Maybe we should call this one a “Who Said It?” instead of a “They Said It.”

Over the weekend, Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald included an interesting blurb from an unnamed ex-Miami assistant coach as part of a catch-all blog post.  Miami, of course, is under NCAA fire thanks to the accusations of former booster — and current prison inmate — Nevin Shapiro.

According to Jackson:

“One former UM coach accused of wrongdoings complained privately that what the ex-UM coaches allegedly did paled in comparison to unreported violations committed in the SEC.”

That’s it.  End of blurb.

While it’s short, you can be sure Mike Slive isn’t happy to read it.  Slive worked hard to improve the image of the Southeastern Conference upon his arrival and for a while his efforts seemed to be working.  But then came a textbook scandal at Alabama, John Calipari brought his reputation to Kentucky (whether his reputation is deserved or not), Lane Kiffin and Bruce Pearl drew NCAA attention at Tennessee, and Auburn, well, pick a scandal.

So the SEC’s reputation is once again that of a shady league.  Winning seven consecutive BCS crowns has also led jealous folks from other region to conclude that school’s Down South must be cheating.

But in this case, who is the coach who made the above claim to Jackson.  If the person is current Missouri hoops coach Frank Haith that would be a story.  But I think we can all agree is probably not Haith.

Did the coach making the claim have any evidence of wrongdoing in the SEC?  Had he himself coached in the league and seen illegal activities firsthand?

Until we know who was talking to Jackson — and it’s likely we never will — it’s impossible to take such a claim seriously.  From here it sounds like the same ol’ types of cries we often hear from schools’ supporters whenever the NCAA comes snooping around their favorite campus: “But other schools do a lot worse than what we’ve done!”

Yeah, yeah.  Tell it to the judge.

It seems Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy is getting battered from all sides these days.  His decision to block quarterback Wes Lunt from transferring to Southern Miss, any SEC schools, any Pac-12 schools, or to future opponent Central Michigan is being pointed to as further proof of college football’s overall hypocrisy. 

From The Oklahoman newspaper: “The guy who flirted with job openings at Tennessee and Arkansas last December now won’t allow his former quarterback, Wes Lunt, to accept an immediate scholarship to certain schools.  Including, irony of ironies, Tennessee.”

Even those trying to imagine why Gundy might have dropped the hammer on Lunt — example: if Lunt told Gundy he wanted to transfer closer to his Ilinois home then he shouldn’t be looking at SEC or Pac-12 schools anyway — admit that from a PR sense “the negatives outweigh the positives” for Oklahoma State’s coach.

Gundy isn’t doing anything new.  Coaches have always had the power to limit departing players’ transfer options.  Some use that power heavy-handedly — ex-Tennessee coach Derek Dooley once forced a player to transfer at least eight hours away from Knoxville and his home — while others refuse to stand in their players’ way.  Georgia’s Mark Richt is one coach who feels “life is too short” to block kids’ paths.

“I want every young man to have a successful time in his four- or five-year wind to be able to go to college.  So I don’t want to impede a guy from realizing his goals and his dreams, wherever it is.”

That’s not just talk from Richt.  Georgia’s coach is so player-first that he’s at times gotten involved and tried to help departing players find landing spots in the SEC… even though it could (but hasn’t) come back to bite his team in the rear.

Still, it’s time for the NCAA to take coaches out of the mix when it comes to student-athletes’ transfer rights.  If Mark Emmert is looking to kickstart his reform movement, transfer policies might be the perfect point to begin.  Again.

Obviously, not everyone can be allowed to transfer without restrictions.  While it might not be fair that players are bound to a school more than their coaches are, it is a necessity.  If there were no transfer limitations whatsoever, a coach’s departure could lead to an entire roster’s departure from a program.  On the surface that might look good for the players, but it would certainly be bad for any schools hit with such mass defections.  And such a massive shift in the college sports landscape could certainly lead to a decline in popularity and in finances which could in turn hurt athletes in the end.

That said, the restrictions placed upon a player’s options could be made uniform with a single new NCAA rule stating the following:

Read the rest of this entry »

SEC Football

1. Gator Bowl close to finalizing TV contract with ESPN.  Wants to maintain SEC affiliation as “anchor team” with opponents coming from multiple conferences.

2. Former Ole Miss quarterback Tom Luke joining Hugh Freeze’s staff as director of player development. Mel Kiper on Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace: “Wallace can play.”

3. Can Brandon Allen handle the starting quarterback job at Arkansas?  ”Hard to say.”

4. Athlon Sports previews LSU.  How many games will the Tigers win in 2013?

5. When LSU faces TCU, they won’t see Big 12 defense player of the year Devonte Fields – suspended for first two games of the year.

6. And while we’re on LSU, what about Mike the Tiger? ”There are only about 34 universities in the U.S. that have live mascots, and LSU is the only university in the U.S. with a live tiger living on campus.”

7. With Mike Gillislee and his 1,000 yards gone at Florida, it’s running back Matt Jones turn to step for the Gators. Joker Phillips - master of photoshop?

8. Auburn defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson on his cornerbacks: “I think at any position you need a little bit of depth and rotation in this league, so we don’t want two corners. We want four corners…”

9. Former Wyoming punter Tim Gleeson says he plans to enroll at Tennessee. Australian native averaged 43 yards a punt as a freshman in 2012.

10. Former Vols cornerback Daniel Gray headed to Utah State.

11. Inspired by Tennessee recruits, Kentucky recruits launch their own Twitter account.

12. Tony Barnhart:  Five Things We Learned about the SEC this Spring.

SEC Basketball

13. Two Las Vegas sports books have Kentucky as the favorite to win it all next season. UK is 5-1, Florida is 15-1.

14. During yesterday’s news conference, where he discussed “chasing perfection,” Kentucky coach John Calipari also gave his take on all 13 players expected to be on his team next season.

15. LSU guard Malik Morgan has reportedly asked for his release after one season.

16. Former Rutgers point guard Jerome Seagears has officially transferred to Auburn.  He’ll petition the NCAA for immediate eligibility.

17. Former Florida point guard Braxton Ogbueze has transferred to Charlotte.

Extras

18. Why is Notre Dame dropping Michigan from its football schedule? “The math is pretty simple for us.”

19. Andy Staples: “When the wealthiest schools inevitably form their own NCAA division, the schools of the ACC will be part of that group.”

20. Here’s the prelude to a fight involving a Colorado lineman: “According to the report, Lewis, who is 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds, estimated that he had six glasses of wine, 10 beers and six shots.”

21. In just over two weeks, a million hands of legal, online poker have been dealt in the United States.

22. The 19 best sports moments from “The Office.”

Florida has hired former BCS championship-winning QB Chris Leak as a quality control coach
Georgia junior OL Kolton Houston is still fighting to be cleared by the NCAA…
During his high school career he was given a steroid to treat a shoulder injury, but Houston says he was unaware of what he was taking…
He and Georgia are appealing a lifetime ban handed down by the NCAA
Alabama coach Nick Saban said last week that he is in favor of the biggest five conferences playing only amongst themselves in football…
Saban’s comment continues to get national coverage as the debate over rich schools versus poorer schools rages
Follow the SEC all year long on MrSEC.com and twitter.com/mrsec

For a quarter of a century, sports fans and media members have chattered about colleges and universities breaking away from the NCAA to form a new organization with a new governing body.  But since this site launched in May 2008 we’ve said there will not be a full-scale secession.

The reason?  There is no way 65-80 rich schools with different interests from different parts of the country could agree upon a new rule book, a new org chart, or very much of anything else.

Consider the Confederate States of America.  Once the Southern states broke away, their governments fought hard to avoid giving CSA president Jefferson Davis any real centralized power.  After all, it was the centralized power of the federal government that had led them to secede.  But without strong centralized power in the Confederacy, you had the governor of North Carolina hoarding uniforms from needy troops of other states.  You had the governor of Georgia threatening to secede again, this time from the CSA.  It was an experiment doomed to fail.  As Davis himself said, “If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory.”

Well, theoretically, a new body to replace the NCAA sounds well in good.  But it couldn’t be created and even if it could, it would wind up having many of the same problems of college sports’ current governing body.

In fact, a confederacy of conferences is more likely than a brand new “NCAA II.”  Imagine five or six separate conferences, all with their own rule books, agreeing on occasion to meet in bowl games.  Even something that nonsensical is more likely to occur than everyone agreeing on a grand new sporting government.

Today, Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com tackles the recent shootdown of the NCAA’s proposed changes to its rule book.  You know, the much-discussed alterations that would have erased entire pages of recruiting regulations from the NCAA’s current tome of laws.

Pay attention to Dodd’s words:

“Twenty-five pages.  They couldn’t even agree on that.

That’s what would have been cut out of the 426-page NCAA Manual if everything proposed by the Rules Working Group for football had gotten through last week.  Twenty-five pages or 5.8 percent.  And they couldn’t even agree on that.

They can’t agree on much of anything these days as the NCAA attempts to rewire itself.  Rewiring is more commonly called reform and it has been going on forever.  It is needed because that manual is 426 pages.  We can thank every coach/booster/player who ever though of a new and devious way to cheat for the book’s thickness.”

Now, the rest of Dodd’s piece is interesting, but for our purposes you’ve seen enough.  If NCAA leadership, presidents and athletic directors can’t get on the same page regarding a few edits to the existing rule book, what makes anyone think that these same presidents and athletic directors could find enough middle ground to form a whole new organization from scratch?

Look, the next time you read something about schools breaking away from the NCAA, just roll your eyes.  It is not going to happen.

What is going to happen — and what’s already happening — is the richest football-playing schools will break away from the poorest football-playing schools and carve out a new fifth division at the top of the NCAA food chain.  That snow ball is already rolling downhill and picking up momentum as it goes.

A new super-division, not a new NCAA.

On that everyone should be able to agree.

SEC Football

1. What if the SEC and the rest of the power conferences only played each other?  ”If the big boys played only the big boys…it would send dominoes falling in every direction.”

2. Former Penn State quarterback Steven Bench will visit Mississippi State on May 20 and 21.

3. Georgia suspended offensive lineman Kolton Houston speaks publicly about steroids. NCAA should make ”a special case for me.”

4. Does new Kentucky coach Mark Stoops deserve a first-year pass?

5. What Stoops and the other new coaches in the SEC have accomplished this spring.

6. Auburn coach Gus Malzahn had to chase down Dameyune Craig twice before hiring him. Now Craig’s recruiting efforts are paying big dividends for the Tigers. (Another recruit committed Sunday morning.)

7. Auburn defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson on his linebacking corps: ”My linebacker depth chart in total is very fluid right now.”

8. If an NFL team was made up of only Alabama and LSU players – how good would it be?

SEC Basketball

9. With Jarnell Stokes and Jordan McRae back but Trae Golden gone, what’s the future look like at Tennessee?

10. The future at Kentucky could be altered on Tuesday.  That’s when super prospect Andrew Wiggins could reportedly make his decision.

11. Here’s one area where Kentucky and Louisville could work together for the benefit of both.

Media

12. Jon Solomon: “It’s estimated that more than half of viewers’ monthly cable TV costs are due to sports programming.”

Extras

13. Les Miles’ son throws a no-hitter. Second no-hitter of the season for Manny Miles.

14. Les can watch his son play but former Georgia coach Vince Dooley couldn’t watch son Derek play high school football back in the 1980′s- it was against NCAA rules at the time.

15. Happy Mother’s Day!  Bear Bryant: “Have You Called Your Mama Today?” (H/T Tony Barnhart)

SEC football coaches aren’t the only ones looking forward to using the SEC Network as a recruiting tool.  SEC basketball coaches are also anxiously awaiting the August 2014 debut of the network.  In a wide-ranging interview at the Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri basketball coach Frank Haith sounded euphoric about the partnership between the SEC and ESPN.

“It’s huge. We’re going to still get on our national TV stuff, but I think the fact that you’ve got ESPN tied to the network … I mean, there’s other networks out there, but none of them have ESPN tied into it, and I think from a recruiting standpoint, we recruit nationally anyway, but now you’ve got this extra piece saying, “Hey, regardless of where we go recruit your kid, you’re going to see them play on TV. You’re going to see pretty much every one of their games.” I think that’s a huge, huge thing. I’m always thinking recruiting. I think it’s a huge, huge plus for us.”

Haith also opened up on a variety of other topics:

* Is he preparing for his June meeting with the NCAA?

“I’m not preparing for that. There’s nothing to prepare for.”

* Earlier start to practice in the fall.

“I applaud the NCAA. They’ve made some really good (changes).”

* The number of transfers and the culture of college basketball today.

“We live in a microwave society in general. Everybody wants things quick. But in college basketball it’s at another level, and you see kids moving all the time”

* Difference in style of play between Big 12 and SEC

“Our league was way more physical than our league was in the Big 12. Way more physical.”

Asked about a disappointing second season in Columbia after a thirty-win first year at Mizzou, Haith said, “This team personnel-wise could have been better.”  He said it wasn’t though, citing things like inconsistent play, injuries, toughness, chemistry and defense.  ”That’s a challenge for us as a coaching staff, holding guys accountable. It all starts out front. If we don’t have great consistency guarding the ball out front, we’re going to get broken down in the paint. And that’s what happened with this team. We weren’t consistent in guarding the ball out front, and that really hurt our defense.”

If there were three successful athletic programs that came out of the most recent expansion/realignment quakes worse for the wear, they were all old Big East squads.  Cincinnati has traditionally been good in basketball and the Bearcats have recently played in a BCS bowl.  Connecticut has traditionally been great in basketball and the Huskies have recently played in a BCS bowl.  West Virginia has traditionally been good in basketball and the Mountaineers have recently played in a BCS bowl.

But none of that helped those schools on the realignment front.  Passed over by the ACC and SEC, West Virginia at least found money in the Big XII, if not nearby rivals or combatants with similar cultures.  Cincinnati and Connecticut were simply passed over, period.

Now having to smile and say nice things about the American Athletic Conference (the rebranded Big East), UConn athletic director Warde Manuel isn’t closing the door on future moves:

“Since the NCAA has been around, since formation of the NCAA, if you look at the history, there’s been realignment of conferences for different reasons.  I don’t proclaim to know if it will ever be done again.  History will tell me at some point there’s going to be shifts.”

Manuel is correct.  Eventually there will be more moves.  College athletic conferences have been in a state of evolution for decades (though the past five years have seemed like a jump straight from the primordial ooze to upright man).  The problem for UConn and Cincinnati, however, is that it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to be making more moves anytime soon.

While it’s possible the Big Ten might look at UConn — that league picked Rutgers and Maryland over the Huskies in November — it’s doubtful Ohio State would want Cincinnati climbing aboard.  It’s also possible that the ACC could decide to expand, but with 15 members in all sports but football, why add anyone else?  (Unless, of course, ESPN says it would help sales of a new ACC Network.)

Perhaps the best hope for the UCs would be a decision by the Big XII to expand.  But that league’s leaders have said the television networks have told them they really wouldn’t benefit by adding teams like Connecticut and Cincinnati.

Bearcat fans have already begun to pepper this website (East Carolina-style) with emails saying, “Hey, what about a UC/SEC marriage?”  Such a move would push the SEC Network into Ohio, perhaps, but Cincinnati just doesn’t fit the traditional mold of an SEC school — flagship school, the only game in town athletically, big football stadium, etc.  Most importantly, it’s doubtful the addition of Cincinnati would pay for itself.

There will be more realignment at some point — perhaps when a new super-division or rich schools is created, perhaps in five or 10 years when another spate of TV deals come up for renegotiation.  But by that time, will UConn and Cincinnati have fallen so far behind cash-wise as to be even less attractive to potential suitors?

The SEC’s athletic directors are meeting in Jacksonville and permanent cross-division rivals are on the agenda
Suspended LSU RB Jeremy Hill now faces tougher probation restrictions following a recent arrest for simple battery
Georgia’s football team led the nation with 10 early enrollees this spring
Oddsmakers are making Georgia and South Carolina favorites to win the SEC East this wall with Alabama the favorite in the SEC West
Tennessee G Trae Golden was reportedly forced to transfer from the Vol basketball program due to “repeated plagiarism”
Georgia president Michael Adams predicts that the richest 65 schools will form their own division within the NCAA
Follow the SEC on the field and off at MrSEC.com or with a MrSEC iPhone, iPad, or Android app

SEC Football

1. SEC athletic directors are meeting Jacksonville.  Reports indicate no discussion of nine-game conference schedule for 2014.

2. LSU running back Jeremy Hill faces new probation restrictions - including a curfew.

3. Jeff Duncan: “Miles needs to make a statement here and a strong one.”  The MrSEC take from last week.

4. Georgia led the country with 10 early enrollees coming from high school this spring.  Counting JUCO and prep schools, Bulldogs had 13 early enrollees.

5. Recent history shows it tough for wide receivers to make an impact as freshman at Florida.

6. Auburn freshman quarterbacks Jeremy Johnson and Jason Smith are expected on campus next week.  Status of arrival date for JUCO transfer Nick Marshall still uncertain.

7. Coming out of spring practice, how does Auburn look at defensive tackle? With other SEC schools expanding stadiums, Jordan-Hare isn’t shrinking – it just feels that way.

8. Tennessee coach Butch Jones estimates he does three times the speaking engagements he did at Cincinnati.

9. Based on the early odds, South Carolina and Georgia look to be the favorites in the SEC East, Alabama the favorite in the West. Crimson Tide and Ohio State in BCS National Championship Game?

10. Andy Staples of SI has his post-spring Top 25.  Six of the top 13 teams are in the SEC, seven of the top 25.   Alabama No. 1, Texas A&M No. 2.

11. Alabama today or Nebraska of the 1990′s?  Former Cornhusker Tommy Frazier weighs in.

12.  The SEC Network doesn’t change the recruiting philosophy at Alabama.  Nick Saban: “We have a standard for what type of player we are looking for.”

13. New documentary film focuses on former Arkansas quarterback Mitch Mustain.

SEC Basketball

14. Trae Golden’s departure from Tennessee wasn’t his decision. He was reportedly forced to leave school over “repeated plagiarism.”

15. Cuonzo Martin on whether the Vols will add a point guard to their signing class. “We have some pretty good leads and we’ll see.”

16. NCAA meeting on possible rule changes to basketball.  Don’t expect a shorter shot clock.

17. Former Ole Miss star Murphy Holloway waived by the Baltimore Ravens.  ”Back to the hardwood…” Could be headed to Europe to play basketball.

Extras

18. In addition to Mississippi State and South Florida, former Penn State quarterback Steven Bench also considering North Carolina State.

19. “NCAA rules aren’t going to stop money from changing hands when there is this much value being discussed.”

20. Does a Sugar Bowl win over Florida make Louisville overrated?