In case you’ve been in comatose, there’s been quite the hot button issue stemming from an HBO report on an upcoming episode of “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel”. The report, airing tonight at 10 E.T. on HBO, is expected to reveal damaging testimonies of Auburn players getting paid, and Ohio State recruits getting...
Well, you understand.
Among the responses and statements that have already been issued by those programs anticipated to be exposed is one from a former coach who had his own tango with the NCAA.
Specifically, former Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez.
Rodriguez will appear as a panel member on tonight’s episode, and go figure, he has some thoughts about the governing body that caused him, and two recent former employers, some serious headaches.
A statement released by HBO obtained by the Detroit News says that Rodriguez felt while the NCAA had a clearly defined purpose, its methods of execution were somewhat less than sound.
“Those young folks are being offered opportunities to be able to help them for their next job,” Rodriguez said via the statement. “As coaches, recruiters and universities, they need to make sure that this is what you’re going to school for.”
But Rodriguez continued, “And I also think it may be a little misguided. I think sometimes, instead of going after the bank robbers, we’re going after the parking violators.”
His own set of NCAA problems notwithstanding, it’s kind of tough to argue with Rodriguez’s statement (although if you break the rules, you break the rules). The NCAA has certainly made some questionable -- or, if nothing else, controversial -- decisions over the past year regarding some of college football’s most damning cases.
To put it bluntly, the NCAA has been consistently, well, inconsistent.
And with Jim Tressel‘s recent troubles at Ohio State, there is a faction of college football followers (ourselves included) who feel the NCAA has a chance to get it right.