There are several major problems right now in the NCAA, and a lot of them are correctable. The transfer portal and NIL can provide some good to the sport, but they've also conjured up some negatives like multi-time transfers and tampering.
Basically, college sports have been like the wild, wild west these days, but Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti apparently doesn't want the NCAA to investigate and punish schools who are guilty of tampering.
That's right, according to On3, the Big Ten has requested that there be a hold put on punishments regarding tampering because they're too difficult to police in today's NCAA.
That's just an insane request, and talk about making yourself look guilty.
The Big Ten just put a massive target on its back
Nothing says "we definitely didn't do anything wrong" quite like a conference's commissioner writing a letter to beg for the suspension of any tampering-related punishments. I don't know about you, but that kind of sounds like the commissioner might know that some of his biggest cash cows are responsible for said rule break.
Now I don't have any insider knowledge, but rather just rumors and speculation to work off of. There has been talk of tampering in the Big Ten and the NCAA did just reveal that it was going to hand out "severe" punishments for rule-breakers.
Weird timing for the Big Ten to make this ridiculous request.
Not only does this say "look over here!" to the NCAA, but it also makes the conference look a little extra slimey to the rest of the country. Why would the commissioner ask for the dismissal of thise rule if he had nothing to worry about?
It doesn't make much sense.
Petitti now put an extra spotlight on his conference -- there's just no way he expected this news to get out. He couldn't have made the request at a worse time.
Could we soon see a Big Ten program or two penalized by the NCAA for tampering just based on this insane request? I'd bet that there are already investigations happening around the Big Ten by the NCAA.
Crazy times ahead.