Auburn Football: Grade Fixes, Drugs, and Pay Scandals

Is there anything that Auburn football is not being charged with?

On top of allegedly bribing players to stay another year, changing grades so that athletes would be eligible to play, and committing recruiting infractions, Auburn is now being charged with having a drug problem and cover up scandal.

According to E:60 and ESPN the Magazine, Auburn had a drug epidemic during the 2010 season that crossed into 2011 when they played the BCS title game. The drug was called "Spice" which is a synthetic marijuana drug, and several players seemed to be addicted to it.

Drug tests for Spice, however, did not occur until after their BCS title win over Oregon. During the ensuing tests, a dozen players tested positive for Spice. Auburn then kept the tests confidential.

It is also being reported that up to a dozen more players, seniors, have used spice and gotten away with it.

This time in Auburn football seems to be one of the most scandalous ever reported in college sports. Who gets caught doing all of these things at once? The various infractions and wrongdoings are stunning for this short period of time. If any or all of these allegations prove to be true, I can see the school being dealt crippling infractions.

Of course, Auburn's fault lies partly in getting lost in the quest for a winning program. Colleges today want the best football programs, as well as basketball programs, so that they can make money. It's the endgame of every business and the NCAA and the universities are no different. The only thing that Auburn did wrong is break the rules that are there to mislead the populace (and more importantly the "student athletes") into thinking that college sports are not a business but for the betterment of student athletes and higher education.

Yes, Auburn should be punished because they've seemingly crossed ethical lines as well as broke the NCAA's rules. But to think that this university and a handful of others are the only ones committing these types of infractions is incorrect. Maybe not to the level of letting kids slide on drug use but I have no doubt that several universities bend or break the rules in effort to get a winning program.

Bad Weather Helps Savannah State Beat the Spread vs. FSU

If there was one university that knows how to take a beating it's Savannah State.

Last week, the Tigers were the sacrificial lamb for the Oklahoma State Cowboys as they lost 84-0. What is the price of a loss like that you say? About $385,000. That's how much Oklahoma State gave Savannah State to play (let's face it, lose) in Stillwater. This weekend they got more money from another university to play against them. This time it was the Florida State Seminoles paying $475,000. Savannah State doesn't belong in Tallahassee and yet they were invited to play against the #6 ranked team in the country.

What was the spread? 70 1/2 in favor of FSU of course. Amazingly, however, Savannah State beat the spread. It was 55-0 in favor of FSU when bad weather came and called off the rest of the game in the third quarter. What a bargain. Savannah State got 4th quarters worth of money for only 3 quarters of destruction.

It's ludicrous to think that this kind of thing is acceptable in the "Amateur" system of college football. It's done every year and yet we just accept it because we want to be entertained and don't care about the details. I don't blame Savannah State for taking the money for either game but I am upset that the NCAA just allows this kind of thing to happen. It's just another piece of hypocrisy on top of the big pile BS that is the NCAA.

P.S. Hope Devon Walker gets better soon.

Lawsuit for Paying College Players Gets Interesting

There is a new twist in a lawsuit in the college world. In order to get a lawsuit deemed class action against the NCAA, lawyers argued that anything that use's a players names, image, or likeness whether on TV, a video game, or other products, should be shared with the players. So the NCAA can feel like their ethic of "Amateurism" is held together, money earned can be "temporarily held in trust for those individuals until cessation of their collegiate careers." Winning this lawsuit could mean "hundreds of thousands" of dollars each year to Division I basketball players and "tens of thousands" to college football players.

I'll be honest, I hope they win the suit. I'm not sure how far it will go in the courts but the players do deserve compensation for their efforts nowadays. No matter how someone wants to paint the picture, "Student Athletes" are indeed workers. They agree to go play for a school and in return they get some sort of scholarship (or payment). The problem is that the money earned today is outrageous compared to when this system first started. Nowadays the NCAA and Conferences are getting billions with TV deals, advertising, video games deals, and other products. Meanwhile the players are not getting a dime of any of that. If the players had a union, they would've voted to go on strike a long time ago.

The amateur system needs to go. It's not fair to kids who play for universities across the country. They still play for pennies while the NCAA and the Universities make off like Kings.