Boise State: Are These Ridiculous Sanctions Protecting the NCAA or the BCS?

Year after year, the Boise State Broncos have run the table, or come close to it, and consistently come close to crashing the BCS Championship game. The BCS, technically independent from the NCAA, has managed to avoid actually giving Boise State a chance to play for all the marbles.

Now, the NCAA seems to be solving the BCS problems for them—they've handed down the most ridiculous sanctions ever against the school. Sure, it's all muddled up in the language of "Loss of Institutional Control," but what really happened is that players that lived out of town crashed at their teammates houses.

That's right. They've gotten sanctioned for letting teammates sleep on their couch and eat their corn flakes.

This comes less than one season after the NCAA seemed to bend over backwards and come up with the convoluted distinction in the Cam Newton case last year, where they somehow managed to do everything they could to make it look like Auburn had done nothing wrong.

This comes less than a year after they stripped away the USC National Championship in an utterly meaningless gesture as everyone knows who actually won the game.

Boosters giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to Heisman Trophy players and/or their parents is fine. Where we draw the line, where things go to far, where the unforgivable offense seems to be with the NCAA is letting your teammate eat your Ramen!

This comes just months after Ohio State was allowed to play in their BCS Bowl Game for more severe sanctions than Boise State's if they promised to come back this year and fulfill their suspension.

This comes just weeks after hearing about Florida State players receiving thousands of dollars weekly from boosters. 

After all of this, does any intellectually honest person really believe that the big problem with the integrity of the NCAA is that players are sleeping at other players houses?

I would say this is a thinly-disguised strategy to keep Boise State from getting to the title game. It's a purely devious way of sneaking it into voters' and fans' heads that Boise State is running a dirty program.  

So, does that mean that all other institutions are getting audited for having people crash at their houses? What about buying your teammate lunch? Is that off limits too?

Don't doubt for a second that the Ohio States, the Auburns and so on of the nation aren't doing worse things than sharing Jennie-O turkey franks and sleeper sofas. The NCAA is spending time investigating this instead of the other things? 

Of all the things the NCAA has ever done, this is the most ridiculous because it has nothing to do with the integrity of protecting fairness, but everything to do with ensuring there is none. It sends the message that if, in spite of the odds being stacked against you, you somehow manage to loft yourself into the national picture, they'll cut you down with a dirty ruling. 

Something's rotten in the state of Denmark! The state of Idaho, though, is fine.

One has to wonder who investigates the NCAA, because they sure need some investigating.  They're protecting a billion-dollar industry, and it's in their best interest to keep Boise State and all those other mid-major schools in check. Let's not lose track of who's really dirty here.