The Mizzou Tigers have no chance to go to a bowl game after the NCAA appeals committee decided to uphold its sanctions.
This is bad for the NCAA. It might go underreported, but what it is doing to the Mizzou Tigers teams — football, softball and baseball — is cruel.
The NCAA denied Mizzou’s appeal Tuesday, waiting nearly the entire football season to hand Mizzou the exact decision it came out with in January. The problem is similar schools have had the exact allegations, if not worse, and those schools were not penalized as deeply as Missouri. We’re looking at you, North Carolina and Mississippi State.
Earlier this year, Mizzou athletic director Jim Sterk was silent on their fellow SEC member’s penalties. Not anymore.
Statement from #Mizzou Chancellor Alexander Cartwright and Athletic Director Jim Sterk
— Mizzou Athletics (@MizzouAthletics) November 26, 2019
📰 » https://t.co/j0tWMvILw3#MIZ | #ShowMe 🐯 pic.twitter.com/DmDoxTN66E
It says right in there, “the inconsistency of these decisions make it difficult for anyone to comprehend how Mizzou could receive such harsh sanctions.”
Mizzou athletics isn’t the only people speaking out on the NCAA in the state. State senator Caleb Rowden is calling the NCAA a fraud and a laughingstock.
The @NCAA is a fraud — a wolf in sheep’s clothing that values self-interest over the well being of their member institutions and students.
— Caleb Rowden (@calebrowden) November 26, 2019
Read my open letter to the NCAA re: today’s #MIZZOU decision. @MizzouFootball @MizzouBaseball @MizzouSoftball pic.twitter.com/Z2MgGj8psp
He’s not wrong. The NCAA is.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey also spoke out against the NCAA on this one.
"Our disappointment related to the application of a postseason ban and the Infractions Appeals Committee’s upholding of the decision after more than four months of deliberations is magnified by recent decisions in other cases with similar fact patterns."
Mizzou has had a bad football season. But what if the Tigers were 11-0 or 10-1 at this point. Would it be any different? It’d be a bigger story, sure. But even after 11 weeks of up-and-down football, the Tigers should be playing for a chance to go to a bowl game next month.
Beyond football, the Tigers also stand no shot at going to the NCAA Tournament in softball and baseball, and that’s just as bad.
The NCAA wasn’t right at the time it handed down the Tigers’ sanctions. The committee had a chance to somewhat clean it up, and it’s as if it laughed its way through months of pausing, just to make the same wrong decision.
Those people are supposed to have integrity. This is their way of showing it.