NCAA and Oklahoma at an Impasse?

It's starting to sound like it.

We've reported before (here, here) on Oklahoma's various snafus as it relates to the whole Rhett Bomar little work/big pay deal with a certain auto dealership. Oklahoma felt it did the right thing in catching Bomar in the act and kicking him and teammate J.D. Quinn off the team as sacrificial lambs. But then the NCAA smacked them down some more and now Oklahoma's steamed.

Red meat, please settle nicely onto my plate:

Oklahoma ``strongly disagrees'' with the NCAA's allegation that the university failed to adequately monitor the employment of dismissed starting quarterback Rhett Bomar and other athletes at a Norman car dealership, according to documents released by the university Friday.

``We ... assert that the University met, if not exceeded, industry standards regarding our student-athlete employment monitoring,'' University President David Boren said in a letter dated March 7, which was obtained by The Associated Press through an open records request.

``There were no other reasonable additional steps we could have taken that would have prevented these violations or detected them any sooner,'' Boren said in the letter.

The NCAA has claimed that Oklahoma violated its own guidelines by failing to collect earnings statements from 12 football players who worked at the dealership, and as a result did not detect NCAA rules violations.

Strangely enough, both sides are right. Welcome to the wacky world that is the NCAA ...
The NCAA's right because as it claims above, Oklahoma didn't collect the earnings statements. But Oklahoma's right that as they best understood the NCAA rules, they did what was passable in following the rules. That is, it's not their fault the players eluded their detection.

Oklahoma said that to have learned of the deception earlier than it did, the university would have had to require copies of time-clock records, paycheck stubs and W-2 tax information, that such a requirement was ``unrealistic'' and that even if additional monitoring had occurred, it wouldn't have caught the violations in the case. ``Compliance monitoring systems across the nation ... are only designed to monitor reported employment and determine inconsistencies, which is exactly what our system did,'' the university said.

What's the lesson here? The NCAA rules are well intended and poorly managed. When you're policing 119 D-IA highly competitive institutions who are doing everything they can to get an edge, most will do the bare minimum within the rules to police their own. Oklahoma felt they went above and beyond the call of duty and yet were unable to *immediately* catch the offending parties. They're rightly offended that the NCAA smacked them in spite of reasonable efforts.

What this means for the future is that Oklahoma has a major chip on its shoulder and probably is going to be ten levels of intolerant towards any competitors who through innuendo or truth may or may not have committed infractions. If Texas or Oklahoma State get caught up in the blood and dust of her rage, so be it. At least that's how I think this will all go down.

Like I said, gotta love the NCAA.

Previously at FanHouse:
Did a Third Oklahoma Player Violate NCAA Rules?
NCAA Tells Oklahoma Something it Already Knew