Nevin Shapiro Spoke to Prospective Coaches for Miami. Claims He Wasn't On Their Radar Look Increasingly Less Credible.

According to Houston Nutt’s phone records, Shapiro spoke with him twice on Dec. 7, 2006. Nutt spoke to both his agent and Miami assistant AD Tony Hernandez four times on the same day. Miami partizans will point out any doubt however unreasonable, but, to anyone thinking logically, this strongly suggests he was involved.

Every program has BSDs hanging around. Shapiro’s intimacy is neither abnormal nor wrong per se. The issue is how someone like Shapiro could be that embedded without arousing suspicion. University administrators would have had to know what was happening or willfully distanced themselves so they wouldn’t find out. At an institution with Miami’s past, that degree of naivety is unbelievable.

Hang onto legalese like “statutes of limitations” and “repeat violator” status if you wish, but Miami has shown consistently over 30 years it is neither willing nor capable of policing any facet of its football program. Decadence, arrests and impropriety are as essential to “the U” ethos as their national titles. Multiple national scandals have not shamed the University into compliance nor have postseasons bans and massive scholarship reductions.

This is the end game for the NCAA. Miami’s decades of disgrace scream for the death penalty. Their only defense is lame and unfounded assertions they’re not the only ones. If the NCAA had a shred of authority left and if this was still about amateurism and the dignity of academic institutions, the school would cease to have a football program.

SMU’s death penalty in the 1980s was harsh. It was also deserved and it worked. It successfully eradicated the school’s unsavory football culture, however romantic Craig James wishes to make it in retrospect. The NCAA will not crack down in a similar manner here. It’s not because that penalty was so devastating. It’s because the member institutions have too many vested TV interests. Multiple parties lose money if Miami goes down. No member institution wants that precedent on the table. The reasoning will be the same reasoning Cam Newton purportedly used to go to Auburn, “the money was too much.”

Miami will get off with a moderate spanking. That does not mean the Shapiro scandal “wasn’t that bad.”

[Photo via Getty]