An example of Institutional Control

Bob Stoops’ Sooners have been one of the most dominant programs of this millenium. But while several of Oklahoma’s contemporaries — Southern Cal with Reggie Bush, Auburn with Cam Newton, and most recently Ohio State with Tyrelle Pryor — have been mired in scandal in recent years, Stoops’ program has avoided major NCAA scrutiny, largely because Stoops promotes an environment — at the very least, the perception — of institutional control (NewsOK.com):

“We can’t follow a hundred players around,” Stoops said. “That’s just not realistic and not gonna happen.

“So, at the end of the day, our players are very well educated on what’s allowed and what isn’t. If something isn’t appropriate, it’s dealt with, I like to think, appropriately and in the right way. And that’s it.”

Stoops’ program hasn’t been free of scandal. In 2006, Oklahoma starting QB Rhett Bomar was in a similar situation to Tyrelle Pryor. The difference is that Stoops dealt with the situation immediately, and more importantly, definitively, which is why the story went away: there was nothing more for the media to report.

“Our conversation wasn’t very long,” Stoops said of Bomar. Stoops said he confronted Bomar with the evidence that he had been paid by Big Red Sports & Imports for work not performed and told him, “You’re not playing at Oklahoma.”

For a year, Bomar wondered?

“No, it’s going to be forever,” Stoops said he said. “We’ll move on. You can transfer.”

Said Stoops, “Our players are educated. They know. If you knowingly break the rules, we’re going to move on. We’ll find someone else to play quarterback.

“I felt it was in the best interest of our university. Our players know, we’re going to do things right. At least that’s our hope.”

Contrast Stoops’ response to the situation to that of Jim Tressel’s, and you’ll understand why Stoops is still in Norman five years later and Tressel was just forced to resign.

About StateFans

'StateFansNation' is the shared profile used by any/all of the dozen or so authors that contribute to the blog. You may not always agree with us, but you will have little doubt about where we stand on most issues. Please follow us on Twitter and FaceBook

College Football General UNC Scandal

12 Responses to An example of Institutional Control

  1. baxter 06/06/2011 at 11:40 AM #

    I’ve always liked Bob Stoops. Now I know why.

  2. old13 06/06/2011 at 12:03 PM #

    Yes, he’s a bit of a JoePa of his generation I think.

  3. Lunatic Fringe 06/06/2011 at 12:16 PM #

    I bet he uses a sign-out sheet.

  4. MrPlywood 06/06/2011 at 12:33 PM #

    Zero tolerance policy. Who knew?

  5. packalum08 06/06/2011 at 12:55 PM #

    UNC’s BOT want to know how the zero tolerance policy has affected recruiting.

  6. Lunatic Fringe 06/06/2011 at 1:16 PM #

    UNC’s Admin would be all for “zero tolerance” policy as long as they can define the parameters like the “zero tolerance” for partial/non qualifiers (*cough* Dwight Jones *cough*)

  7. Hungwolf 06/06/2011 at 1:29 PM #

    Stoops: You were informed, you were warned, you got caught, you out for good!

    Davis: We think you was informed, our system is lacking, we didn’t know, you got caught but not by me, we doing everything we can to get you back on the field, we’re appealing, we think the NCAA was too harsh, you can red shirt and play next year, senior day and pro day are still available to you if you eglible or not, plus sign out and go where you want we don’t care just don’t tell us.

  8. Prowling Woofie 06/06/2011 at 2:59 PM #

    ^ This…

  9. tjfoose1 06/06/2011 at 4:37 PM #

    “Institutional Control”?

    BMFD has lost no such thing.

    I think Butchie has proved beyond any doubt he has full control of the institution over in chapel hill.

  10. runwiththepack 06/06/2011 at 4:41 PM #

    Did you see that the NCAA took away the National Championship from USC?

    UNC fans i saw at the sports bar are ecstatic. I was very puzzled why they would be so gleeful, when, after all, they face NCAA punishment.

    Then I realized that they were cheering because they expect their 4 losses to NCSU to be taken away. 😉

  11. choppack1 06/06/2011 at 6:24 PM #

    If the NCAA really wanted to stop cheating – they’d use LOIC more..and the way to view LOIC would be the answer of a simple question:
    Was your compliance department effective, competent and aggressive?

    The compliance wing should be trying to find allegations.

    If you’ve ever seen The Firm, that old man from Cocoon in charge of security has a great line after they found something out about Cruise that the partners didn’t know and had no reason of knowing:
    “It’s my job to be suspicious when there’s nothing to be suspicious about.”

    Well, that should be a compliance office’s job.

    When a tutor is dismissed for being too close to student-athletes – they need to look at whom she’s tutored.

    You need to run background checks on all assistants – (this doesn’t have to be done before the hire, but it certainly should be afterwards.)

    Finally, you need to monitor the social media to see if there’s any low hanging fruit that shows the possibility of violtations.

    If you aren’t doing things like this, then I’d say you have LOIC…Evidently, the NCAA doesn’t see it that way…they evidently saw it that way in 1990, but definitely not in 2011.

  12. turfpack 06/06/2011 at 10:01 PM #

    BMFD thinks LOIC means=Laughing at-Outsmarting-I didn’t know-Cheating
    If BOT had any backbone they would fire all three of the Cheating’s Ok- Amigo’s….What a joke The Carolina Way as become.
    Sorry…but NOT EVERYONE cheats…and if somebody jump off a cliff..you going to do the same…how many times did you hear that growing up.

Leave a Reply