DTP02 said:
Bluecat_Aggie94 said:
1) "The NCAA had no idea" is not true. They may not have been intimately involved with the investigations, but they knew one was going on. Good chance we will ultimately find out they are the ones that asked for it.
2) Nike and football will implicated soon.
I think you're wrong on both counts.
The feds got involved tangentially thru an SEC (securities, not footbawl) investigation, not from an NCAA tip, and I've seen reports that the NCAA was unaware, may have even been from the FBI's news conference.
And football cheating is an entirely different scheme than basketball. I doubt this investigation becomes a significant issue for football.
I'm not suggesting I am an insider or have any specific inside information. But I am more connected than the average person on this stuff.
I believe I will be proven correct on #1. The NCAA has known forever about the dark underbelly of this, and also knew it was stuck due to lack of subpoena power. Maybe this never comes out, but I think we will find out they had a hand in the tip that led to the investigation.
Another alternative would be that a coach or group of coaches the are tired of losing out on players but were unwilling to get involved tipped them off.
We'll see. Again, I'm using a combination of actual sources and my on intuition on this, not arguing or taking a "friends in low places" stance here.
On #2, this is a little more speculative, but the first think I thought of when I started wondering if this would hit football is the U of Oregon. No secrets how in bed they are with Nike. But I became suspect when Bralon Addison suddenly flipped his long time commitment from us to them years ago, after he had been THE vocal voice of that year's recruiting class. I had honestly never seen a recruit so open about his enthusiasm and involvement in recruiting for our team, and at the 11th hour, he jumped ship and went to Oregon. Very similar to the "Player 10" at "University 6" situation, in my opinion.
The same incentives are there for football players as they are for basketball. The only reason it is not as rampant is that the ROI is smaller in football due to the larger number of players. The payouts may be smaller, but it's a pretty small investment for Nike to make to hand a players family 10K on the hopes they turn into a future athlete i in their brand universe.