Should The College Football Powers Penalize 'Troubled' Programmes?

The VFA was just checking out a rather good article by Bleacher Report writer Trey Bradley on how Notre Dame may have dodged a bullet by not hiring Urban Meyer, who just saw his 28th person arrested under his guise as Florida Gators coach.

While there is still the argument that Notre Dame would probably have killed for someone who could coach AND recruit (Charlie Weis could recruit, but his coaching sucked—as proved by a string of under-par seasons as the Irish coach before he was fired), there is also the argument for the fact that Notre Dame looks at character, grades, and footballing ability, while other schools (ahem! ahem! Florida!) just look for footballing ability, and if the kid can get good grades and keep his ass in church and out of jail, then all the better.

And while you might not like this, the guy can also coach, having won two National Titles, two SEC Championships, and the SEC East seemingly year in and year out since he took charge.

But let's face the fact, Urban, you—and the other coaches who see their players getting repeatedly busted by the police—are bringing college football into disrepute.

This got me thinking: At what time does the Southeastern Conference or those lovable fellows at the NCAA cite the universities that see their kids constantly getting arrested, as seems to happen at the University of Florida (and was Joe Paterno's problem during the 2004 and 2005 season), and threaten them with possible sanctions if they don't get their house in order?

Personally, we're fed to the teeth with seeing yet another college sportsman arrested for driving while texting/marijuana use/underage drinking/robbing a fraternity/selling crack/firing arrows into walls/being wasted while driving/fighting in a club, and so on, and would like something done about it.

In VFA world, we'd love to see the NCAA hand out fines to schools and five-match bans to players who are arrested. That might be the deterrent that college footballers need to stop acting like children.