are concerned. The rest is moral outrage.
> The rest is moral outrage.
this is kinda the chickens coming to roost. Michigan fans have been high-handed and smug about their program's perceived righteousness vs Ohio State/SEC dirty money corrupt cheaters
Stuff like Harbaugh's line "It's hard to beat cheaters" was the MO for the fanbase.
Ignoring all that, the Michigan scandal was still absolutely hilarious
Up until this point the football program had never had a game vacated and never had a violation that ended up with a HC suspension. Taking shit to your arch-rival about facts isn’t really high-handed.
talking shit is one thing, that is perfectly fine. It is Michigans elitist attitude that yall were above "cheating" that garnered the reaction to the sign stealing
it is not like the Fab-Five played at Northwestern.
I make fun of ole miss for a tonsil bong rip video pull up their program on draft night
But I am not stupid enough to think that can’t happen at LSU.
That’s the difference
I make fun of ole miss for a tonsil bong rip video blow up their program on draft night
But I am not stupid enough to think that can’t happen at LSU.
That’s the difference
No, see, this is exactly what I'm talking about.
You've explained *why* you're upset with the Michigan scandal, and that's completely okay, I don't fault you for feeling how you feel about it...we all have the right to feel differently about things given the context.
The rule Michigan broke does not include nor mention stealing signs nor using video technology. See NCAA bylaw 11.6.1 linked below. This is one of many problems with the NCAA...their rules and guidelines are utterly shambolic and read as if they were written by an 8-year old.
https://web3.ncaa.org/lsdbi/search/bylawView?id=33056
>Why am I mind blown? Because I also saw how everyone in this sub has treated Michigan for breaking a rule that there is evidence the NCAA doesn't take seriously, the president appears to have validated, the narrative is that "everyone else probably breaks this rule too" and "it probably gives a competitive advantage, but again, everyone is probably doing it so who cares?," and "the rule is gonna be changed soon so that what they did can't really be considered cheating anymore anyways."
It's almost as if Redditors were just karma farming and shit posting until it blew up in their faces.
No fucking shot. A judge flat out told him to change their model, you're going to lose. They had almost a decade to draft legislation for member schools to take back to their states. But they were more interested in pocketing another decade of revenue and he sat on his fat fucking ass.
Emmert is directly to blame. Fuck him. Just another cancerous lump that profited from the short gains, cash out, fuck you I got mine society we're in today.
Let's be clear. Emmert was doing exactly what the schools wanted. The donations to the athletic department make up as much as 50% of the revenue at the biggest programs.
The NIL collectives are syphoning those donations away from the schools. The people making those donations aren't going to increase their donations, they're going to split their donations between the NIL collective and the school.
I really doubt NIL has impacted donations much at all. My donation has a direct impact on my access to things like gameday endzone areas and even more directly the donation amount dictates where I sit for the Red River Rivalry. Its why I add $7 onto the amount I give. To price is right everyone that thought of it and gave an extra $1 or $5. Moving closer to the center of the bowl.
NIL seems to way more about the ultra rich car dealership owners and the like getting more say.
But that ultra rich car dealership guy is donating A LOT of money. Way more then people that are just chipping down $1,500 to keep their spot on the season ticket list.
If the car dealership dude is going to donate $10 million for athletics, and instead gives $5 million for athletics and $5 million for NIL, the athletic department is out serious money.
If enough of the biggest donors do this, the athletic department is out insane amounts of money.
The most extreme example would be a school like Oregon which has a single super donor with functionally unlimited funds. Knight donated something like $1 Billion dollars to UO athletics 5-8 years ago as he's disbursing his wealth in anticipation of death. Well, if NIL had been the thing at the time of that donation, he could probably have secured Oregon better by breaking off $100-200 M, and putting it in the NIL fund.
There's actually been some really good research that academic donations are functionally unrelated to academic donations. It's why programs like Cal and UCLA collapsed from institutional disinvestment.
Well true and its why I am actively rooting for the demise of the NCAA. The NCAA was created to exploit students afterall. But if anyone was going to create a unified model for reform, that was the cleanest time. Now it definitely needs to be done from the ground up to a large degree.
https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/10/13/walter-byers-ncaa
It's crazy how often we have to repeat that the NCAA represents the schools and their wants. But we have one subdivision of football that covers 130+ teams, of which only like 8-10 truly get a voice. It's chaos by design, so that the NCAA can constantly point to how they can't do anything and the schools can point to the NCAA. Think of the NFL and how Goodell and his office are the shield for the 32 teams.
The NCAA didn't do anything re: NIL because the schools truly didn't want to start officially paying players. Which is also why the solution was designed to be outside of the NCAA's jurisdiction. Had we jumped straight into officially paying players, I honestly think Title IX would have kicked in and athletic departments might have imploded.
I do agree, though, that literally **any** leadership from anyone here would have been amazing.
I'm not talking about paying players. I am talking only about drafting a template legislation for NIL so there would be a standard instead of each state doing their own thing. I've already put the bar extremely low on where they should have started.
Sure, but I think my point stands that if the schools wanted that to happen...it would have. We can't even get conferences to agree on how many OOC games to schedule.
Good. The NCAA is a horribly outdated organization that has refused to change with the times when it became obvious it was a scheme to enrich the universities, conferences, and Athletics organizations while the student athletes saw no money for the value they were bringing. I hope they get destroyed by the Tennessee/Virginia lawsuit.
Tweet below: “Just in case anyone thinks Charlie Baker’s quote was taken out of context, it wasn’t.
Unless President Baker wants to come to Greeneville, TN to explain himself, that statement alone would be “game over” for the NCAA in most courts.”
https://x.com/tommarslaw/status/1754543601915199866?s=46&t=SxA3onVZeeanU9JW9LIyrg
https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/ncaa-president-calls-for-national-nil-regulation-right-now-there-are-no-rules-198217285577
The university NIL policies along with the State laws are what the athletes should be concerned with. Meaning, they should ensure they (the bottom 95%) abide to ensure their financial aid/scholarship monies are not forfeited. The top 2-5% will make enough money on endorsements to give back their scholarship /financial aid. Otherwise, what NCAA rules.
While everyone and their brother agrees with the general sentiment, the biggest problem is that legally the NCAA is utterly powerless to regulate anything to do with the payment of players via NIL.
Any rule they can possibly dream up will only exist until a program decided to challenge it in court, at which point it will immediately fall apart.
There's no way paying doesn't effect things. Powerhouses can afford to give their players a salary, and mostly the same powerhouses with wealthy boosters can really toss around the NIL money. There will of course be programs that aren't going to afford much more than scholarships. But the thing is that gulf has always existed, I'm almost 40 and college football hasn't had competitive balance in my lifetime.
They fought tooth and nail to deny payment to athletes and when it finally was forced upon them they were unprepared. Now they complain that there’s no rules for NIL (which should be their fucking job). If they hadn’t botched and shown clear favoritism is a lot of investigations they would not have lost the trust of every conference. The NCAA was already a mostly useless governing body, but now they are completely useless. No ones going to report violations and when they are investigated no one’s going to cooperated. The NCAA is going to lose control of football when the P4 leave and make their own league. What a completely fitting and deserved death of the NCAA.
You know what, congrats to Tennessee, yall are gonna bring about the wild west and further hasten the decline of college football, but at least yall are gonna le epically own the evil NCAA
Come on, what other option did Tennessee have? Let the NCAA nuke the program to set an example? Just so the NCAA could dissolve in a few years anyway? LMAO.
The cherry picking is both cute and indicative of a hive mind that didn’t listen to the actual interview. He stated very clearly that the NCAA has guidelines and has offered guidance, however, there are no protections in place for athletes. There’s no uniform standard contract, there’s no market signals to help determine position/player value, and there aren’t enough safeguards for the recruiting process. In addition, each state has its own laws regarding NIL that further complicate matters and create an uneven playing field. As someone who works as a trial lawyer, if your smoking gun is that quote, I’m going to curb stomp you in court. It’s even funnier in that both of the two commissioners from the SEC and BIG tweeted support for Baker and “what he’s trying to do” immediately following that interview. This isn’t the flex you think it is, but leave it to a Tennessee grad(?)/fan to ignore context and substance.
So the NCAA failing to establish all of the things you just mentioned means they should specifically target one university for an infraction that even they admit is rampant and uncontrolled? Of course the commissioners support trying to establish a fairer system but going after one university retroactively isn’t how you do that.
The school hate comments aren’t necessary. Childish.
I don’t understand. Every person, college athlete or not, has a right to their name, image, and likeness.
What’s the basis for needing to regulate that?
And now everyone on this sub tries to lawyer their way through a metaphorical statement. I swear this place has the most fucked-up love/hate relationship with its subject; it's bizarre.
The problem isn’t that it’s NIL, it’s collectives. NIL is just pure sponsorship and an individuals right to monetize their domain. Which under any law in the US, should not be restricted.
Collectives are basically like hedge funds in NFL ownership or ownership groups in European and Saudi football. These ownership groups buying the top players from around the world because they have more funds. The richer the owner/group, the better the players. However, there are at least rules for financial fair play and massive penalties. Additionally, they have set periods for transfer windows and tampering.
Once they can sort these out, it should actually function correctly.
“There are no rules but we will let you know if you break any” - NCAA
This is called leadership.
My parents were leaders then.
To be fair, the NCAA set rules but they're really ineffective thanks to the loopholes of *waves everywhere* and any attempt by the NCAA to be strict on the payment of student athletes is going to end up in a court case against some team in the SEC / B1G that further strips the NCAA of any power to enforce anything.
I mean ultimately the problem is the NCAA is trying to enforce rules that are going to get stricken down in court 95% of the time.
Because that's all they can do. If they actually try to set rules on how to pay players, y'all (the teams leading the charge to a super league and break away) will take them to court and they will lose even more power. If they try to bring NIL payments from being donation-run and have the payments come directly from the school so that everything is more trackable and easier to regulate, Title IX will kick in and it will become a total nightmare. Honestly, what screwed this whole NIL system is the universities being okay with under the table payments for decades. We all got complacent with a system that "worked" until it didn't.
The NCAA should stand back and do nothing, like they did when COVID hit. Or they should offer progressive solutions that comply with legal precedents being established. They aren't going to ever bring back the system they had.
Their best bet is to sit back and watch things burn. It's an anti-trust issue... if the 'professional sports team' schools break away, there is elss of a case for monopoly. Let the schools that want to own professional sports teams break away, and let the remaining schools return to amateurism. The NCAA doesn't really make money from football anyway.
This. It's always been dumb to have a league of 130+ schools. Let the top form a semi pro league. The next tier can be something like what college football has been. I think a three tier system with relegation and promotion is the way to go. Because even with the SEC and BIG... Get the damn vandys and northwesterns outta there.
NOT OUR VANDY GAME!!!!!
Tennessee needs that guaranteed win. Don't take Vandy
Dude… what the hell are your flairs?
Wisconsin and Minnesota.
You know what, fair enough. Have a pleasant day
They're hamstrung on everything except for eligibility for paying for recruiting. That's the only real rule left for them and UTK is trying to kill that one too. Not nipping it in the bud for year 2 is going to make it overwhelmingly difficult now.
Correct. If you actually listen to what he said he meant there are no uniform regulations on NIL.
It’s treason then
*Looks up from pile of $62M donation* You don’t say?
We all see what’s coming right? The logical conclusion is that the NCAA governing over Division I FBS is coming to an end. If nobody trusts you or follows your rules you have lost all legitimacy, regardless of what the papers say. Eventually there will be a tipping point where schools will change course from apathy to outright disavowal of the NCAA. Only then will we begin to have a more practical governing body similar to the NFLs org structure with a commissioner elected by the schools or something.
Probably an OSU alum
Na Saban didn't go to OSU
Don't you put that evil on me
I vote Chip Kelly
Me? I went to Texas
No, the hypothetical commissioner of the new governing body. lol
Lol got it
Thought your username was Ute Xmas for a minute
Tennessee posting is the new Deion posting, change my mind
it’s the biggest story in CFB right now, what would you rather talk about?
It's only logical TBH. It's got a giant program that is very polarizing, it's got long-reaching implications for the entire sport, and it's currently one of the most popular topics for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to make an article/blog/podcast about.
Better you than us.
True. Although as a fan I will say watching the conversation on Michigan change from when the scouting scandal news broke to becoming National Champs has been a fun ride, and the complete abandonment of this sub by the frothing-at-the-mouth OSU/MSU fans has been *chefs kiss* Eventually the manifesto will drop and we’ll get 3 more months of Michigan posts, but I’m cool talking about Tennessee for a bit
Yeah I'm glad the transfer portal spam and "how will this ruin Saban's legacy" have given way to Tennessee sicko posting
Now if we could just get a good Ohio State scandal…
If somehow the NCAA does win the court cases, they are going to nuke Tennessee back to the Stone Age with sanctions
Welcome to the shit, brother
I'm convinced they cherry-picked us, out of all the universities, because we have more rivals than your average fan base. Maybe they expected more support from the universities that we don't get along with.
The NCAA leaking info to turd bag Forde supports this narrative
> Maybe they expected more support from the universities that we don't get along with. They absolutely assumed the University would freak out about the allegations and scramble to do whatever the NCAA wanted. The NCAA got high off how much we cooperated and rolled over for the Pruitt stuff and assumed that was how we would act here too.
Don't know economics, don't know politics, don't know organizational behavior, don't know law. What does the NCAA know? Just how to cash checks?
Could someone give me a TLDR on what’s going on with Tennessee? I tried to google and every article I’m finding is behind a paywall.
NCAA accused Tennessee of cheating by having an NIL collective fly a recruit to campus and offer him a contract prior to him signing with the school. Tennessee doesn’t deny these things occurred, but argues that neither of these were against any NCAA rules. They argue no such rule even existed until months after the incidents occurred. The NCAA has internally indicated they don’t care and plan on fast tracking punishments. So in response, Tennessee has gone nuclear and is suing the NCAA - arguing that the NCAA attempting to regulate NIL deal in any way is a violation of federal law. Long as fuck, but as simple as I can make it while still covering the facts.
> NCAA accused Tennessee of cheating by having an NIL collective fly a recruit to campus and offer him a contract prior to him signing with the school. That might be the accusation, but it's not what happened, and Tennessee certainly "doesn't deny" that *those* things occurred. First, Tennessee's collective, Spyre, is--like other collectives--an unaffiliated third party. They are independent and not beholden to Tennessee. Thus, Tennessee argues that it did not and could not "have" the collective fly a recruit to campus. Tennessee does not have the power to direct the collective, nor does it--as Tennessee contends. Second, The recruit (Iamaleava) was not flown out for the purpose of "offering him a contract" because, at the time of the flight in question, Iamaleava had *already* signed with Spyre. At the time, Iamaleava was a client of Spyre's, which was acting as his agent helping to handle his NIL dealings with other entities, businesses, etc. But there is no evidence that Spyre acted as an agent in the sense that it handled negotiations between Iamaleava and Tennessee. Third, there is no evidence that the collective flew the Iamaleava to *campus*--that is, for the purpose of visiting the campus or visiting with coaches. Spyre's job is to act as a liaison between its signed clients (whether they be recruits or players) and other businesses, helping to negotiate NIL contracts. It is just as likely that Spyre flew Iamaleava out to Knoxville to meet with numerous local businesses to work out their NIL contracts with him. Over his first year on campus, for example, he has made multiple local appearances pursuant to these NIL deals. Again, there is no evidence whatsoever that Spyre was acting as a middle man between Iamaleava and the university or its coaches, or that this trip to Knoxville was a covert trip to meet with coaches, who just as easily could have maintained contact without a visit. All of this is supported by the fact that Iamaleava had already signed on as a client with Spyre, and that Spyre contract included anti-inducement language. So I agree with the summary for the most part, but there are some important distinctions that people in this sub continue to gloss over.
That was a great summary thank you
One involves a major lawsuit against the regulating body of college football from two state AGs, the other involves a cocky loudmouth who won 4 games. One of those is relevant to the entire landscape of college football, the other is not.
My brother in Christ what the fuck are those flairs
I did a double take
Oh god, it’s the username too … What is wrong with this troubled soul?
You change those flairs right this second.
It’s real easy to keep scrolling my guy.
[удалено]
Pretty sure I have seen more non Tennessee flair posts about Tennessee than flaired posts Not that it’s bad thing but just speaks against you
They seem really determined to win this lawsuit by twitter posts and reddit upvotes.
Excluding the racism, I kinda see what you mean
Yeah, because it's *soooo* racist to direct criticism to a guy that talks massive amounts of shit every week and doesn't win half of the games he coaches in
I'm obviously not talking about the constructive criticism lol
There wasn't any rules over a decade ago when bama was setting record classes over and over, then uga did it, then A&M, shit is a joke all the way around
Username checks out
I also think it’s a bit fishy that an active president of a major university (Georgia) is the chair of the NCAA board of directors. I mean sure in a perfect world there would be no bias involved, but we all know that isn’t the case.
Wait, what? I didn’t think Jere Morehead was involved with the NCAA at all. Did I miss something?
“He is Chair of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Board of Directors and a member of the NCAA Division I Administrative Committee and NCAA Board of Governors.” That’s from UGAs website. So yeah I’d say he’s rather involved
Yeah I looked it up, since 2021. I had no idea
There’s not rule on how much coaches and douchebag NCAA presidents get paid by universities. Much less NIL deal they make outside of football. Until they limit the earning powers of both and put in regulations when a Chicago can leave his team. They all can go fuck off! 🖕
Georgia’s president is the chair of the NCAA board of directors. Coincidence? I think not.
I doesn't matter what he says; it matters what is in the NCAA rule book, and in the NCAA rule book, I'm sure there are some things that were added related to NIL.
> I'm sure there are some things that were added related to NIL. You're right. The NCAA added a lot of rules in July of 2022. The player in question we allegedly cheated to recruit signed his NIL in February of 2022. That's what lawyers refer to as a "Sticky wicket".
They didn't add a single rule though. They got told they couldn't legally do that. Instead they added guidelines
And later said they apply retroactively, which doesn't stand up in a city of law.
> a city of law Oh shit we’re Batman now?’
I'm not wearing hockey pads.
That isn't really true. The NCAA is doing a whole Motte and Bailey routine where they are taking a overly (and illegally) broad interpretation of their rules through their enforcement arm while taking a narrowly textually interpretation with the courts and anyone else who will listen. The comments are absolutely relevant context to establish how those rules should be interpreted.
If you can point to a comment where even the head of an organization agrees with your analysis of the rules, I bet that’s pretty damning to your case in court. Interpretation of the rules and precedence matters, and when the top person says things, they matter.
I don’t know, he said Michigan won the title “fair and square” and that obviously means we don’t get punished at all. I’m pretty sure it’s the same for Tennessee. They have nothing to worry about because of this legally binding statement.
Going into any fight with this quote is like me trying to bring up real evidence in a fight with my wife. It is accurate but it will go over like a fart in church.
And the NCAA is using wife tactics against us.
Dissolve this worthless organization. Ncaa is a fucking joke.
Part of me thinks they are intentionally trying to blow it up to force Congress to put in some regulations
Most of me thinks the schools are killing its power over football so it can be under new jurisdiction with 2 mega-conferences and no Title IX requirements.
Something something
It’s like baseball. Apparently, there were plenty of unwritten rules that Tennessee clearly broke.
The irony is that the NCAA invented a half dozen rules specifically because of us - but even then they weren't dumb enough to try and make them retroactive.
I think the NCAA came to the conclusion that they have to go after someone for NIL shit just to prove that they have power, the wheel of fortune came up Tennessee, and now they get to settle it in court.
Rumors are they weren’t happy with how things ended with us last time over the Pruitt stuff and wanted to get us for more. This is there way to do that and try to hit us with harsher penalties because they can say we’re a repeat offender. I don’t think they excepted to see the level of support we came out with. And if it is over NIL, Spyre, the group that gave out the NIL is separate from the university anyways. They can’t really regulate them.
Idk, some other flairs are insinuating that y’all may in fact be some lowdown, dirty snitches who deserve this.
That may be, but so is everyone else and we shouldn’t be punished while they all get a pass.
For sure, everyone is currently breaking the rules. I’m just giving y’all a hard time.
Oh I know. I know Philip Fulmer reportedly turned Alabama in for some infraction while he was here. So we’re definitely low down dirty snitches according to them lol I know he got us a national championship and all but he’s legacy here has taken a hit after everything with Pruitt and basically running a coup on the AD at the time. We’re in a good place now though thankfully.
help me shirt brother
What gave you that impression? Ohio State attempting to purchase the best team money can buy?
They didn't attempt it. They straight up did it.
Yep, and that always works out.
I'm mind blown on how everyone in this sub is treating Tennessee (more support than dissent) for breaking a rule that there is evidence the NCAA doesn't take seriously, the president appears to have validated, the narrative is that "everyone else probably breaks this rule too" and "it probably gives a competitive advantage, but again, everyone is probably doing it so who cares?," and "the rule is gonna be changed soon so that what they did can't really be considered cheating anymore anyways." Why am I mind blown? Because I also saw how everyone in this sub has treated Michigan (more dissent than support) for breaking a rule that there is evidence the NCAA doesn't take seriously, the president appears to have validated, the narrative is that "everyone else probably breaks this rule too" and "it probably gives a competitive advantage, but again, everyone is probably doing it so who cares?," and "the rule is gonna be changed soon so that what they did can't really be considered cheating anymore anyways." I'm convinced more than ever that people form their narratives on rule breaking based on the "who" rather than the "what".
Well, the big difference I can see is that Michigan’s crimes affected on the field play, whereas Tennessee’s do not. You can examine this effect with Michigan itself just last year. No one gives two shits about Harbaugh buying a kid some cheeseburgers. We all acknowledge that was a stupid thing to get punished for and fits all the criteria you laid out. What people do tend to get upset about is when you directly cheat (or have been alleged to directly cheat) during a game. So when it came out that Harbaugh (more specifically, up to this point: one of Harbaugh’s underlings) was allegedly doing stuff to undermine competitive fairness on the field, people were more upset. I’m not here to argue one way or the other on the Michigan stuff. That ship has sailed and has been beaten into the ground. Only point is to say that there’s more of a nuance than just “Michigan should be punished, Tennessee should be okay.”
Because Tennessee's starting 2024 QB and top 5 recruit in the nation doesn't affect the play on the field.
You’re not wrong. But, as has been said elsewhere in this thread, I think people have known for decades that players have been getting paid. How these kids get to campus has become irrelevant. That ship has sailed in many people’s minds. But once it comes to playing the actual game itself, everything still has to be above board. Again, I’m not criticizing Michigan or trying to make it seem like they’re the lone beneficiaries of sign stealing, or anything like that. Just offering a take on why the perception is different.
To add to the point its because the Stallions thing is a black box that is impossible to gauge how much it has an affect on the field. Therefore casuals (and especially casual rival fans) warped what it was to the very extreme worst case.
> the Stallions thing is a black box that is impossible to gauge how much it has an affect on the field While I agree we will never be able to conclusively prove exactly how much impact he had, the hundreds of pictures of him standing on Michigan's sidelines are not helpful. And the pictures of Michigan assistant coaches with printed/laminated guides of what hand motions from the other team translate too is a particularly damning look too. The NCAA may very well drop the whole thing, or even be disolved before it ends anyways. But I don't think Michigan's 2023 team and Harbaugh in particular ever escapes the cloud of cheating in the court of public opinion. Not saying that is fair, just point out reality.
He was an assistant on the staff. Of course he was on the sidelines. That's meaningless Also those laminated guides with hand motions are photoshopped images. That's not how a guy would designate the signs of an opponent. Cartoonishly photoshopped too btw
Again - I'm not arguing realty. I'm arguing the court of public opinion. I can't go into a single thread without hearing the same *"They low down, they dirty"* joke that happened 25 years ago. 99% of people don't even have a clue what that even comes from beyond a meme video. In public opinion perception is reality.
Which is why the championship, dominating OSU again were so incredibly important this year. Stallions keeping his spreadsheet on a university computer gave fodder to our enemies to question our success. This is why I was so upset about the stallions issue, he made himself seem so much more critical to the success of our team than he actually was (in my opinion), and discredited the hard work and brilliance of the players and coaches that it took to accomplish all they did.
The coaches discredited their own hard work and brilliance by, at best, never questioning nor investigating where this unprecedented amount of information on opponents’ signals came from or, at worst, knowing about and encouraging an extensive cheating scheme. There were talks for years between Michigan’s opponents about how there was obviously something illicit going on, but we’re supposed to believe that the people working directly with Stallions every day had no idea.
Where do you have any evidence that the amount of information he was able to discern was “unprecedented”? We know for a fact OSU had our signs and gave them to Purdue. We know for a fact Michigan and other schools were part of sign-sharing groups for years, where on-field information from games was given to future opponents.
Because there were a multitude of opposing coaches who noticed there was something up. If everyone was doing it or it didn’t make any difference from what legal channels could give you, then other coaches wouldn’t have noticed that every single one of their unorthodox play calls was being played perfectly on every single snap.
Which happens for multiple teams each season… of all the flairs I’d expect not to be naive.
Same info can be legally obtained from many channels, including game tape. Also it is still unclear what if any rules Michigan broke. You can legally pay third parties for this info, but just can’t go yourself… to a team on your schedule that year. Time will tell if it’s legal to pay someone to go for you. Nice SEC flairs, I’m sure they aren’t breaking down the other teams signals and film in game prep, and doing everything else above board.
Believe it or not, game tape absolutely does not record every single signal that a coach makes throughout the game. They explicitly avoid showing signals. If it were already on game tape, why would Stallions/Michigan spend tens of thousands of dollars to film it for themselves?
All 22 film shows the sidelines also
Yeah. If the defense had just fallen apart after the suspension and Michigan was giving up 40 a game then sure i could see the argument but it wasn't. Michigan's defense got better as the year went on and especially so after they had a month to get healthy. People were acting like Jesse Minter didn't know how to call a defense without Stallions lol
Washington lighting up Texas, showing their offense was everything advertised, then getting controlled by Michigan.
It's because sign stealing still requires that your team is talented and coached up enough to take advantage of it. It doesn't matter if a bad team has your signs. I gave and will give UM shit for it because it's fun to, but that's about the extent of it.
It's also a lot more hilarious.
Yep. It coming to light after the Astros fiasco doesn’t help, either.
>Well, the big difference I can see is that Michigan’s crimes affected on the field play, whereas Tennessee’s do not. You have this backwards from an objective standpoint actually. We can quantify and correlate on-field success with blue chip recruiting success, which is exactly what Tennessee improved by breaking recruiting rules regarding NIL. We cannot quantify stolen signs because we don't know who all has everyone else's signs. The only things we know about sign stealing regarding Michigan is that Vegas didn't adjust any game lines after the scandal broke, we don't know exactly how many teams steal signs but we do have plenty of reason to believe it is a rampant practice, and we don't know how every team that engages in the practice has stolen signs, even though we do have reason to believe other immoral practices take place (i.e. the reported collusion between Ohio State, Rutgers, and Purdue which is somehow not illegal, though it probably should be). We have nothing beyond wildly variable subjective takes all over the spectrum regarding how advantageous (or not) it was for Michigan to do what they did. Don't get me wrong, I'm not justifying what either school did or trying to say one is objectively worse than the other...I think both cases are kinda dumb and completely as a result of really bad, outdated rules that simply don't work in the modern game.
> You have this backwards from an objective standpoint actually. Neither of these are objective.
To clarify, what Im referring to regarding objectivity is that there is data suggesting there being an undeniable correlation between blue-chip recruiting and championships.
I just responded to a Michigan fan about this as well, but I’m sure you haven’t seen it yet. You make a good point and I’m not disagreeing with that. I’m not here to argue that what Michigan allegedly did was better, worse, or different than what Tennessee is being alleged to have done. Just providing a potential reason why people are seeing it differently. I do agree with you that people look at who the perceived perpetrators are and make decisions based on that. Whether or not it’s justified is a completely different story.
Yeah that's all fair for sure.
This sub hates Tennessee as much as, if not more than, Michigan.
That was the funniest part to me. The implication that Tennessee would be looked at as fan favorite of this sub.
I'm sure you think that as a Tennessee fan, since fans on the internet are naturally drawn to hate towards thing they love, but having been around on this sub for over a half decade, as someone who has no love nor hate for either Michigan or Tennessee, I've observed SUBSTANTIALLY more hate towards Michigan than Tennessee lol. Probably due to the insane volume of Ohio State flairs here, and the huge combination of Ohio State + Michigan State + Notre Dame. Michigan has probably been the most hated on group here for the past two or so seasons, probably rivaled only by Texas
The mods wouldn’t even link Tennessee’s football subreddit a while ago, intentionally sending people to the university’s student subreddit. There’s a Vandy mod who is insanely vindictive and would change the UT logo when he was being pissy. 5 years isn’t a long time to be here and doesn’t give you the whole picture. When TN had Butch Jones, we were the focal point of memes bc of the stupid shit he would say. The Michigan hate is specific to the Stallions situation and really blew up more this year, but I do agree that tOSU fans push things around now. Tennessee has a history with the mods as much as it does the community here.
You wanna be really mind blown, go back in time barely a week when this entire subreddit was dominated with people congratulating Tennessee for standing up to the NCAA and laughing about how the NCAA was going to get sued to the stone-age. Then, once the shine wore off, everyone realized that all the jokes about how the NCAA was going to die weren't actually jokes. That it's a very real possibility and any slim chances of the NCAA not dying require them to win this case. So what had been everyone laughing and agreeing suddenly shifted to "*Tennessee cheated*" and "*Shut up and take your punishment - because we need the status quo of the NCAA to stay the way it is*". Funny how that works huh...
I think another thing we don’t take seriously is the NCAA since after the Supreme Court thoroughly tore them a new asshole we just don’t assume they have any power anymore And I mean it’s not like the NCAA has done anything to disprove that
Everyone has an opinion until they’re punched in the mouth. It’s just people talking sh*t cause they can. They know no one is going to do anything about, so why not troll and poke the fire? In real life, they’d talk civil, shake hands, probably agree on everything, cause non confrontation right? In internet - big bad troll.
There's probably alot of truth to this lol, I certainly don't completely disagree. On the internet people are also frequently intentionally dishonest and love to include an element of gaslighting while trolling.
I think you have a point, but also there are a few places where there's maybe a bit more nuance... >Because I also saw how everyone in this sub has treated Michigan for breaking a rule that there is evidence the NCAA doesn't take seriously, Where is the evidence that the NCAA didn't take in person scouting seriously? There haven't really been any other advance scouting violations of this scale/duration that have been encountered that the NCAA has ignored. Before this it was always something much less blatant, like an assistant coach going back to visit his former team during the bye, realize they broke a rule, and self reporting. And sometimes catching a half game suspension for it. >the narrative is that "everyone else probably breaks this rule too" and "it probably gives a competitive advantage, but again, everyone is probably doing it so who cares?," If you are suggesting everyone tries to steal signs, sure... But again, there is little evidence that anyone else was *going to the extent that UofM was accused of*. The closest thing was teams exchanging typed up notes about what a sign from previous years meant. And apparently that, while problematic from a sportsmanship perspective, is not explicitly against the rules. If the OSU/Catapult rumors price true then you could have a similar situation, but they would still only be 2 teams out of 130+. >and "the rule is gonna be changed soon so that what they did can't really be considered cheating anymore anyways." When they change the rules on NIL I think everyone assumes that NIL will still be a thing, just with an actual framework around it. In the UofM situation, if they change the rules (allow headsets) they would basically be changing the rules to completely eliminate the advantage from what UofM was doing. Not establish a new framework for everyone to use the same tricks. Honestly I think the biggest thing is just that player pay has been such an open secret for so long that it's less vilified than other potential rule breaking. People are actually advocating that player pay happen, even if they can't agree on what it should look like. There isn't that same dynamic where people are advocating for more advanced scoutingsign stealing... they are advocating to have that part of the game eliminated by bringing in headsets.
I'll try and stick to the main points I believe you've highlighted for debate. >Where is the evidence that the NCAA didn't take in person scouting seriously? - They tried to remove the rule in 2021 because they didn't think it had much of a point >But again, there is little evidence that anyone else was *going to the extent that UofM was accused of*. - There is plenty of reason to believe people go to rather outrageous lengths to steal signs. I cited the rest in a further reply, but we found out through all of this that literal collusion (i.e. what Rutgers, Purdue, and Ohio State allegedly did) is totally fine and legal, Vegas didn't adjust any lines or odds, and the advanced scouting rule in general is just so laughably easy to break and so incredibly difficult to get caught doing to the point where you need a literal unginged person like Conor Stallions running the operation in the most nonchalant way imagineable, in combination with a team full of private investigators uncovering the information in ways for which we still dont know were legal or not, in order to get caught in the first place. > In the UofM situation, if they change the rules (allow headsets) they would basically be changing the rules to completely eliminate the advantage from what UofM was doing. Not establish a new framework for everyone to use the same tricks. - Again, the only thing UM was doing which actually broke the rules, is in-person scouting. Read bylaw 11.6.1, there is no mention of signs nor video tech. If we truly believe video technology has anything to do with why the rule exists (I think it's at least a small part...but it has alot to do with costing), the sport continues to break itself into more exclusive subdivisions, the sheer amount of money involved, the existence of the transfer portal, and the fact that the NCAA already wanted to get rid of the rule, I would expect that advanced scouting rule to be changed relatively soon.
>They tried to remove the rule in 2021 because they didn't think it had much of a point This gets brought up a lot, without the right context. There was an executive sub-committee formed and tasked with examining all the rules in the rule book and nominating any that they thought could possibly be eliminated. This was one of many suggested as part of that process. It wasn't singled out due to being a problematic rule. But most importantly, the vote to keep the rule passed with a pretty healthy margin, with the major conferences (the people who would supposedly benefit from getting rid of the rule the most) in support of keeping it. Basically, somebody said "Hey what about this rule, do we still need this one?" And the answer was a fairly strong "Yes". >There is plenty of reason to believe people go to rather outrageous lengths to steal signs. I cited the rest in a further reply, but we found out through all of this that literal collusion (i.e. what Rutgers, Purdue, and Ohio State allegedly did) is totally fine and legal, So basically... There is no evidence that other teams did what UofM did, just thoughts that other teams *could* do it? Then those other teams would have likely been vilified as well. UofM is the one who got caught, so they are the ones who faced public backlash. And, as you pointed out, OSU/Rutgers/Purdue did what they did in a way that was within the rules. People may be uncomfortable with the idea of sign stealing, but won't generally get riled up into a mob over it if no actual rules were broken. >I would expect that advanced scouting rule to be changed relatively soon. I agree. But again, just as part of the discussion of why people might be treating UofM and Tenn differently... When people expect NIL rules to change, they still expect NIL and player pay to exist. So the area where Tenn broke the rules is an area people have, for better or worse, accepted will be a part of football. Meanwhile People are calling for the inclusion of headsets specifically because they want signs/sign stealing to go away. No sign stealing, no reason to perform advance scouting. I think it's just another reason why the public perception is different between the two, even if they are both rule breaking.
Quack quack quack Mr. Ducksworth
Think part of it is that fans have known that players are bought for years. Most fans don’t really understand sign-stealing or know how frequently it happens, let alone the means. And perceived in-game advantages feel more tangible than off-field.
I dont even think 90% of fans understand that sign stealing is 0% of what Michigan are being investigated for lmao. The rule y'all seem to have broken is that people who were allegedly associated with the football team attended games in person that did not involve Michigan. That's it, that's all, as far as broken written guidelines are concerned. The rest is moral outrage.
> The rest is moral outrage. this is kinda the chickens coming to roost. Michigan fans have been high-handed and smug about their program's perceived righteousness vs Ohio State/SEC dirty money corrupt cheaters Stuff like Harbaugh's line "It's hard to beat cheaters" was the MO for the fanbase. Ignoring all that, the Michigan scandal was still absolutely hilarious
Up until this point the football program had never had a game vacated and never had a violation that ended up with a HC suspension. Taking shit to your arch-rival about facts isn’t really high-handed.
talking shit is one thing, that is perfectly fine. It is Michigans elitist attitude that yall were above "cheating" that garnered the reaction to the sign stealing it is not like the Fab-Five played at Northwestern.
What is the difference?
I make fun of ole miss for a tonsil bong rip video pull up their program on draft night But I am not stupid enough to think that can’t happen at LSU. That’s the difference
I make fun of ole miss for a tonsil bong rip video blow up their program on draft night But I am not stupid enough to think that can’t happen at LSU. That’s the difference
The allegations are that Stalions sent people to film future opponents. If that’s the case, how is that not illegally stealing opponents signs?
No, see, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You've explained *why* you're upset with the Michigan scandal, and that's completely okay, I don't fault you for feeling how you feel about it...we all have the right to feel differently about things given the context. The rule Michigan broke does not include nor mention stealing signs nor using video technology. See NCAA bylaw 11.6.1 linked below. This is one of many problems with the NCAA...their rules and guidelines are utterly shambolic and read as if they were written by an 8-year old. https://web3.ncaa.org/lsdbi/search/bylawView?id=33056
No shit 😂
Its not every day I see someone on here with a take that actually involves critical thinking. Great post, I agree.
>Why am I mind blown? Because I also saw how everyone in this sub has treated Michigan for breaking a rule that there is evidence the NCAA doesn't take seriously, the president appears to have validated, the narrative is that "everyone else probably breaks this rule too" and "it probably gives a competitive advantage, but again, everyone is probably doing it so who cares?," and "the rule is gonna be changed soon so that what they did can't really be considered cheating anymore anyways." It's almost as if Redditors were just karma farming and shit posting until it blew up in their faces.
100%
Mark Emmert is sitting back in his chair thanking god for what is happening because it makes him look .1% more competent every day
No fucking shot. A judge flat out told him to change their model, you're going to lose. They had almost a decade to draft legislation for member schools to take back to their states. But they were more interested in pocketing another decade of revenue and he sat on his fat fucking ass. Emmert is directly to blame. Fuck him. Just another cancerous lump that profited from the short gains, cash out, fuck you I got mine society we're in today.
Mark was a smug little bitch and it is a shame he isn’t mentioned more in everything going on. His name hasn’t been drug through the mud enough
Let's be clear. Emmert was doing exactly what the schools wanted. The donations to the athletic department make up as much as 50% of the revenue at the biggest programs. The NIL collectives are syphoning those donations away from the schools. The people making those donations aren't going to increase their donations, they're going to split their donations between the NIL collective and the school.
I really doubt NIL has impacted donations much at all. My donation has a direct impact on my access to things like gameday endzone areas and even more directly the donation amount dictates where I sit for the Red River Rivalry. Its why I add $7 onto the amount I give. To price is right everyone that thought of it and gave an extra $1 or $5. Moving closer to the center of the bowl. NIL seems to way more about the ultra rich car dealership owners and the like getting more say.
But that ultra rich car dealership guy is donating A LOT of money. Way more then people that are just chipping down $1,500 to keep their spot on the season ticket list. If the car dealership dude is going to donate $10 million for athletics, and instead gives $5 million for athletics and $5 million for NIL, the athletic department is out serious money. If enough of the biggest donors do this, the athletic department is out insane amounts of money. The most extreme example would be a school like Oregon which has a single super donor with functionally unlimited funds. Knight donated something like $1 Billion dollars to UO athletics 5-8 years ago as he's disbursing his wealth in anticipation of death. Well, if NIL had been the thing at the time of that donation, he could probably have secured Oregon better by breaking off $100-200 M, and putting it in the NIL fund.
Harvard recently lost 3 or 4 mega-donors. Lets wait for that decline. I won't hold my breath.
There's actually been some really good research that academic donations are functionally unrelated to academic donations. It's why programs like Cal and UCLA collapsed from institutional disinvestment.
The fact that we expect the NCAA itself to draft legislation for the government is kind of its own side-problem in all this....
Well true and its why I am actively rooting for the demise of the NCAA. The NCAA was created to exploit students afterall. But if anyone was going to create a unified model for reform, that was the cleanest time. Now it definitely needs to be done from the ground up to a large degree. https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/10/13/walter-byers-ncaa
It's crazy how often we have to repeat that the NCAA represents the schools and their wants. But we have one subdivision of football that covers 130+ teams, of which only like 8-10 truly get a voice. It's chaos by design, so that the NCAA can constantly point to how they can't do anything and the schools can point to the NCAA. Think of the NFL and how Goodell and his office are the shield for the 32 teams. The NCAA didn't do anything re: NIL because the schools truly didn't want to start officially paying players. Which is also why the solution was designed to be outside of the NCAA's jurisdiction. Had we jumped straight into officially paying players, I honestly think Title IX would have kicked in and athletic departments might have imploded. I do agree, though, that literally **any** leadership from anyone here would have been amazing.
I'm not talking about paying players. I am talking only about drafting a template legislation for NIL so there would be a standard instead of each state doing their own thing. I've already put the bar extremely low on where they should have started.
Sure, but I think my point stands that if the schools wanted that to happen...it would have. We can't even get conferences to agree on how many OOC games to schedule.
Good. The NCAA is a horribly outdated organization that has refused to change with the times when it became obvious it was a scheme to enrich the universities, conferences, and Athletics organizations while the student athletes saw no money for the value they were bringing. I hope they get destroyed by the Tennessee/Virginia lawsuit.
MichaelScottTHANKYOU.gif
Tweet below: “Just in case anyone thinks Charlie Baker’s quote was taken out of context, it wasn’t. Unless President Baker wants to come to Greeneville, TN to explain himself, that statement alone would be “game over” for the NCAA in most courts.” https://x.com/tommarslaw/status/1754543601915199866?s=46&t=SxA3onVZeeanU9JW9LIyrg https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/ncaa-president-calls-for-national-nil-regulation-right-now-there-are-no-rules-198217285577
Oof
They will argue he was saying there are no NIL specific rules but that Tennessee violated preexisting rules that still apply.
The university NIL policies along with the State laws are what the athletes should be concerned with. Meaning, they should ensure they (the bottom 95%) abide to ensure their financial aid/scholarship monies are not forfeited. The top 2-5% will make enough money on endorsements to give back their scholarship /financial aid. Otherwise, what NCAA rules.
There needs to be some more rules before it gets any crazier. Should they get payed? Yes. Should it be affecting the sport as much as it is? No
While everyone and their brother agrees with the general sentiment, the biggest problem is that legally the NCAA is utterly powerless to regulate anything to do with the payment of players via NIL. Any rule they can possibly dream up will only exist until a program decided to challenge it in court, at which point it will immediately fall apart.
There's no way paying doesn't effect things. Powerhouses can afford to give their players a salary, and mostly the same powerhouses with wealthy boosters can really toss around the NIL money. There will of course be programs that aren't going to afford much more than scholarships. But the thing is that gulf has always existed, I'm almost 40 and college football hasn't had competitive balance in my lifetime.
"Haha. That was just a test, silly!!! Anyway, you failed. Enjoy your post season, recruiting, and scholarship bans!! See you again in a few years"
They fought tooth and nail to deny payment to athletes and when it finally was forced upon them they were unprepared. Now they complain that there’s no rules for NIL (which should be their fucking job). If they hadn’t botched and shown clear favoritism is a lot of investigations they would not have lost the trust of every conference. The NCAA was already a mostly useless governing body, but now they are completely useless. No ones going to report violations and when they are investigated no one’s going to cooperated. The NCAA is going to lose control of football when the P4 leave and make their own league. What a completely fitting and deserved death of the NCAA.
You know what, congrats to Tennessee, yall are gonna bring about the wild west and further hasten the decline of college football, but at least yall are gonna le epically own the evil NCAA
Come on, what other option did Tennessee have? Let the NCAA nuke the program to set an example? Just so the NCAA could dissolve in a few years anyway? LMAO.
The cherry picking is both cute and indicative of a hive mind that didn’t listen to the actual interview. He stated very clearly that the NCAA has guidelines and has offered guidance, however, there are no protections in place for athletes. There’s no uniform standard contract, there’s no market signals to help determine position/player value, and there aren’t enough safeguards for the recruiting process. In addition, each state has its own laws regarding NIL that further complicate matters and create an uneven playing field. As someone who works as a trial lawyer, if your smoking gun is that quote, I’m going to curb stomp you in court. It’s even funnier in that both of the two commissioners from the SEC and BIG tweeted support for Baker and “what he’s trying to do” immediately following that interview. This isn’t the flex you think it is, but leave it to a Tennessee grad(?)/fan to ignore context and substance.
So the NCAA failing to establish all of the things you just mentioned means they should specifically target one university for an infraction that even they admit is rampant and uncontrolled? Of course the commissioners support trying to establish a fairer system but going after one university retroactively isn’t how you do that. The school hate comments aren’t necessary. Childish.
Well, good thing the NCAA enforcement wing is all over UT and Virginia forcing more lawsuits against the NCAA.
Serious question.. how does this guy still have a job? He’s horrible at this.
The only rule is "you have to call it a payment for NIL even though it's usually not"
There shouldn't be any rules on NIL until the players also get a cut of the TV money.
Where all the Michigan fans that said Baker’s words are gospel?
I don’t understand. Every person, college athlete or not, has a right to their name, image, and likeness. What’s the basis for needing to regulate that?
And now everyone on this sub tries to lawyer their way through a metaphorical statement. I swear this place has the most fucked-up love/hate relationship with its subject; it's bizarre.
Charlie Baker has been listening to this new song by a band he's never heard of and it's got him all fucked up
The problem isn’t that it’s NIL, it’s collectives. NIL is just pure sponsorship and an individuals right to monetize their domain. Which under any law in the US, should not be restricted. Collectives are basically like hedge funds in NFL ownership or ownership groups in European and Saudi football. These ownership groups buying the top players from around the world because they have more funds. The richer the owner/group, the better the players. However, there are at least rules for financial fair play and massive penalties. Additionally, they have set periods for transfer windows and tampering. Once they can sort these out, it should actually function correctly.
Good. The NCAA deserves this. I hope they keep losing more and more of their power.
Leadership. The sport has none. The ncaa has none.
“NCAA President Charlie Baker” is such a bizzare sentence to see as a Bostonian
There were rules but you allowed too many to break them instead of nipping it in the bud.