Brand's NCAA Should Be Found Guilty For Lack of Institutional Control

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Apparently, the NCAA passed a new law that has abolished the Death Penalty.

After witnessing the impact that it had on SMU in the late 1980s, the dreaded ruling of a "lack of institutional control" has, apparently, been determined to be a cruel and unusual punishment.

More than twenty years later SMU will not be mistaken for Lazarus, for as much as you dress up a Pony in June Jones Hawaiian outfits, SMU still smells a bit like reanimated body.

SMU will forever be identified with the landmark 1987 ruling handed down by the NCAA.  A refusal to clean up the football program left the Mustangs without one, right before the golden age of cable television and the rise of College Football on the national sports television scene. 

One can only surmise at the impact that this ruling had on the future profits, conference affiliation, and competition that SMU missed out on due to their ongoing rebuilding project. Since the Death Penalty, SMU has had only one winning season in more than 20.

Today, it was learned that the University of Alabama was once again found in violation of NCAA rules. The accusations that players bought textbooks for non-scholarship athletes seems very small in the big scheme of things, yet before 1993 Alabama had no NCAA violations.

Since 1995 Alabama has been on the "repeat offender watch" and the clock is reset with each infraction. With this latest violation, Alabama will not be eligible to be "off the clock" until 2014.

For those of you doing the math, that's 19 years in the NCAA doghouse. How many times must one program circumvent the rules? At what point do you say "enough is enough?"

It was one thing to do it to SMU, it's another thing to do it to a flagship SEC program like Alabama.

In the grand scheme of things this is much less of a violation than Antonio Langham signing with an agent. Much less of a violation than the recruitment of Albert Means. These were kids that were using extra scholarship stipend to get books for friends and family.

But with a coach who is yet to even coach his first NCAA game thumbing his nose at the NCAA and committing secondary violations seemingly every week (Lane Kiffin we're all watching you closely), and compliance officers around the country playing a game of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil," who will step in? 

Not all of the rules with the NCAA are rules we agree with, and the rules have trouble keeping up with technology, but Alabama has been committing further major infractions while serving time for major infractions.

The NCAA most closely resembles a referee that has lost control of a game. Now the players and the schools will start to police themselves without a competent official running the show. 

If the NCAA only barks, but doesn't bite, we will see more Phil Fullmer's and Bruce Pearl's blowing the whistles on other programs—not something that sets a sunny precedent.

Alabama will vacate some wins from some lackluster years. It will be as if coach Mike Shula was never even hired. 

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