Ideally, I would prefer ((Everyone)) play clean, but....

If everyone else is already cheating, is it really cheating anymore? At some pt you have to at least do what they do, to keep people in the stands. I mean back in the day, I think we were the only team in the SWC that didn’t cheat. The NCAA punished those schools. Today, short of massive corruption, I doubt we will ever see another Death Penalty. So with no deterrence, there will be teams we compete against every yr, that will go too far. And I’m sick of the competitive mismatches. Kentucky every yr in Basketball. Alabama every yr in Football.

I wish the NCAA would pay everyone equally, and any team that cheats in excess of their allotment, bring back the SMU penalty.

That’s an interesting discussion to bring up, but you have to ask other questions.

Is everybody cheating?
If not, who is?
Does the SEC/NCAA know and just not care?

The problem with Arkansas, especially in the SEC, is we are interlopers in this league. We didn’t start here, therefore don’t have the history most have. You mention SMU, they got busted because they got really good and they weren’t suppose to. Now Arkansas has had good teams, so us having a good team isn’t really a shock, but if we cheated, we wouldn’t have the clout to get ourselves out of if like an Alabama, Auburn, or Tennessee.

Too me, Belemia and Anderson run clean programs and are proud of it. I support them totally in that respect. Soon, we should find out what the NCAA will do to Ole Miss. If they find significant cheating than I hope that the penalties fit the findings. Whatever happens there could be deterrent to cheating at other schools.

Integrity is not negotiable. I expect it from myself, my family, my friends, my company and my university.

Admirable. But IMO in today’s climate, expecting anything other than 8 wins in CFB or a bubble team in CBB is foolhardy if you’re not willing to bend the rules.

How much is winning worth to you? That’s the question we’ve all got to ask

I understand that. I dont expect everyone to believe the same. My faith based worldview guides my feelings on this. I also know that doing it the right way will limit wining in today’s environment and I accept that.

Not to hijack this thread into a discussion of religion, but ethical behavior is not necessarily linked with faith or religion. I know many people with atheist or agnostic beliefs who are highly ethical and do the right thing just because it is the right thing; I know others who profess extreme religiosity who would cheat their grandmother if it would benefit them.

It is this topic that prompted me to put the poll up on the Insiders board and on the Lounge. How far is too far in the quest to win? I suspect, though, that even though poll results are anonymous, people who would sell Granny to win the CFP are still going to click “don’t want to win that way” on the poll because they think that’s the right answer to give – even though they don’t really believe it.

I certainly understand your point. Without hijacking this into a religious thread, I will say my faith is what guides my actions.

I guess my opinion is, if everyone else is already cheating, it’s not really cheating anymore. To me, cheating is gaining an unfair competitive advantage that the other team doesn’t have. But if everyone is already cheating, your not gaining an unfair competitive advantage, you’re just catching up to what they’re doing.

I think one could say profiting off of and exploiting these kids, that could take one wrong hit and sip out of a straw the rest of their lives, isn’t very Christ like either, especially in a country that brags about the benefits of Capitalism. I don’t have a problem paying these kids, I just want them ALL PAID EQUALLY.

But where did your atheist and agnostic friends get those ideals? They weren’t born with ethics; they had to come from somewhere. Ultimately ethics and morality are a product of societal norms which, in this country, are generally derived from religious principles. So just because someone says that they don’t need religion to do the right thing doesn’t mean that religion doesn’t guide those principles.