Florida State gets exposed! deservedly so.

Lots of schools have done stuff like this. It sucks but to suggest that all FSU does is go after stupid kids who are great players is ridiculous. They just had a Rhodes Scholar. Would you call Chad Pennington stupid? Because he was only a runner up for that scholarship.

And I'm not sure what school is finding all of these genuis athletes that are hiding somewhere. If I had to take a guess I'd say most football players are of average intelligence with a few really smart and really dumb exceptions. If a guy is an idiot but a freakishly good athlete lots of schools will target him, not just FSU.

 

APR is the NCAA determination called Academic Progress Report. It is non subjective and is just numbers....I did know the UF football discrepancy between the average student and football player but really did not want to start a Gator discussion. In another thread I did point out that UF is either A...doing a great job with their football player that come in with regard to academics...or as I think they are getting passed through and taking some pretty basic courses...but I do not have the energy to discuss it when UF fans defend their program and their are not definitive answers as to why their APR is pretty dog gone high and their average entrance scores are pretty low.

 

Oboy we are starting to wear him down!!!!!




Florida is like no other college and makes exceptions for some kids to get into school. Florida is a very hard school to get into, But Florida's football team does value an education.

 

LOL...for you Skeet I will find the energy to debate


Actually I do not think you can get to the answers without being closer to the program than I am. You Gators are good guys here and damn it I must admit you are wearing me down...just do not bring up Urban Meyer and I may even wear orange and blue a time or two next year.........most of the UF grads I know are pretty damn bright people and a couple played football so it is hard to argue against what you know.........

where is motion BTW.....................

 

Good deal bro, that you learned. I hope you didn't think my 1st response was too harsh. I thought that after I wrote it. But I was always that skinny nerdy kid who had resentment for those that always beat me at sports in school. I still carry some of that resentment around and am working on getting rid of it.

But it always frosted my butt that some kids never put out in the classroom, but just because they played football or baseball or wrestled they seemed to pass and never did the homework, and missed lots of classtime. They also got extra tutoring that was never given to me.

I have to learn to let all that go.

 

I have an assault rifle you can borrow...releases tension.......no more frosted butt......

 

Well maybe you can find comfort in the sense that in my case the laziness and crappy attitude I carried around put me behind when it came time to play the "game of life" wich is a game you cannot cheat, you have to make your own way.

 

I do not want to come across as a jerk, but I really think quite a few posters in this thread would be well served to research the scandal and the role of the university in it. This entire scandal was caused by one or two bad apples (on the administrative/education) side who many would argue in fact had a bone to pick with the university. The coaching staff and most of the University played no role in and had no knowledge of this.

The cheating took place on an online test (for which some student athletes, as well as some regular students, were provided the answers) for a class that is considered to be one of the "easy A electives" that is offered. To claim that cheating is rampant at FSU is preposterous, cheating on online homework/tests occurs at all levels of the education system at schools in all parts of the country. This is not to advocate this behavior, merely to point out that this "horrible cheating" FSU is allowing student athletes to participate in is certainly not a university specific thing.

I am not trying to say that student athletes are not given very generous help at FSU, I have no way of proving/knowing one way or the other. As a Florida State student, I would however like to say that I have met plenty of hard working and intelligent student athletes in the short time I have been at the university and I find the initial post uninformed, inaccurate, and borderline offensive. Whether it is a high profile example like Myron Rolle or my unheard of dorm suite mate, who is on scholarship for track, (who I can assure you is maintaining his grades through countless hours of hard work) there are plenty of student athletes who do not deserve the negative publicity that is being given to them. Questionable academic happenings occur at every major university and it is illogical to make such sweeping generalizations about FSU student athletes.

Additionally, academics as a whole have greatly improved at Florida State (Please don’t flame me about being a lower ranked school than Miami and the University of Florida. I was accepted at both universities and simply felt FSU offered me the best opportunity of the in state schools for my area of study.). We now have numerous nationally acclaimed and recognized departments and have achieved top 20 rankings in several of these schools. Both the GPA and SAT/ACT of students attending the University has gone up dramatically since our football glory days. The claim that football players are less intelligent and less willing to put in academic effort than during the glory years is ridiculous given the very well known reputations of some of the players on those championship teams. I believe it is likely that athletes, even football and basketball players, are held more accountable now than they were in the past at FSU. The stories that have been told by numerous alumni about football stars from the past (at FSU and other state schools) would trump the cheating in the current scandal. I truly believe that FSU and the other state schools are running much cleaner (although still majorly flawed) programs than they once did.
What these athletes did was obviously wrong and they should be punished accordingly.

However, FSU did a much better job taking care of this situation than many other major schools have in the past. The misdeeds were reported and sanctions were self imposed by the University.

The punishments that were levied by the NCAA are the same exact punishments self imposed by FSU, with the exception of the vacated wins (which the university plans to appeal). The university will go on probation for four years and will lose several scholarships in a variety of sports. The impact on the future of the program is minimal though. So to say that “their done and deservedly so” is hyperbolic and ill thought out at best.

I am not going to sit here and say that my school should be unpunished, but I do feel the allegations in the first post are not well thought out and lack any sort of reputable evidence to support much of what they claim.


On the topic of the “demise” of our football program…..I think the inability to find a good quarterback to lead the offense and the problems with the coaching staff are much more responsible than any other factor. As much as I love Bobby he is no more than a figurehead at this point. Hopefully, with the additions of Jimbo, several promising young quarterbacks, and some good young coaches FSU is on the way back. Nothing was better than watching all of the main state schools compete at the top of the national rankings.
BTW, Everett Brown is not a dumb individual. Perhaps, he was unprepared or nervous about this particular interview, but from my personal experience he is a very nice and engaging guy. As sports fans we should definitely recognize how inaccurately interviews and the media can portray players and teams.

 

Thanks for getting out all i wanted to say. Im goin to college there too right now, my first year. I think we can put a solid team out next year though, Ponder should improve with what should be much better line play with the year of experience they now have. We have a lot of talent, its a shame about Preston however. Agree with you that Jimbo needs to take over.

 

Yeah, I I am definitely loving my first year at FSU. Nothing like a game at Doak... and of course the tailgates . I think we will be much improved this year; Ponder should get better (and EJ is waiting), Trickett is doing great things with the line, and I love our recruiting class. Definitely sucks about Preston (I think the incident actually happened at the McDonald's next to my dorm lol), but I think we will be okay. We have some up and coming receivers like Reed, Easterling (if he can overcome the achilles), and Fortson. Not to mention the stable of backs we should have...
And we have the basketball team this year.......which should definitely be making the tournament unlike a couple of other state schools

Btw, did you post at the old site? I think I remember you from there, not that I really post that often.

 

Easterling is a really great guy

 

I never said every player on the team was of excellent character. As I said in my initial post, I am not trying to cause issues, just trying to set some facts straight....especially since many of the conclusions that have been drawn very hastily.
I am disappointed that I typed up that entire post and you refuted it by trying to just dig at the character of FSU athletes. Easterling was used as an example of a player on the field I was excited about, not an example of excellent character. I usually enjoy reading your posts, but this honestly just seems like a low blow that does nothing to further discussion. I can not claim the team is completely made up high character guys, but no college football team is. The whole point of the post was to get people to research the scandal more before they make such sweeping generalizations.
And is not as though FSU is the first school to take an athlete with some character issues in high school. Like many such cases all over the country, to the best of my knowledge Easterling has done nothing wrong since coming to college.
Percy Harvin was banned from high school sports in Virginia and UM has had its high profile problems as well.

 

Not to mention I believe the age of consent in Florida is 16 so I am not really sure where this is coming from. Clearly anyone who is arrested for this type of stuff is a heinous criminal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_v._State_of_Georgia

 

Oh and BTW, I was referring to "Taiwan Easterling", not "Antwain Easerling" who is indeed a major character concern and thus did not play at a Florida school. To the best of my knowledge Taiwan has never been in trouble with the law.....

 

Since Butch Davis took over Miami's number of "incidents" can be counted on, I'd say two hands (that is 15 years). OTOH FSU has had just as many in less than 2 years.

While I do believe that not all FSU football players or athletes in general are bad people, there is no questioning the fact that FSU has, and continues to take people of questionable character far more often than Miami has done in the last 15 years. And its reflected in this scandal. So many of the athletes took part in this sham, and not one of them self-reported it, but it was a school official (non-athletic) that reported it....am I correct ? Not one of those athletes thought that cheating on a test was morally wrong, and partcipated willingly. That again is a test of moral character, and the FSU athletes failed miserably.

Until Wetherall feels that allowing people of lower moral character to attend his campus, is more detremental than positive, these kinds of scandals will continue to happen at Florida State. And Saint Bobbah will continue to give schollys to bullies, thugs and rapists. Why did it take 3 arrests to get rid of Preston Parker ? The man was caught with marijuana and coke, and a loaded gun in his car, and Bobbah didn't even make him sit out more than a few plays. Yes he eventally kicked him off the team, but why did it take 3 times to come to the conclusion this guy was no good for the team ?

 

right, because all UM players if handed answers to the test would of said, OH NO! i cant do that! thats wrong! please..

and nice try on the Easterling thing, wrong Easterling...

http://footballrecruiting.rivals.com/viewprospect.asp?pr_key=31007&Sport=1

check out who he got offers from and who he didnt.

btw, i dont know to much about Antwain Easterling, but please. he as a senior in highschool, yes he was 19 in high school, had sex with a Sophmore, also in the same high school.

thats just a bull**** crime IMO. and lol at something like that making someone a bad person.

 

Doak=best atmosphere ever. Ya i did, posted more regularly back then, just recently found this new site so figured id start posting again. What dorm do you stay at?

 

Please don't think I have anything against Miami, I grew up a Canes and Noles fan (yes, weird I know). I cheered when Miami won the 01 title and still believe that is probably one of the greatest college football teams ever. I also do really enjoy reading your posts. I really just wanted to clarify some facts and straighten some things out (not create ill feelings) because some of the comments that were thrown around in the thread were pretty inaccurate and painted a much worse picture.

And I certainly agree that the Miami program is much cleaner than it once was (I really am impressed by the job Shannon etc has done cleaning it up) and the FSU program still has a way to go in many senses. I am merely trying to explain that a lot of the hate towards FSU in this thread is somewhat unmerited. People really need to learn the facts before they make certain accusations.

By self reported I am not saying that the students reported themselves. I am saying that the University reported the scandal to the NCAA when it found out about it and gave itself fairly sizable punishments (deservedly so). FSU, like all of the state schools has had its unfavorable moments, but I really do hope and think that under Jimbo’s leadership we are moving in a better direction.

Just to clarify, I do not believe Preston was ever caught with cocaine and he was suspended for the first two games of the season (his first arrest was for stealing a dvd from a local best buy)…not that it really matters and he surely does deserve to have his scholarship revoked. However, the last couple of years the players FSU has brought in seem to be better than what we had brought in in the past (i.e some of the Tallahassee guys, Geno Hayes, Nicholson, and other scum). So yes up until recently FSU has taken some people they probably should not have (although Miami did take willie Williams, not trying to start an argument just an example), but I believe for the most part since Jimbo has come in the classes have been of mostly higher character guys.

 

Degraff. It is nice for a dorm, but I can not wait to get off campus...

 

Well the program in Miami has been clean since Butch Davis took over in 1995, I don't understand why you didn't give him credit.

I think we can both agree that most programs can do better, but its been extremely unfair the amount of national critizism Miami has faced, and the inequitable image we have had to face, when other programs have certainly been more nefarious as of late, than the U.

FSU has a lot of problems that unless they are adressed, and not just swept under the carpet, will come back to haunt them in the future.

 

Of course the amount of criticism has been hugely unfair for Miami. Butch did an amazing job cleaning up and rebuilding the program, just as he is doing at UNC now. The Pata incident being regarded as the fault of UM (not to marginalize it as it is extremely tragic and he seemed like a good man), the safety (name escapes me) who was shot in the butt, the brawl (which definitely was blown out of proportion), etc. I agree that these incidents were blown out of proportion and UM has been unfairly treated by the national media.

What the point I am continuing to try to make is that FSU did not take the cheating incident lightly and there are currently not issues being "swept under the carpet". The University has already suspended athletes in every sport who took part in the cheating for a good portion of their seasons, has put itself on probation, and has reduced its number of scholarships all before the NCAA even came up with a ruling. The athletic departments had nothing to do with the cheating and no knowledge of it. The few school staff who were involved have obviously been taken care of. This was not a case where FSU had lost control of its institution.

So I fail to see this huge amount of problems facing FSU. The program will have to remain squeaky clean as it is under probation for the next four years. Which if you look at just the suspensions on the football team this year you will see is the case. Key players missed big games because they had missed an extra class. One of our better receivers, Bert Reed, was suspended for three or four games this year for academic reasons. As were several other players.

I feel that many of the incidents that many people associate with FSU are made much bigger and more heinous for similar reasons to UM. Both are big programs with checkered/historic pasts that the national media loves to sensationalize. Facts get thrown by the wayside in order to create a hot story, as is evidenced by some of the inaccurate claims in this thread. To say that UM has had its name dragged through the mud unfairly while not feeling that FSU has as well is a mistake in my opinion. But if that is your opinion and that of others you are certainly entitled to it, I just recommend reading up on some factual/unbiased accounts of the various scandals/incidents before passing judgment....

 

I don't see how you or anyone not on the NCAA committee could really know what the coaches or AD Dept. knew, or when they knew it, or what kind of cover up may have happened. So to declare them totally innocent is a bit high-handed on your part. I believe the NCAA must have found some evidence otherwise because of the severity of the sanctions they levied. The self-imposition of sanctions was for no other reason than to placate the NCAA because had they not done that it is concievable that the sanctions may have been much more severe.

To believe that FSU has had even the modicum of scrutiny and ill will directed at it that the U has suffered over the last 25 years if at the least laughable, and at worst insincere on your part. Its not even been close.

Saint Bobbah is loved by the national media, as his fake-redneck schtick is soaked up by the whoring sports writers. His "dab gummits" wore off on most Miami fans 30 years ago. The man is not as innocent and naïve as you may believe, and is probably not the jolly goody-two shoes
Christian man many percieve him to be, much as his colleague baseball coach Mike Martin is also not the innocent he tries, but fails miserably to come off as. They are one of the big reasons I just can't stand Florida State. As a Hurricane alumnus and fan I am supposed to hate the Gator more, but because of those two I just become nauseaous when I see or hear about anything from Florida State. Mike "The Lord of No Rings" Martin is actually the worst of the two, as he has accused Coach Morris of cheating without proof (very silly accusations over walkie talkies and stealing signals) and last year's Sunday afternoon get-away game debacle for the Seminoles. The thin veneer of any last shred of dignity that man had was stripped away when he blamed Morris for their not being able to play the last inning. It was not Morris, but Martin that controlled what time that game started. So blame lays at the feet of Martin. Of course I had already lost my respect for the man the time he engaged in a shouting match with some Miami fans after a particularly bitter defeat for the Seminoles. His use of four letter foul language belied his professed Christian ideals. A truck driver would have been proud of his nasty mouth.

If you are offended don't take it personal, but I am just being honest.

 

No worries man. I am just trying to ensure that people don't get a badly skewed picture of the incident, as is known to often be the case with the national media.....things tend to get sensationalized and facts thrown by the wayside.

The NCAA has already ruled, as the incident took place over a year ago, and the coaching staffs/AD were not found to be involved. Based on the type of cheating (one class and largely online) it would be hard to believe they would be involved.

I certainly don't mean to say that "because lots of universities and students cheat on online exams it is okay". I am just saying that this online cheating is prevalent at virtually every school and is not limited to athletes, it is certainly not the correct/moral thing to do. FSU deserves to be punished for the misdeeds, I just want to make sure people remain informed and don't rush to judgments.

Check out these links, they are not the best but at least present some of the facts:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3159534
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=3038041
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/acc/2008-01-24-fsu-academics_N.htm

I'll try to dig up some better links at some point

 

It's cool man. I understand you don't like us .... but at least we have the Phins we can both cheer for!! It is cool you are passionate about your University, it would be nice if both FSU and UM alumni/fans were less fair weather. We need this rivalry to be revitalized and the Florida schools back at the top of the college football world. The stadiums don't fill up quite like they used to.

From what I have read the punishment is not any harsher than what could be expected in this type of case (and what was self-imposed), with the exception of the wins. The university obviously did this to abate the NCAA, most schools would not penalize themselves if there were not some sort of higher ruling body keeping things in check like a government. Taking away the wins is because ineligible athletes (people who cheated) participated in games before the university knew about the cheating. FSU is appealing this and will use the defense that because they did not know the athletes were ineligible the wins should not be vacated. Basically, what I am saying is that the reason for the vacated wins (extra punishment) is because of the ineligible athletes participating not because of any extra findings by the NCAA. The NCAA has stated FSU did a good job dealing with the cheating and that they have found no other unreported findings. So this makes me believe that the coaches/AD were not involved and had no knowledge of the cheating, but I understand if you feel otherwise.

Miami has definitely received more negative publicity than FSU has, but that certainly does not mean FSU has not received more than its fair share. The media sensationalizes things, it is what they do. Both are big time programs and both have been victimized by the media. One more so than the other, but both have.

I can not comment at all on the baseball coach because I pay absolutely no attention to baseball in general and have no interest in it. If the baseball coach is indeed as you say, that is unfortunate, but he certainly is not the first scumbag to be a coach *insert Nick Saban joke*

As far as Bobby.....there are definitely plenty of people who dislike him and plenty who feel otherwise. I have no doubt Bobby has done some immoral things as coach, but I also feel that he is a good man (I know you won't, be chaning your opinion, but this is mine). I have heard countless first hand stories from students about his generosity and good deeds (like insisting on giving a film intern a ride to his apartment when he couldn't find one). He has signed and personalized a football for me, just like he does any student that drops a ball of at Doak Campbell for him. No man is perfect and it is probably true that his southern gentlemen legend has been exaggerated like most legends are, but "Bobbah" is either one of the greatest actors ever or as I believe not a bad guy.

 

Kick us while we're down...boo....

 

I would imagine FSU is not the only one who has this issue, they are just the only ones that have been exposed because of the University they are. They're a prestigious program so they are going to get this splattered all over newspapers, etc. I just watch Outside the Lines report and the University of Ohio Sports Director or something along those lines, I can't remember his exact occupation/title, said that this was a major issue in Marshall at one point and it's a major issue around the country right now. Problem is, no one is willing to admit it and get help with it, instead try to work around the NCAA and try to get away with it because they want to win football games.

Pretty sad that football gets in the way of education of some.

 

I absolutely loved the part in That ESPN piece when the reporter asks that lady.."So..you had a couple of players with 60 IQ's...does that make them ******ed?"

Lady: "yes."

FSU has ******ed players. who wudda thunk it.

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AqnsjEPLIA&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube- Florida State Lineman[/ame]