College FB Criminals

Regarding J's earlier post on this subject; I read the story today and it's eye-opening.  No surprise when it comes to schools with a recruiting disadvantage like Boise taking the character-issue players.  Bobby Petrino also does not surprise me; he has always been an ass and I won't be surprised if he leaves ARK with a black eye before it's all done.  Iowa surprises me.

I think the TCU model where Patterson sits with a committee and discusses each scholarship offer makes sense.  There has to be input from several sources before making a decision on some borderline cases.  There is a big difference between being in a bar fight vs. robbing people at gun point like the Utah kid.  Utah should be ashamed to even consider putting someone on scholarship who has robbed people at gun point.  I mean really?

Then, schools have to make the decision on whether they will risk the embarassment for wins, like Pitt.  What kind of president and AD do you have to allow 22 players with a criminal background to be on scholarship in your football program?  That's more than embarassing for the school and the whole state since Pitt represents PA.

But, here's a question: if LSU was on the top of this list, would we stop watching and pulling for them, or would we make excuses like the fans at Pitt, Iowa, Boise, etc. will do?  The answer is that most fans don't care and so there is little incentive for these schools to clean it up.  As long as attendance is good and TV ratings are good, their world is perfectly OK.

S