NCAA creating college football snitch line more farce than force
- The College Sports Commission has created a new ‘snitch line’ for reporting rules violations.
- This reporting system is open to everyone, including coaches, players, and the general public.
- Reports can be submitted anonymously via text, email, or a web portal.
Seriously, look at these geniuses. You’re not getting anything by these trendsetters.
The College Sports Commission has rolled out a new tool for rules enforcement, and nothing says weren’t you once the NCAA quite like a snitch line.
I promise you, I’m not making this up.
Not only did the CSC come up with this incredibly flawed idea, they’ve opened the snitch line to everyone. Everyone, you say?
Everyone.
Coaches and players, athletic directors and boosters, and, wait for it … the rest of God’s green earth.
What could go wrong?
Clearly, the good folks at the CSC don’t understand their constituency. So before we go further, let me throw out some examples.
Trust me when I say, it takes all kinds.
Like Harvey Updyke, bless his tortured soul, who killed the trees at Toomer’s Corner.
Or former Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt, whose wife, Casey, carried cash in a Chick-Fil-A bag and dolled it out to recruits. Before the House case, of course.
Or the yet to be named “source” — and by source, I mean someone with a string of Bucknuts tied to their rearview mirror — who exposed Michigan’s advanced scouting scheme.
Or the Alabama (notice the trend?) attorney, representing two former Tide assistant coaches, who sued former Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer (notice the trend?) for conspiring with the NCAA to damage the Alabama program — and tried to have him served at SEC media days.
Or many of the millions of the beautifully unhinged that make this sport breathe on a daily, fanatical basis.
They’ll flood the snitch line with every hint of every possible instance of their bitter rival cheating to get a leg up on their school. Because, after all, it was on BigRedHuskersFans.com, so it must be true.
My god. MY GOD.
I gotta tell you, maybe Brian Seeley — the new CSC/college football czar hired after the House case settlement completely changed the sport forever — should’ve stayed with Major League Baseball. He has no idea what he’s getting into.
Maybe someone, anyone, at the CSC can introduce Seeley to the entire 16-team SEC. For starters, anyway.
If he thought the Houston Astros’ fun little scheme of stealing signs was a heavy lift from his perch as MLB executive vice president of legal and operations, he better strap in.
It’s about to get real.
No one cheats like college football. Those coaching and those playing, those born and forced to choose between USC and UCLA, or Alabama and Auburn, or Indiana and Purdue, or Kansas and Kansas State, or any other sick, twisted and wonderfully wild rivalry that brings out the uniquely unknown from all involved.
Everybody cheats, including – and I know this is going to shock Seeley, so hang onto your 162-game schedule, Bri – the universities themselves.
For the love of pigskin, North Carolina used fake classes for a decade to keep athletes academically eligible (that was once a thing, kids). And when caught, the most amazing thing in the history of legal defense unfolded.
North Carolina, the bastion of academia and the Harvard of the south, declared the classes weren’t fake because – wait’ll you get a load of this – every student had access to the fake classes.
And the NCAA bought it.
So yeah, roll out that snitch line. Good times are on the horizon, baby.
The CSC says they’ll protect your identity. And they promise to get back to you with “continued engagement.”
You can snitch or send your conspiracy via text, email or submit on the web, and you don’t have to identify yourself. Again, I’m not making that up.
“The CSC encourages anyone with knowledge of or concerns about potential violations of third-party NIL or revenue sharing rules to use the new system to report them immediately,” some public relations wonk penned in the release.
These guys have no idea what they’re getting into.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
