The sleeze-fest that is college football continues churning out gut-wrenching stories about the underbelly of society putting its greed and desire to win in front of morality. It's Oregon popping its head up this time, reportedly in the midst of recruiting violations stemming from paying a man $25,000 to help steer star running back recruit Lache Seastrunk to the school a year ago.
Oregon has stated that it paid the man, Willie Lyles, for recruiting services. But the amount and Lyles contact with Seastrunk are what have caused the NCAA to investigate.
The Pac-12 has a recent history of violations and controversy. But has it been enough to make it the poster-child conference of non-poster-child behavior?
Oregon did make the NCAA aware that they were paying Lyles to help with recruiting, but the NCAA is examining if Lyles' recruiting was on the up-and-up. Right now, they are still investigating so there is no definitive answer to whether or not any rules were broken.
That said, things certainly don't look good for the Ducks right now, especially coming off the high of appearing in the first BCS National Championship Game. We have to wait and see where this whole thing goes.
One question I have is why Oregon would even bother putting the $25,000 payment on an expenditure report if the school was violating a rule? Is it a case of hiding something in plain sight or is Oregon clean?
If the Ducks are clean, then they should have evidence of what they purchased from Lyles. This doesn’t seem to be a hard concept to grasp: If they paid Lyles for videos, then those videos should be in the schools possession, right? The NCAA still could question Oregon for what it paid so much for Lyles’ services, but at that point all the school would have to say is, “Hey, we got ripped off.”
