It's on Urban Liar

[DRU2012]

Totally BS, OK, they are going thru a coaching transition, but we're NOT? Where are our 2 coaching staffs?????

EXACTLY--Escambia94 pointed out to me a couple of days back that the very NCAA committee that makes these kinds of rulings is "staffed" by alumni and (semi-)former-officials from a handful of entrenched "traditional powers", and that tOSU is, if anything, OVER-represented in this group--along with the predictable "usual suspects", mostly from the midwest and northeast, with a couple of the most powerful west-coast interests thrown in, but NOTHING from the south, least of all the SEC--and makes the point that while THEY are getting away with a LOT of this sort of thing, WE won't get anything LIKE that kind of consideration until we get some of OUR people in there too.

 

[DRU2012]

When is the NCAA going to drop the F--KING Hammer already.

A LOT more than a couple recruits~~& a few coaches, traitors!

This TOO may well be part of that same "covert conspiracy", a sneaky, low-key way of certain "old-guard powers" protecting their positions and ensuring a continued grip on their places "at the top", regardless of what supposed changes may continue to take place in the ranking-and-rewards system (upon which greater and greater amounts of money and power are riding each year and successive "adjustment" to that "Bowl System", currently the BCS "Plus-One" Format).
It sure would go a ways in explaining what really goes on behind-the-scenes, why some things are publicized while others are "swept under the rug", why certain punishments are expedited while nothing happens for long periods of time in other cases. This business with tOSU is especially suspicious, and Meyer may have been its latest beneficiary: it seems he was waiting as long as he could for news regarding those (supposedly) pending sanctions, then he suddenly makes his move; though there's been no word, official or otherwise, thus far, you get the impression HE was given some idea about what's ultimately coming--and judging by his sudden and complete move, apparently it won't be too bad for his NEW team after all.

 

[Debi Hilton]

EXACTLY--Escambia94 pointed out to me a couple of days back that the very NCAA committee that makes these kinds of rulings is "staffed" by alumni and (semi-)former-officials from a handful of entrenched "traditional powers", and that tOSU is, if anything, OVER-represented in this group--along with the predictable "usual suspects", mostly from the midwest and northeast, with a couple of the most powerful west-coast interests thrown in, but NOTHING from the south, least of all the SEC--and makes the point that while THEY are getting away with a LOT of this sort of thing, WE won't get anything LIKE that kind of consideration until we get some of OUR people in there too.

I just don't see why the NCAA hasn't done anything about this, and even OK's it~there's got to be a rule somewhere against this bias~~

 

[Escambia94]

I just don't see why the NCAA hasn't done anything about this, and even OK's it~there's got to be a rule somewhere against this bias~~

The NCAA IS the problem. They allow this because THEY are the problem. They put people on committees that are part of the problem. For example, I forget the names, but one of the people in charge of the infraction committee that hammered USC used to be at Miami. USC lost a lot of scholarships, but Miami has just been getting slaps on the hand. Miami even volunteered to give up its bowl game and self-impose some minor punishments so that their former Miami person can tell his board members to go easy on Miami. True story.

Meanwhile, many of the board members now come not from tOSU, but from other Ohio universities that depend on tOSU. One prominent member hails from Wright State University, which feeds Ohio State. Wright State is on the board as an FCS member, but they protect their big brother tOSU when they can. There are a couple other well-hidden tOSU connections on the board, but you really have to dig at it to understand.

Rewind to 1984-1985. We had no connections to the NCAA infraction committee, but our neighbors did. We were all cheating, but our neighbors ratted us out in order to even out the competition. SEC on the whole suffered, because LSU, Tennessee, and Auburn would take turns winning the SEC but not be powerful enough to win the national championship. Only Alabama rose to power (again) in 1992 and would have been that SEC representative to the national championship if it were not for them getting caught cheating...that, and the rise of Steve Spurrier. Florida was so hurt by its NCAA infractions in 1984 and again in 1989, that Florida vowed to run the cleanest program in the SEC. Florida knew that it lacked the political power of USC, tOSU, Notre Dame, and Michigan to get away with cheating, and the rest of the SEC has made it known that it will rat out Florida in a heartbeat in order to gain an edge.

This helps explain why Miami rose to power in the 1980s--they had the political connections, and they kicked down its main recruiting rival...Florida. They may have used those connections to stick it to FSU in the 2000s. Maybe. Either way, Miami will continue to get its way politically in the NCAA until someone from Florida gains a position on those committees. I had hoped someone like Urban Meyer would one day retire from coaching and be that guy. He is politically connected irrespective of his schooling background, although his ties to tOSU do help. Jeremy Foley probably caters to his buddy Urban Meyer in order to maintain some semblance of a political balance, because one day Urban Meyer will be a political force in the NCAA if it continues going the way it does now. If the NFL starts to exert more influence in the NCAA, then all bets may be off. I doubt that happens because there are so many sports involved in NCAA that NFL, NBA, and others will not be able to get together and control NCAA the way people are suggesting.

 

[DRU2012]

I'm telling ya, this all rings true--it's a micro-cosmic reflection of how things work politically in the larger "world out there"--and MAKES ME SEE RED, steam come out my ears, pick-your-metaphor-for-really-angry...
I know enough about some of the details you refer to: for eg., I TOO forget his name, but that guy at Miami who is on the NCAA Infractions Committee is not only a high-profile, high-ranking official at "The Ewww" (a "President" or "Vice-President" of some kind), but when that Committee handed down their fairly strict sanctions on USC over the whole Reggie Bush-and-family-etc.-affair, HE was the one to publicly lecture them on "ethics and morality" and "a seeming out-of-control program"--then turns out to himself be involved up to his NECK in both the sex-and-payoff-recruiting scandal at Miami itself, AND the criminal-conspiracy-like cover-up that ensued in an effort to hide it, when it blew up this past spring-and-summer.
Of the three major program-wide corruption stories that have broken in the last year, USC's appears the LEAST widespread, yet it was hit the quickest and the hardest by FAR--while the other two, OSU and Miami are being quashed in the media now and quietly drawn out...I WONDER why?

 

[Leakfan12]

Explains why the SEC voted to vacated the SEC title in 1984, F--K those who made the decision. EVEN THE SWC LET SMU TITLE THEIR SWC TITLE IN 1981 AND THEY GOT THE DEATH PENALTY FIVE YEARS LATER.

 

[Escambia94]

Yeah. Exactly. UF's violations were nowhere near as egregious as SMU, yet we cannot claim that SEC championship.

 

[woodsmit]

Hmmmmm
Get over it, really its time to just let go. Don't let the anger ruin the good memories.
Plus, Zook is available!

Good times, they will return.

 

[Leakfan12]

Hmmmmm
Get over it, really its time to just let go.

Not now, later though. Winning cure all (mostly).

 

[DRU2012]

Hmmmmm
Get over it, really its time to just let go. Don't let the anger ruin the good memories.
Plus, Zook is available!

Good times, they will return.

It's not so much that folks are crying over slights long-past, I think, but that this latest sequence-of-events (the slap-on-the-wrist-"sanctions", then the "poor-us"-double-standard-applied double-coaching-staff, and all the rest) just underscores once again how tOSU (and others) get "special treatment" by the NCAA, having to do with their long-time co-mingling of official personnel and agendas.
As I recall, at the time SS and Co.'s reaction and somewhat satisfying resolution/response to OUR punishment was to have "SEC Champions"-rings made up for his players on that team, and T-shirts with a graphic of that ring and the same self-claimed title on T-shirts that were VERY popular among UF students and fans over the following months--then we went out and won a recognized one shortly thereafter!
The "sore spot" is the continued absurdity of these self-appointed arbiters STILL dictating the terms of punishment and success among a widespread (and growing wider) realization among the "member institutions" that they are essentially irrelevant...The questions MUST be asked, at SOME point, out in public, loudly and clearly:
"Why do we allow this to continue? When do we say ENOUGH!--and leave them behind?"
Sure, our "good times" WILL return, sooner or later, in SOME fashion--but who are THEY to be controlling that to the extent that they do even now? There is no such thing as a "perfect system", but there has GOT to be a better one than the one we've got; it has outlived its usefulness AND effectiveness, and become a hindrance to fairness--and an embarrassing joke.

 

[Block O]

Urban was interviewed and he's going to be bringing in Percy Harvin, Pouncey, among other former Gators into Ohio State's spring ball practice. Go Buckeyes!!! Go Gators!!!

!

Good family man, we're lucky to have him.

 

[Escambia94]

Family man? Yes and no. Ask his daughters in Florida and Georgia how pissed off they are that daddy only watched a couple of their games this year. The son is happy that daddy brought them closer to grandma, grandpa, etc.

Gator fans will have to get accustomed to seeing Gators help their former coach as he helps another team.

 

[DRU2012]

I am content and satisfied to see how the dominant attitude toward Meyer settling in across Gator Nation is one somewhere between yawning boredom and a knowing, world-weary "Yeah, yeah, just wait..." . Me, I couldn't care less--aside from discussion of the mess we're finally digging ourselves OUT of from him and his staff's last couple of years of mismanagement, I'm done with him.
I care about as much about Urban Meyer now as I do about a F*ckeye fan who comes around a Gator site periodically to gloat--when the only thing to gloat on is how they weasled out on even-handed punishment once again--way to go there, folks: NOW you've got a a guy who LOVES talented losers and prima donna head cases who feel entitled--as long as they've got a good highlight reel. A good match, really, come to think of it...

 

[Leakfan12]

Is there a way that the Gators can force former Gators players Harvin, Pouncey, and others NOT to join OSU spring practices. The Suckeyes have their own freaking legends.

 

[DRU2012]

Is there a way that the Gators can force former Gators players Harvin, Pouncey, and others NOT to join OSU spring practices. The Suckeyes have their own freaking legends.

(laughing cynically) Yeah, but of course THEIR "legends" (and we are using that term loosely), at least those that the new kids MIGHT have heard of, are all in disgrace--and got the old coach FIRED!

(It IS pretty sad and pathetic, though: all they've got now, in their euphoria at getting our old coach, is to somehow steal a piece of our history, and grab onto our old stars...something wrong with these former players, though, loyalty-wise--and more strange sleaze from Meyer, not just bringing them in, but ASKING them to "cross-that-line" in the first place...I understand that these guys still feel a sense of respect and honor-bound support for their former Coach and mentor, but maybe they ought to stop and consider their time at and connection TO The University of Florida, it's fans and the education and opportunities presented to them here, how Meyer himself was offered and entrusted with so much, and showed so little grace or appreciation in the end--and how little of that honor or loyalty THEY feel was shown by him to them OR us when HE ended it.)

 

[Escambia94]

Those former Gators have a choice. It is tempting to throw Urban Meyer under the bus, but if he asks former Gators that he recruited to help the Suckeyes, I am more angry at those former Gator players. Meyer gets a paycheck from tOSU, so it makes sense to pull out all the stops to help that place. What does it say about those former Gators if they are willing to sell out the University of Florida...for free?

I was offered an opportunity to teach at FSU or Florida. I could never sell out my alma mater. If I had to teach somewhere not in Gainesville, it would have to be a university that never "collides" with my alma mater, at least for the amount of pay I would be getting. I guess if I got Steve Spurrier's paycheck I would reconsider.

 

[DRU2012]

Life does present us with such "choices". They're not always so clear or easy, especially when things like "providing for one's family" are involved...but THIS one, by these players, is pretty straight forward, I think, and DOES say something about their characters, I'm sorry to say.

 

[Leakfan12]

I say Jeremy Foley should ban the former Gators who decide to help Meyer with his new team from events like Homecoming and games. Also you don't think the recruits don't know who Cris Carter is, Joey Galloway, Eddie George, and others who had success in the NFL?

 

[DRU2012]

I say Jeremy Foley should ban the former Gators who decide to help Meyer with his new team from events like Homecoming and games. Also you don't think the recruits don't know who Cris Carter is, Joey Galloway, Eddie George, and others who had success in the NFL?

If they are reminded, maybe--but for the most part, it's all about "who's in the news"--RIGHT NOW.
(And think about it: Meyer didn't bring in any of his "stars" from Utah when he got started at UF...in fact, as I recall, he DID make a show of embracing Gator tradition, and welcomed back some of OUR past greats...What GIVES with this unseemly coercion and co-opting of OUR history and players NOW? OSU DOES have its own past, and though I made a joke about it, maybe that really IS a part of this--the circumstances and shame of their recent past, PLUS the fact that Urban doesn't KNOW any of those guys, caused him to choose the "easier way", less fraught with complications, from his POV...Is this another sign that the Urban Meyer of today continues to choose that "easier way", is NOT the hard-charging perfectionist he once was? He sure wasn't that his last couple of years here with us, and THIS smacks of "more of the same", ya know? If they're getting the "Stage III Urban Meyer", the post-support-group Meyer of '09 and '10, this could turn into a real let-down for them--and perhaps a hilariously entertaining come-uppance, from our viewpoint! It may all come down to the kind of staff he can attract and depend on...)

 

[Block O]

Urban Meyer introduces coaching staff:

http://www.fliqz.com/aspx/permalinkb...b-cdc9ac35f9e2