Alabama, Florida State under different set of rules

Here we go again. The NCAA has suddenly re-discovered its ability to selectively enforce its rules.

Southern Cal star player Reggie Bush’s family allegedly lived in posh digs provided by a potential Bush agent, yet it’s simply too complicated for the NCAA’s sleuths to unravel. Ohio State’s Maurice Clarett says dozens of his former teammates in Columbus were getting extra benefits, the governing body of collegiate sports “can’t find” Clarett. Never mind he was at the Denver Broncos training camp.

But Alabama and Florida State — two favorite whipping boys of the NCAA — now those two rogues are a different matter entirely.

A ludicrous suggestion? Of course it is. Except for it makes such obvious sense.

The NCAA hammered Florida State with four years probation last week, ordering the forfeiture of as many as 14 games in football, which would leave Bobby Bowden 15 wins behind Penn State’s Joe Paterno for the most all-time victories in major-college history.

Now we learn the same organization sent Alabama an official letter of inquiry stemming from the 2007 textbook scandal back in May, and that the school appeared before the Infractions Committee in San Diego on Feb. 20. Alabama officials suspended five players for four games in ‘07 for allegedly providing free textbooks acquired via scholarship privileges to their friends.

Not that neither school is without blame. The NCAA concluded that 61 FSU student-athletes in 10 sports cheated on an online test from the fall of 2006 through the summer of ‘07. Some 25 of the athletes were purportedly football players, all of which were suspended “as soon as we knew there was a problem,” according to university president T. K. Wetherell. The university self-imposed a reduction in scholarships and offered a two-year probationary period. The NCAA countered with far more severe reductions in scholarships, extended the probation through 2013 and ordered the forfeits.

At Alabama, the process is still on-going. After the Infractions Committee appearance more than two weeks ago, officials are reduced to waiting to see what the NCAA might impose. An ominous warning shot was included in the official letter — one we’ve heard before — featured a charge that “the scope and nature of the allegations demonstrate a failure to monitor the student-athlete textbook distribution system.”

That “failure to monitor” can sometimes equate to the dreaded “lack of institutional control” phrase that often accompanies stiff sanctions. Why Alabama failed to let the public know the investigation has been going on since May is open for speculation, but suffice it to say such information would have hardly aided recruiting efforts. That’s not to mention how Nick Saban might react to a system that was apparently in place well before he arrived at the Capstone.

So here we are, sitting at the feet of the omnipotent NCAA. And as we so well know, a different set of rules apparently applies for some as opposed to others. If history is any indication, Alabama and FSU are in the “others” category.