NCAA Football

An NFL Player Debuts His New Radio Show By Pretty Much Telling His Audience He Broke NCAA Rules In College

If you talk to an Ohio State football fan, or a fan of any college football program that has ever been punished by the NCAA, there’s a very good chance you’ll hear the following rationalization: “Oh, everyone breaks the rules. We’re just the ones that got caught.”

Yesterday, former Florida linebacker Channing Crowder gave some credibility to that argument.

Crowder, a linebacker at Florida from 2003-04, debuted his own radio show on WQAM in Miami yesterday, and the current Dolphins linebacker had some interesting words when it came to his playing days as a Gator.

“I’ll say hypothetically I don’t have any of my Florida jerseys. There were some Jacksonville businessmen who liked my play.”

This hypothetical situation presented by Crowder isn’t much different from the violations committed by former OSU quarterback Terrelle Pryor, and current Buckeyes Mike Adams, Dan “Boom” Herron, DeVier Posey, Solomon Thomas, and Jordan Whiting, all of whom were suspended for the first five games of the 2011 season for selling their memorabilia a Columbus tattoo parlor.

Crowder attempted to justify his “hypothetical” situation, as well as the violations committed by Pryor, with the argument that a player selling his memorabilia shouldn’t be a violation in the first place.

“Pryor can’t sell his own stuff?  It’s his!”

But within that attempted justification lies the problem. No, Pryor cannot sell his own stuff, as it is an NCAA violation. And while it might seem a little ridiculous that a player cannot sell something that he was given or has earned in the same way any other student can post his sneakers on eBay, there’s actually some legitimacy behind the rule.

Imagine players from OSU and say, Ohio University, post their respective jerseys on eBay. Which jersey will sell for the higher price? Probably the OSU one, right? Thus, this creates an unfair recruiting advantage for the big time college programs, as players would have the opportunity to make more money by attending a school like Florida as opposed to Florida A & M.

But don’t worry Gator fans, Crowder’s allusion to profiting from memorabilia during his days at Florida doesn’t mean much for the UF program. For one, Crowder last played for the Gators in 2004, thus putting him outside the NCAA’s statute of limitations when it comes to punishing a program, and Crowder played for former Florida coach Ron Zook, who as far as we know was unaware of these “hypothetical” violations, unlike now-former OSU coach Jim Tressel.

What Crowder’s admission does do is continue to paint a picture of the current state of college football, which may one day lead to the type of revolution and major changes in the institution that people like Jason Whitlock have been pining for.