Ex-Con in Chicago Thinks the NCAA Should Be Going After Charlie Strong and Louisville

Hmmmm. Did Hurtt get a whiff the Nevin Shapiro story was going to blow up and get out while he could? Better yet, how did he produce such a sick class (by Louisville standards) featuring seven high school stars from Miami?

The thing is, there’s a Clint Hurtt at most of the major college football programs – a slick-talking charmer who works in all the gray areas of college football and delivers players. Hurtt was exposed because of the Shapiro scandal. How will the others be caught? In this cheating age, where programs basically need to bend the rules to keep up, everyone needs a Clint Hurtt. The most famous one of these smooth operators from recent years is Trooper Taylor at Auburn. Guess who was named one of the best recruiters in the country in 2010 by Rivals? You got it – Trooper Taylor. He helped deliver the Tigers a recruiting class that led to a national title.

The woefully inept NCAA hasn’t been able to catch many (any?) of these recruiters doing anything shady, but it is now trying a new approach: According to Dennis Dodd and Charles Robinson, the NCAA is granting immunity to athletes if they’re willing to dish dirt on what went down behind-the-scenes. Writes Dodd:

"“Limited immunity” is a little-known procedure granted to NCAA investigators to get information from a player “when such an individual otherwise might be declared ineligible for intercollegiate competition,” according to the NCAA Manual. Roe Lach put it another way: “When we think that’s really our only shot of getting that information.” In essence, it allows guilty parties to become informants in exchange for playing time."

The next logical step: Punish the head coaches who have rule-breakers on their staff. Yes, even the ones who look the other way.