HOG CALLS

Anonymous SEC critics need to gaze into mirror

University of Mississippi Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter, left, and athletic director Ross Bjork speak at a news conference about the resignation of football coach Hugh Freeze, in Oxford, Miss., Thursday, July 20, 2017. (Bruce Newman/Oxford Eagle via AP)
University of Mississippi Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter, left, and athletic director Ross Bjork speak at a news conference about the resignation of football coach Hugh Freeze, in Oxford, Miss., Thursday, July 20, 2017. (Bruce Newman/Oxford Eagle via AP)

FAYETTEVILLE -- With everyone from elementary school teachers to criminal judges, a transgressor's "everybody does it" defense seldom works.

This is not an attempt to make it work here.

Nevertheless, an Orlando Sentinel column published in last Friday's Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette evoked an amused laugh that college athletics in the East, North and West are conducted so pristinely compared to the sullied South.

The column concerned a CBS Sports poll of 25 anonymous Football Bowl Subdivision coaches surmising that SEC schools cheat in recruiting and providing benefits against NCAA rules at a rate that makes choirboys of the men coaching and athletes playing football for the other big-time programs and conferences around the country.

Better scratch choirboy.

The article quotes one anonymous source as saying "There is that deal in the SEC and ACC where they're funneling money through ... churches."

The South is deemed the Bible Belt, but churches proliferate, too, in the East, North and West. Presumably it's not just in the South that members of church congregations have the wealth and the stealth to work in mysterious ways.

One coach was anonymously quoted as saying "Out of the 130 FBS schools, I would say in the SEC 80 percent [knowingly cheat]. Everywhere else, about 20 percent."

Hmm. Sure the SEC abounds with dirty laundry. Historically, every SEC school but Vanderbilt at some point has been called on the NCAA carpet regarding football, men's basketball or both.

Ole Miss is the SEC's latest program to fall under NCAA fire. Sanctimoniously hypocritical coach Hugh Freeze recently was fired for conduct claimed to be unrelated to the 17 NCAA allegations against his Rebels regime.

But to assert that nearly all programs north, east and west of the SEC are so pure seems a stretch.

Perhaps those coaches in the CBS poll have forgotten the 2010 Ohio State Buckeyes -- who edged Arkansas in the January 2011 Sugar Bowl -- had several players suspended for various periods to open the next season because of rules transgressions.

But before the 2011 season opened, Ohio State coach Jim Tressel was ousted, the school was under NCAA sanctions, and the team was forced to vacate all of its victories from the 2010 campaign -- including the Sugar Bowl.

All the big conferences have schools with plenty of dirty laundry to deal with before pointing fingers at the SEC.

But it doesn't stop them.

In the aftermath of the Penn State scandal involving Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing young boys on the school campus, a Nittany Lion spokesman was on a national radio show talking about recruiting on national signing day.

The show's host brought up a recruit who was committed to one school but chose a different one on signing day seemingly out of the blue.

"That sounds like the SEC," said the Penn State representative.

"Sounds like the SEC," coming from someone whose Big Ten school was criminally caught allowing the most perverse scandal in NCAA history!

Everybody does it is not a defense for the SEC, but it seems like a good time for coaches to admit that conduct is not necessarily all fine above the Mason-Dixon line.

Sports on 08/14/2017

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