It was always odd to me that people thought this would be a huge deal.
Because the idea that players get paid is not new and we all knew that, but the idea that players were getting paid by coaches, that's out of the norm. That's what made this case different that it involved assistant coaches, and in the Louisville situation their head coach.
And of course the other reason is this wasn't the NCAA, it was the FBI. They don't have any sacred cows to protect, if they have evidence they're going to pursue it no matter what. They're not concerned about damaging the product the way the NCAA is, they're just following the money.
I have no idea how it's all going to turn out but i seriously doubt the FBI case is going to fall apart because one guy was misusing funds. The Feds have access that the NCAA never gets, the perfect example was Bazz. The NCAA was on him for years, they were positive the dad was getting paid under the table, and in the end they cleared him because they couldn't prove anything despite clearly being convinced the day was living beyond his means and had to be getting paid.
And then the feds got involved and found out the dad was committing mortgage fraud, and the dad admitted under oath he also took out a loan using Bazz' NBA future as collateral. The NCAA hounded that family for nearly 2 years and found nothing, and had to drop the case because their investigator told her boyfriend they were going to get him(bazz). The FBi just doesn't work that way, they can't get permission to use wiretaps on just innuendo, they have burdens of proof they have to meet in order to get that stuff. Their conviction rate is VERY high, it's very unusual for the FBI to do something like this and in the end be wrong about the case.
So the safe assumption here is that what the FBI said was happening, happened. Shoe companies were paying for kids to go to certain schools, the agent was paying money to assistant coaches to get kids, and to steer those kids to certain agents and financial advisors. The only question is how much more have they found that we don't know about yet, and how severely will the NCAA go after those schools when/if they get the evidence from the FBI?
We don't know the answer yet. I think many people expected the coaches to roll over and give up names and that stuff would come out during the season, it appears that hasn't happened, but it's still had a huge impact IMO. Arizona had the best recruiting class in the country in the process when this came out, they now have 2 recruits, one of whom is really not that good he just happens to have a famous dad and be friends with a bunch of highly rated kids(Williams, Bol among them) who were going to Arizona. USC has lost key members of its class too.
The schools involved have all been hurt. I also strongly believe both USc and ARizona's seasons have been hurt, they'd both have been better without this case hanging over their heads, and in USC's case costing them Melton.
Are those 2 schools getting the death penalty, pretty unlikely, but has this case significantly impacted both programs yes, is there likely to be further impact, yes.
