Back in August, the NCAA hit former Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh with a four-year show-cause penalty and that was followed up just recently with show-cause penalties for former Wolverines assistants Jesse Minter and Steve Clinkscale.
Each of those former Ann Arbor coaches are sitting comfortably out-of-reach from the NCAA's reach as members of the LA Chargers staff under Harbaugh, which significantly dulls the "sting" those punishments were meant to dish out, as the show-cause only applies to working at NCAA institution.
While speaking on The Triple Option podcast episode released earlier today, former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer offered up an interesting suggestion that would deliver a much more meaningful blow to rule breakers.
Referencing players that get caught with performance enhancing drugs such as steroids, Meyer points out that the NCAA dishes out a punishment that basically ends their career at the college level with a ban.
That leads them to the high profile 2009 case of Oklahoma State receiver Dez Bryant who was caught lying to the NCAA about his relationship with, ironically enough, Deion Sanders before he was suspended three games into the season. The now famous Colorado head coach was simply a former NFL star at that time who had simply invited him over to his house for dinner after working out together. The NCAA insisted that Sanders had an NFL agent present in his home to meet the star receiver, and when Bryant was interrogated by the NCAA, he panicked and lied, later confessing before the NCAA ruled Bryant ineligible.
Meyer insists he brought that exact scenario up to those at the AFCA and NCAA on several occasions, and suggested that coaches who are caught lying should be treated in the same manner.
"If you lie, as a college football coach, to the NCAA - in my personal opinion - you are finished. You are done."
"That's not sending a text message. That's not going to lunch with someone you're not supposed to go to lunch with. That's not you sent a letter when you weren't supposed to or any of the frivolous Level III violations. But when they've got you, and they ask 'Did you do this?' and they refuse to cooperate, or they lie, in my very strong opinion, you are finished coaching in Division I college football, or basketball, or whatever sport."
"Because here is what happens. The risk now [for coaches to lie] is too high and I don't think you ever see this kind of stuff again."
Urban goes on to ask why Dez Bryant was treated more harshly than coaches are by the NCAA for the same transgression, which I think is an excellent point.
Many will be blinded by the messenger being Urban and his roots at Ohio State instead of the message here, but I think there's a lot of merit in what Meyer is suggesting here.
If the NCAA wants to be finally be taken seriously, they'd be smart to listen to Meyer's suggestion - in my opinion.
Leave your thoughts in the comments.