The NCAA rulebook is filled with stupid regulations.

How do you make it better? Add rules that are difficult to enforce.

Like this one. According to this AP report, “An NCAA committee announced Thursday that it will back a proposal to prohibit making scholarships offers to recruits before July 1 in the summer between their junior and senior years in high school. If passed, it would apply to all sports.” And even the dumbasses at the NCAA admit the rule will be problematic. According to the same report, “Committee chair Petrina Long acknowledged it would be a difficult rule for school compliance officers to monitor.”

Why make a rule that would encourage coaches to bend the rule? We aren’t talking about new technology that renders an old rule obsolete. In this case we are talking about making a rule that the NCAA already admits would be impossible to police. The only thing it will do is encourage schools like Auburn to violate the spirit of the rule. Violating the spirit of the law is something Auburn has shown itself capable of doing with events like Big Cat Weekend.

If the NCAA wanted to improve college football recruiting, it should classify recruiting fan sites like Rivals, Scout and ESPN as boosters. It could then punish schools that use those sites for recruiting purposes. (If you doubt that schools use these sites for recruiting then ask coaches like Steve Spurrier or Nick Saban.)

You can read more about NCAA legislation below.

3 thoughts on “Dumbasses: NCAA regulators”

  1. if the ncaa were serious about reducing cheating in college athletics recruiting (specifically football and basketball) they should loosen the scholarship limits.

    the ncaa tightened the number of scholarshipped athletes a football team can have presumably to raise the quality of competition.

    but over the years it been proven time and time again the most effective way to improve the competition is for the competition’s alum to spend their money on their program.

    ua/b’ham is a class example. how has scholarship limitations improved it’s product???

    easy answer: it hasn’t.

    ua/b’ham’s athletic program is in the piss-poor shape it’s in because it’s alum don’t support (spend money on) it.

    miami and florida state built their programs before affirmative action recruiting limits. their school and alum made a commitment. (money)

    in football, it would hurt nothing in the big picture and reduce the incentive to cheat to give the programs back five schollys a year.

  2. dear compliance guy,

    find the words “arbitrary” or “bizarre” in this blog or my response.

    regardless of who sits on a rules committee panel, the ncaa rule book shares an unfortunate parallel with the united states tax code.

    it too long, to hard to comprehend and interpretation is left to the imagination too many times.

    the pressure to push the envelope in recruiting comes from the limited number of scholarships allowed by the ncaa. coaches will tell you to a man with the scholarship limitations as they are now there’s incredible pressure to sign a top notch player with every scholly offered.

    again, the intent of reducing the number of schollies a program can offer was to “spread the wealth”. (where have we heard that before) in theory, by spreading around the top talent, you raise all boats. but the fact still remains, some boats are dinghys (s. miss, utah, ua/b’ham, iowa st.) others nuclear aircraft carriers. (‘bama, florida, texas, oklahoma)

    the difference is the crew (alum, boosters, fans) and what they do (spend money) to build and maintain their ships. (programs)

    once you understand that a successful program is more about the devotion and attention of it’s fans and alum and less about meddling rules makers you come to understand how stupid scholarship limits can be.

    (and mind you there are rules wonks out there who believe scholarships should be reduced further!)

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