It is my goal as a writer to avoid writing the words “Colin Cowherd” or “The Herd” in a legitimate blog article.  However, Colin Cowherd apparently produced some worthwhile radio today… thanks to the wife of current Browns and former University of Texas QB Colt McCoy.  Seriously.  She called into the show and might have dropped quite the story on Austin, Texas.  The Big Lead has the transcript of the most interesting aspects, but here’s one excerpt…

You cannot expect 19-20 year old kids to say no to free stuff when they’re in college … It’s hard, I think, for a lot of these guys to even know to say, ‘I can take this, I can’t take this, nobody’s going to know, will someone find out?’ Things that could be handed to you that seem so minor – a dinner, a hunt, a fishing trip – most kids don’t even realize are illegal.

I know Colt was approached quite a bit [by agents] but I saw so many of his teammates who didn’t have some of that self control to say no to somebody … it’s hard, because you have adults who you respect and who you think will know what’s right and wrong … when you have adults promising things and offering things …

Now, will this cause a full-blown investigation of the University of Texas along the lines of say… what we’ve seen in Columbus?  Of course not!  At least, not now.  Perhaps this story will be forgotten by Mack Brown’s next loss to Iowa State.  Yet, in light of the scandal that’s broken out at Ohio State, some questions need to be raised about what she had to say…

Remember the Sports Illustrated expose about the tattoo scandal in Columbus??  For several hours, we were all led to believe that Jim Tressel was hiding out somewhere in Al Capone’s vault and Terrelle Pryor had successfully robbed Fort Knox.  Shockingly, the SI story revealed few jaw-dropping details (outside a horrifying tale of Jim Tressel cheating kids in a raffle in the 1980s) and ended up being more of a, “that was it?!” disappointment than the sports sleuth story of the millennium.  Oh, and there is the possible lawsuit against Sports Illustrated coming out of the article… but I suppose that won’t be promoted as much by the magazine.  Now that Rachel McCoy has begun to pull back the curtain ever so slightly on UT… will we see the media converge on Austin to at least ask more questions?  Give her a lot of credit for speaking out about the situation and the culture of big-time college athletics.  In the age of Jim Tressel’s lies and the OSU cover-up, how can this not deserve a focused follow-up by the media?

Another question is directed at ESPN.  Will ESPN pay any attention to Rachel McCoy’s claim beyond these words to their own Colin Cowherd.  The family of networks have devoted hundreds if not thousands of hours to Jim Tressel, Ohio State, and now Terrelle Pryor… but what about this impromptu phone call?  If you’ll recall, ESPN is paying Texas a near Olympic sized budget to operate the Longhorn Network and have the privilege of broadcasting Texas athletics.  We asked last month whether or not that would cause ESPN to change their coverage of the Longhorns or protect Texas in any way.  This case would be a great way to begin to test that question.

Let’s be honest here – we know that what happens at OSU and what Rachel McCoy said happened at Texas are occurring at nearly every major BCS college football program.  But, whether it’s agents, university officials, or tattoo artists, the fundamental issue remains the same.  The NCAA system is broken.  To pretend that we’re living in some sort of glowing age of amateurism is foolish and downright delusional… and so are these insane news cycles about major NCAA violations.  When South Park and Steve Spurrier are making the most meaningful statements on the matter, that should be troubling to the sports media.  Instead of the next Cam Newton, USC, OSU, or Rachel McCoy… the NCAA system should be examined with the same intensity and questioning so we don’t have to keep going down this same road time and time again.

H/T The Big Lead