Wednesday, July 20, 2011

And the Bayou Bengals make three

First an announcement: We'll be gearing up the EXPATS on Aug. 1 to begin the countdown for the 2011 season. In the meantime, here's a nice little opinion piece from The Tuscaloosa News' Cecil Hurt on the latest probation for an SEC football team.

As Hurt points out, the sky didn't fall in Baton Rouge yesterday. But the NCAA gave LSU a year, and accepted the school's self-imposed penalties by docking a few scholarships. Mostly, the boys from Indy praised the school for how it handled the matter. Still, that makes three SEC schools now under NCAA watch, with major two-sport infractions against Tennessee almost certainly to come.

(Is it just my hearing aids or is the predictable cackling from Big 10 schools gone the way of the bobwhite? There's silence on the Northern Front. And for the record, the ACC's current compliance sheet is no better than the SEC's.)

Suffice to say, SEC Commissioner Mike Slive has failed in his mission to have a probation-free league. Guess the moral high ground got lost under all those trophies.

mg

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of course the Big Ten is quiet. There are 12 schools in the league, 11 of which have a fairly rational fan base. The exception, of course, is THE Obfuscation State University. The one remaining aspect of poetic justice in their free-fall would be for them to somehow make a Jan. 1 bowl against an SEC team. And get drilled. Again.

Michael said...

J, there's a growing fear in some SEC circles that TOSU will skate around their former coach's transgressions.

I call bull. Soon enough, the NCAA will be dotting Script Ohio with a hammer, a really big one.

Anonymous said...

Not sure it is accurate to say the Vols will be hammered in two sports. The football program will get a slap on the wrist, not even as bad as the bamma bookgate, while basketball will really get nailed.....