THE CHEAP SEATS WITH STEVE CAMERON: NCAA is a mess, but don’t expect a change

It’s an old phrase.

My dad always used to say: “If I had a nickel for every time ... blah, blah, blah.”

That nickel is probably worth about two dollars now, so we’ll adjust the amount for inflation.

Now let me say it ...

“If I had a couple of dollars for every email I’ve received this week, all asking why the NCAA can’t achieve some control in college football, I’d ... I’d ...”

Well, I’m not sure what I’d do with a stash like that.

You get the point here, right?

It’s an obvious question: How can two Power 5 conferences (and several smaller ones) just bail out on a football season this fall — while the SEC, ACC and Big 12 intend to play right on through this coronavirus pandemic?

And by the way, there’s already trouble in paradise down South, with two Florida State players claiming the school’s testing procedures for COVID-19 are a mess.

So, why can’t all these conferences get on the same page?

How about some rules and regulations here?

OK, start with this ...

The NCAA is utterly useless.

YES, I know that many well-meaning coaches — like Gonzaga’s Mark Few — are trying to solve some of college sports’ problems by working through NCAA committees.

But they’re rowing upstream.

Before we even get to football, consider that the NCAA has found the University of Kansas basketball program guilty of roughly a gazillion recruiting infractions — serious Tier 1 violations that you’d think would bring a hail of penalties down on KU.

Except it’s not going to happen, because Kansas hired a limo full of lawyers — whose carefully crafted response to the NCAA was pretty simple ...

“Go to hell!”

Better than that, KU has threatened to sue the NCAA.

Not sure of the case, exactly, but they mean it.

I’ve included that little nugget just to give you an idea of the NCAA’s role in college sports.

The organization puts on March Madness and organizes championships in several other sports.

Other than that ...

Nada.

As for football ...

Hahaha!

Back in the mid-1980s, the courts ruled that TV rights and revenue (in other words, most of the money in football) belonged to individual schools, rather than any oversight organization like the NCAA.

Then, with the exception of Notre Dame (and later, BYU), schools handed these TV rights over their various conferences.

AT THE highest level of college football, and we’re talking about the Power 5, conference commissioners run the sport.

Think about something ...

In the real world, would it ever be sensible to run a $4 billion business with no CEO?

And do it without even a board of directors?

No, it makes no sense at all, but as ESPN’s Ivan Maisel put it: “Change to college football would require some people to give up power.

“I tried to think of anyone who’s ever voluntarily given up power. I got to George Washington, but then I ground to a halt.”

So, what we’ve got is each conference doing what’s best for its own members — and the good of the sport be damned.

What we’ve seen this week pretty much reflects the United States itself.

In the West and even the Midwest, health of student-athletes — and serious fears of worst-case scenarios — led the Pac-12 and the Big Ten to decide there were too many unknowns to let young men practice, play and travel.

In the South and Southwest, however, football is a religion and it’s going to continue as long as those schools can get enough players to stagger on the field.

YOU THINK they’re going to sit it out at Alabama or LSU?

Spokane columnist John Blanchette gets my best quip award for writing that ‘Bama would be suited up even if its quarterbacks had to be on ventilators between plays.

He was only half kidding.

I think.

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney already has chimed in to say a national championship without the Pac-12 and Big Ten would still be perfectly valid.

In the world of college football as it exists today, Dabo is probably right.

And next spring, the Pac-12 and Big Ten perhaps can have their own tournament and crown another champion.

Yeah, I see why you’ve been writing in about the NCAA and the madness that is college football.

But ...

Don’t expect it to change.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball, once per month during the offseason.