The CheckerBoard

If you ain't cheating you ain't trying. I use this motto whether I am playing Trouble or Old Maid. I'm sure college football coaches implement it to.

The SEC admittance standards are more stringent that NCAA standards and several schools in the SEC - Georgia and Florida principal among them - have higher standards than that. Now is the envelope pushed to get people admitted and to remain eligible? Of course, but that goes on at most every school.

It's the same up here in Michigan, and I suspect most every other region in the country outside the south. Local radio sports guys up here saying that it's not a "level playing field", that the SEC has low admission standards, pays players, etc.. Yet, if a Big Ten team has success, it's all above board and by the rule book. The argument has no basis in reality. Anyone who bothered to do the research would see that the SEC's admission standards as a whole do not vary appreciably from the admission standards of other conference schools. And, though i havent looked, i would bet the SEC schools, as a group, do not have NCAA violations or disciplinary measures out of proportion to the rest of the conferences.

But what has always puzzled me about this argument, is how it only ever applies to football. No one accuses the ACC or the Big Ten of "beating the system" or bending the rules when it comes to basketball. Look at the Big Ten this year, 5 teams in the top 15 hoops poll..So are we to assume the Big Ten has low admission standards and cheats to reach their levels of success?

I chalk the discussion up to bitterness and jealousy. Haters gonna hate.

Really is that any different than a poster on this site or Tennessee fans putting all the Alabama success on them doing steroids?