Why is no one blasting Vandy for cheating?

Written by Grubby | 23 December 2009

There is yet another bullet-point in a string of seemingly endless secondary violations in the news today, and it involves football and Tennessee.  But rather than the Vols, it is everyone's smart kid brother Vandy in violation.  We can debate the perceived intent vs. accident and recruiting advantages gained all day long, but what the Commodores did here was host a somewhat famous juco quarterback (Jordan Rogers, brother of Packer QB Aaron) in an official visit... during the dead period.

The excuse?

"The coaches were unaware of [the dead period rule]," Rodgers said, according to the report.

Why is no one taking shots at Bobby Johnson from the peanut gallery like they did for Kiffin.

This violation is pretty black and white.  We're not talking about smoke machines or questions about when someone can or cannot call a player.  We're talking about an official visit when no other school was ALLOWED to host players.  That's an advantage over all 119 other teams.

Vandy's athletics powers-that-be didn't exactly have much to say about it either.  Says David Williams, VU vice chancellor (since, you know, they don't have an athletic department anymore),

"Do we have secondary violations here? Sure, we've always had them. I think the NCAA takes the position that pretty much everybody is going to have secondary violations. The important thing is that you report it right away."

Just like when you accidentally get hammered at the bar and make out with that slutty girl from Orientation.  As long as you tell your girlfriend first thing in the morning, no harm, no foul.  Right?

Maybe they're getting a pass because they're, well, Vanderbilt.  At any rate, what we do know is that if the Big Orange Brother had done it, you wouldn't be reading about it on StadiumDrives.com or buried in ESPN's lower quarter.  It would be in the New York Times.