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Oregon Ducks

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Auburn can easily be a ten when the story involves buying political votes, rigging casinos for players and paying huge amounts for the reigning Heisman winner, NC winning MVP, #1 overall draft pick QB, especially for a program which was lucky to beat Northwestern in the last game Before Cam.
 
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jwinslow;1947800; said:
Auburn can easily be a ten when the story involves buying political votes, rigging casinos for players and paying huge amounts for the reigning Heisman winner, NC winning MVP, #1 overall draft pick QB, especially for a program which was lucky to beat Northwestern in the last game Before Cam.
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Exactly. If you couple them with Oregon, both players in the previous BCSNCG under investigation will be a HUGE story. Throw in tOSU's woes and you may as well throw out the 2010 season. Which I'm sure would make ubet and our Texas friends quite happy. :lol:
 
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It finally made the ESPN front page:

" Lyles gave Oregon reports late "

As the summary for a scathing report including:

Lyles admitting he actively participated in a cover up for Oregon, providing a bogus recruiting package to deceive the NCAA about the real reason behind the 25k payment.

Accused of steering players to many schools, including an alleged 80k for CB Peterson and a host of talented Texans to Eugene, like LaMichael James.

:lol: hilarious and predictable
 
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Besides the $25,000 for the bogus recruiting info, there are other things in the Yahoo article that are worth noting.

The Yahoo story talked about how LaMichael James was having difficulty passing the math portion of the TAKS, a standard test that high school students in Texas need to pass before they can accept a collegiate athletic scholarship. Willie Lyles came up with the idea of having LaMichael transfer to a school a few miles away (over the state line in Texarkana), so that James could get a HS diploma in Arkansas and bypass the requirement od passing the TAK . So James transferred for his final semester and then accepted the schollie to Oregon.

The story also talked about how Lache Seastrunk wanted to go to Oregon after Pete Carroll left USC, but that his mother wouldn't sign an LOI since she wanted him to go to LSU. So U of Oregon Assistant Director of Football Operations Josh Gibson and Athletic Director of Compliance Bill Clever sent Lyles instructions on how to make the grandmother a legal guardian so that her signature could be used on the LOI for Oregon.

I'd venture that opinions on those tactics will vary from 'creative thinking' to 'a disgusting win-at-all-costs' mentality.
 
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Mandel weighs in.

SI.com

Report shows Oregon, Kelly clearly aren't doing things 'the right way'

Oregon coach Chip Kelly is known as a master tactician, a guy who employs a unique offensive attack and frenetic pace to give his teams an edge over opponents. It turns out Kelly was using a far more ethically questionable approach to give his program an edge in recruiting. Following Friday's explosive Yahoo! Sports interview with controversial middleman Will Lyles, Kelly may soon be known more for the latter than the former.

Nearly four months after the disclosure of Oregon's $25,000 payment to Lyles' company Complete Scouting Services touched off an NCAA investigation, Lyles has spilled the beans on his relationships with the Oregon coaching staff and several Oregon-targeted recruits, most notably running backs LaMichael James and Lache Seastrunk. As we long suspected, and as Lyles now admits to Yahoo!, "... [Oregon] paid for what they saw as my access and influence with recruits." Lyles said Kelly told him to "find out what the best paying [recruiting] service is" and Oregon would pay that amount, which it did, despite the fact Lyles' service did not yet exist.

Suspicions were already high after the school released copies last week of the supposed "2011 national scouting package" that Lyles provided the staff, consisting entirely of outdated profiles of 140 prospects from the class of 2009. At the time, Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens insisted to CBSSports.com: "I have full confidence we are absolutely doing [business] the right way." Maybe he was putting on a good face until the NCAA process ran its course. Or perhaps he was unaware at the time of many of the actions Lyles claims to have taken on behalf of Oregon recruits. Because you'd be hard-pressed to read Yahoo!'s story and come to the conclusion that Kelly and his staff have been doing things "the right way."

Oregon spokesman Dave Williford, fielding an SI.com request Friday to speak with Mullens, said, "Rob and the athletic department stand by our original statement" that the school "[has] and will continue to work with the NCAA on this matter." He told Yahoo!, "We believe we did nothing wrong."

That may still be true by the letter of NCAA law. Even after Lyles' admission that his recruiting materials were a sham ("I gave them, like, old stuff that I still had on my computer," he told Yahoo!), even after reading about the lengths he went through to help James become academically eligible and to manipulate Seastrunk's family situation so that he could sign with Oregon, it's unclear what, if any, NCAA rules were broken. The role of figures like Lyles is a relatively recent development of which the NCAA is only now trying to get a handle.

But does it even matter? Oregon officials can no longer say with a straight face that Kelly's staff is doing things "the right way" when emails, phone records and a particularly damning handwritten note show how complicit they were in dealing with a man that allegedly did the following:
- Concocted a plan for James, then a high-school senior in Texarkana, Texas, to transfer to an Arkansas school for his final semester to avoid taking a standardized state test required for college eligibility. Afterward, Lyles said Kelly (then Oregon's offensive coordinator) praised the scheme as "a great idea."
- Served as Kelly's chaperone whenever he recruited in Houston, even arranging his high-school visits.
- Arranged for and accompanied several prospective recruits (including Oregon signee-Dontae Williams) on a 2009 visit to the USC-Oregon game. Kelly sent a handwritten note afterward telling him "thanks for orchestrating everything and all your help with these guys."
- Contacted Oregon in January 2010, when it appeared Seastrunk's mother might not sign off on a letter of intent to Oregon, to find out how he could petition for a change of guardianship that would allow Seastrunk to substitute his grandmother's signature (which he did). Phone records show substantial contact between Lyles and Oregon staffers (including Kelly) during that time.

Lyles was a middleman. He held influence over prospects like James and Seastrunk. Oregon may not have "bought" Seastrunk, the most sinister conclusion some may draw, but Kelly made sure Lyles was rewarded for his help. There is no longer room for debate on this. Oregon isn't the only school that deals with hangers-on like Lyles (who was likely involved with other schools), but it got caught. And Kelly, as the face of the program, deserves the brunt of the blame.

In the coming months, NCAA investigators will wade through all this muck, and their recently announced enforcement processing center will try to figure out what parts, if any, it can pin on the program. Oregon fans should brace themselves, because over the past year, prominent NCAA officials have spoken constantly about their concern over third parties in recruiting. Oregon could become its landmark case on the issue. (One break for the school: Lyles said he did not tell NCAA investigators everything he told Yahoo!)
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The very high-profile head coach of a very high-profile program -- one that played in the national championship game last January and has largely been portrayed as a feel-good story -- has been caught in writing acknowledging his relationship with a guy who manipulated a player's graduation plans and another's guardianship status, both to the benefit of Oregon. It's abundantly clear by now that he signed off on a $25,000 payment to a guy that had no business getting a dime from the school.

Oregon -- with the generous help of Nike and Phil Knight -- has spent more than a decade carefully crafting its aura as the cool school with the slick uniforms and the flashy offense. Kelly was the charismatic mastermind that took the program from good to great. Both are suddenly taking on a more dubious image. How long until Kelly's superiors admit this isn't "the right way?"

Cont'd ...
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If Texas is paying for recruits they are the biggest morons in the history of anything. They have more five-star players within rock-throwing distance of their campus than any school outside of Florida, and even though there are a number of D1A schools in their state, every kid wants to play for the Longhorns first. They barely have to recruit - why would they have to cheat?

I won't disbelieve anything of course, and as you all well know I have no overt reasons for defending Texas, but I would be really, really surprised if they were involved in anything other than the "normal" kinds of cheating that most likely pervade every campus.
 
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NFBuck;1947767; said:
It has nothing to do with e!spn loving Oregon. tOSU is a long standing national power, one of the Top-5 programs in the country. Oregon is a relative newcomer to the national scene. Yes, they played for a NC last year, but it's still not known what their staying power is. They don't have nearly the national interest level Ohio State, or Texas, or USC does.

Lets see what happens over the next few weeks as this sounds like it might be another slow burn with more coming out over tme. If the Yahoo guys are in Oregon's kitchen, more meals will be coming out...
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Riiiight....but...SI chose to cover it. They also covered tOSU. The difference is the language used. They say "clearly Kelly wasn't doing things the right way"...without the vitriol reserved for JT. Not even close. To me...it's not that Oregon won't recieve as much attention...that much is clear for the reasons you gave. It's that since Nike is responsible for a good chunk of their ad dollars, they don't take the hard line. That's what's really fucked up.
 
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BUCKYLE;1947820; said:
Riiiight....but...SI chose to cover it. They also covered tOSU. The difference is the language used. They say "clearly Kelly wasn't doing things the right way"...without the vitriol reserved for JT. Not even close. To me...it's not that Oregon won't recieve as much attention...that much is clear for the reasons you gave. It's that since Nike is responsible for a good chunk of their ad dollars, so they don't take the hard line. That's what's really fucked up.
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Clearly college football needs to have a ton of Victoria's Secret ads, for multiple reasons.
 
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BB73;1947813; said:
Besides the $25,000 for the bogus recruiting info, there are other things in the Yahoo article that are worth noting.

The Yahoo story talked about how LaMichael James was having difficulty passing the math portion of the TAKS, a standard test that high school students in Texas need to pass before they can accept a collegiate athletic scholarship. Willie Lyles came up with the idea of having LaMichael transfer to a school a few miles away (over the state line in Texarkana), so that James could get a HS diploma in Arkansas and bypass the requirement od passing the TAK . So James transferred for his final semester and then accepted the schollie to Oregon.
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Curious. If the student is accepting a scholarship to anywhere other than a Texas public university, and assuming he meets all the standard ncaa minimums, how can the state force him to pass this TAKS thing in order to accept the scholarship? What power do they have over the student, the ncaa or a university in X state to bar him from accepting a scholarship?
 
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Texas was always one of a handful of schools out there that I liked to see do well. Their whole behavior during the Big Ten expansion really left a sour taste in my mouth though, and I'd love to see the smug get wiped off their fucking faces.
 
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ORD_Buckeye;1948016; said:
Curious. If the student is accepting a scholarship to anywhere other than a Texas public university, and assuming he meets all the standard ncaa minimums, how can the state force him to pass this TAKS thing in order to accept the scholarship? What power do they have over the student, the ncaa or a university in X state to bar him from accepting a scholarship?
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I assumed you needed the TAKS to get your diploma. Like the State Proficiency Tests in Ohio.
 
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