Florida State and Alabama Vacating Wins

It has been a busy offseason this year, and I have every reason to expect that the controversies surrounding college football are going to linger for some time. However, I'm only going to cover one of those controversies at present, since I have already and several times proclaimed my preference for the bowl and poll system rather than playoffs.

No, instead I'm going to discuss another issue, that being -- as you probably guess from the title of this page -- the recent decision by the NCAA to force Florida State and Alabama to vacate wins due to their various misdeeds and infractions. Many have said that this is an incredibly weak punishment on the part of the NCAA, rather than reducing teams' scholarships and whatnot. Others (usually the coaches receiving the punishments) have said that this is too hard on the coaches who knew nothing about the infractions. As usual, I have an entirely different opinion on the matter.

In fact, I applaud the NCAA's decision to make victories the currency in which punishments are paid out. Because, at the end of the day, the only reason why schools either cheat or permit cheating is to get victories.

It's not Punishment Unless it Hurts

Let's recap a few things here. The NCAA is in business to do a few things. Among those reasons for being, one is to protect the academic integrity of its member institutions. Another is to ensure fair competition among its member institutions.

The latter has resulted in a long laundry list of rules about what schools can and can't do, and I'll admit that a lot of the rules are pretty silly. But, let's face it, most of the silly rules are there because schools were slipping perks through loopholes that should have been closed by following the spirit of the rules.

The academic integrity seems like it should be something the schools take care of on their own. However, another issue we must face is that, in many circumstances, they don't.

So why would an institution of higher education sell out its own academic reputation, while breaking rules and even laws just to keep certain people on their football team? Simple: to win.

Wins are What Matter

You can talk all you like about economic factors and the honor of sport and assorted other things like that... people want to see their team win. And if you are concerned about supporting the athletic department economically, winning teams are what make people buy tickets and t-shirts. Wins are the entire reason why people help players cheat on tests, give away tons of free textbooks for classes they know the player isn't taking, slip some money in their pockets, or defend their upbringing and nobility when they perform any of a range of felonies or misdemeanors. The perks and permissiveness keep players on the field and happy.

Why does the NCAA put take away scholarships from a team? Because the loss of scholarships gives it fewer players, which means that there are fewer players that can help that team win. Why does the NCAA take away or lessen television rights, bowl appearances, or recruiting privileges? Because it makes it harder for schools to recruit, making it harder for that team to get players that can help that team win.

So, instead of punishing teams in ways that could potentially hurt them in the future, this is directly taking away the one thing that so many rules were broken to get in the first place.

Would I want to see my team have to give up victories over some infractions that a few of its teams committed? Nope. In fact, there are few things I would want to see less. Those wins were agonizing hours on fall Saturdays. Those wins were hours of stress for me as a fan. I don't want to see those wins disappear. They were part of my life as a fan, and then, poof, they would be gone.

Alabama and Florida State are both, in some ways, getting off easy. Alabama had one good season that they are losing to penalties, but the rest of the wins for both teams were nothing all that special. Neither team is losing a conference championship or even, if such a thing could be imagined, a national championship. But if the NCAA sticks to this new tactic, someone eventually will lose a crystal football... that I can most assuredly guarantee. I just hope to heaven it's not my team!

Getting Idealistic

The entire idea behind sports is to win clean. Cheating to win goes contrary to the point of having sports in the first place. Otherwise, who gives a crap about steroids, blood doping, stealing signals, putting in ringers, tripping runners, fixing games, deliberately injuring people, cutting people off when passing, running people off the track, or any other method of cheating that has been implemented across the realm of competition?

For the players and the coaches who cheated, losing wins means the loss of their legacy. And in team sports, that means hurting everyone else involved as well. One player cheating in a football game means that the entire team and its coaching staff and its fans are reaping the rewards of that player cheating.

When one player on offense commits a false start penalty, does that player alone have to start the next play 5 yards behind the line? Does the coach have the option of pulling that player out of the game to avoid the penalty? Or does the entire team have to start the next player 5 yards farther back, so that everyone is punished for the infractions of one player?

In a team sport, the teammates and coaches of a rule-breaking player are punished along with that player. That player whose team, in the case of college football, the other players chose to join. That player that the coaches recruited and signed to a scholarship. That player that was accepted by the university and rooted on by countless fans. All because of one player, everyone who cares about and is involved with that football team has to be a part of a team that just lost that much ground because one player broke a rule on the field. Why so different off of it?

The Eyes of History

Likewise, we should not discount the tremendous effect upon each team that vacates those wins. That is because college football is a sport that with a very long history and every team with a proud tradition takes great pride in its history. What that means for both Florida State and Alabama is that they are losing ground in the all-time wins and winning percentage calculations.

Scoff if you will, but Alabama was proudly ensconced in the third spot in all-time winning percentage and they were, at one point, almost unassailably ahead of the fourth-place team. However, the improvement in the rest of the SEC and scholarship losses took their toll on the Crimson Tide and they fell down to fifth in that list. But with the loss of their wins, now they are down in seventh, just behind Nebraska. Just a few tenths of a percentage point means a lot when you are in a tightly-packed cluster of teams in the top 10. I assure you, when Alabama talks about their all-time winning percentage ranking, they will, for the rest of time, defend themselves with the qualification that the NCAA "stole" their wins. That is supposing, of course, that the NCAA holds firm on the vacated wins, which may or may not happen.

Florida State is in a similar spot. They have been climbing the all-time winning percentage ladder for a long time and they were fighting to make the jump from the 11th spot to reach the top 10. There is a big gap between those spots and the last few seasons of less-than-stellar football have hurt them in their race for the top. And with the loss of 14 wins, they will have much, much more work to do to get into that rarified air.

So, when you consider the vacating of wins as a punishment, do not think that history will view those missing wins as minor damage. But don't think that the punishment doesn't fit the situation, because wins are the very reason that teams break the rules in the first place.