SEC’s Shady Past Ushers Auburn in Visit to USC

Brilliant move on baseball’s part for settling its labor dispute only hours before last weekend’s scintillating slate of amateur oblong alternatives.

Picture your favorite millionaire backup shortstop airing public grievances Saturday as Michigan players at midfield mobbed the non-scholarship kicker who defeated Washington on a last-second field goal before a crowd of 111,491.

Imagine next week’s popularity polls had hard ball gone on strike:

68: Underwater yoga.

69: Women’s professional bowling.

70: Major League Baseball.

The college kids, mind you, put on these Michigan-Washington shows without a month of Cactus League warmups. All the games count, every single second, which explains how Washington could be eliminated (likely) from the national title chase before the start of fall semester.

College football has its problems, for sure, but they’re mostly the fault of grown-ups, which leads us to tonight’s arrival of Auburn for a weekend-capping matchup with USC at the Coliseum.

The plus-side news is that Auburn hasn’t been on NCAA probation since getting whacked with a “lack of institutional control” charge back in 1993, yet Southeastern Conference schools treat possible recidivism the way recovering alcoholics handle sobriety--one day at a time.

A recent enterprise series in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution chronicled what coaches from 10 other major conferences have been saying for years, that the SEC is loaded with cheats.

All conferences have their rule breakers, yet nothing compares to the depth of corruption in the SEC, mainly because football in the South is so important nothing stands in the way of winning.

More remarkable than Steve Spurrier’s on-the-field accomplishments in 12 years at Florida was the fact he did it without ever receiving an NCAA violation after inheriting a program on probation for “unethical conduct.”

Roy Kramer, the SEC’s recently retired commissioner, was an unprecedented power broker whose television deals made the SEC the nation’s wealthiest conference in the 1990s, but that cash only fueled the pursuit of players--by whatever means necessary.

Tennessee went on probation in 1991, and it was only recently revealed that former quarterback Tee Martin, who led the Volunteers to the 1999 national title, received money funneled by a sportswriter.

Auburn took its hit in 1993. Alabama scored the daily double, following its 1995-96 violations with a recent sanctions slap that prohibits bowl participation this year and next. Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky and Mississippi State have all been behind NCAA bars.

The Journal-Constitution reported that only the dedicated work of a compliance officer kept Alabama from getting shut down under the NCAA’s “Death Penalty.”

For what it’s worth, the NCAA took another recent swing through Mississippi State, which prompted Coach Jackie Sherrill to utter, “I’m not going to jump off a 50-foot cliff because somebody is coming to talk to our players. I know how I’ve conducted myself and how I’ve operated.”

The latest SEC scandal was the whopper of all whoppers, three schools charged with trying to ply a Memphis high school coach with cash to deliver a player, Albert Means, to their respective schools. The irony? Means was a bust.

The root of this SEC evil, of course, is money. Six of the nation’s 20 millionaire coaches work in the SEC. The conference went from sharing $16.5 million in revenue in 1990 to $78.1 million last year.

Frankly, there is no incentive to not cheat. Hal Mumme left Kentucky on probation and Kentucky cut him a severance check for $1 million.

Going on probation after winning a national title is seen by many in the South as the price of doing business.

Mike Slive, formerly of Conference USA, has replaced Kramer as SEC chief with a mission to clean up Dodge City.

Slive should take the “scared straight” approach, you know, bring in someone from Southern Methodist to tell the league what can happen to a football program gone afoul.

The SEC is too much of a money monster to ever go the way of the Southwest Conference, which was condemned and then closed, but it never hurts to retell cautionary tales.

See, it’s not that football doesn’t matter everywhere else in the country.

In the South, it just matters more.

Weekend Wrap

Conference of the week award: Mountain West. How’s this for knocking on the bowl championship series door: Colorado State defeats Colorado (Big 12) nine days after beating Virginia (Atlantic Coast). Air Force does a 52-3 fly-over on Northwestern (Big Ten).

Next up for Colorado State is UCLA (Pacific 10). The Mountain West’s problem rests in being the seventh-best conference in a six-conference monopoly, the 63-school strong BCS. And you thought Augusta National was exclusionary. The champions of the non-BCS conferences (Mountain West, Mid-American, Conference USA) have no guaranteed access to the four big-money BCS bowls and instead have to be ranked high enough to earn one of two at-large bids. FYI: It hasn’t happened in the BCS’ four-year history. The only way the Mountain West can make its case for inclusion is to schedule BCS schools--and beat them. Not a bad start.

Where are they now? J.P. Losman completed 13 of 23 passes for 183 yards and two touchdowns in Tulane’s victory. Hmmm, the name rings a bell, but....

Joe Paterno vs. Bobby Bowden update: The legendary Penn State coach earned his 328th victory to keep his all-time major college lead to three over the legendary Florida State coach (Hey, it’s the closest thing we’ve got to Sosa-McGwire).

Duke ends 23-game losing streak with victory over East Carolina. What now? Well, the school with maybe the best chance to eclipse Northwestern’s major college record of 34 is ... how about Northwestern? Saturday’s loss to Air Force was the Wildcats’ seventh in a row dating to last year.

Kudos to Tyrone Willingham on winning his first game at Notre Dame, but let’s not make room in the trophy case yet. Former Irish coaches Joe Kuharich, Gerry Faust and Bob Davie--legends none--all won their debuts too.