Horns247 Board

I'm glad somebody finally said it. Don't want Saban here.

I have ranted about Saban on the boards for years and, really, the experience has been disheartening of late. I am down on college football right now in large part because of how miserable things have gotten with the Brown regime at Texas, but also in some way because of the basic reality that the bad guys are all getting away with it.

My belief system has me convinced that they'll pay for their behavior ultimately, but knowing that Saban and Chip Kelly and 50 other cheating assholes and all of the dickheads they buy and buy from will all be judged when their end of days comes really isn't enough right now. Is there a shittier instrument for justice in the known first world right now than the NCAA? What a bunch of dickless asshats those pencilpushers are.

As of this very moment, the bad guys are almost all winning when it comes to college football. The SEC is lauded, Ohio State is undefeated, Sumlin's regime is fine dealing with the black hats, Oregon is elite, and even USC and PSU aren't as down as they should be. The only upside is that Miami sucks out loud and OU, by OU standards, is as clean as they have ever been.

For all of my natural Texas hate for Notre Dame, at least they are clean. I will have no quandaries come 1-7-13. Notre Dame will win and I'll be mildly amused and mildly depressed, or the pieces of shit out of Tuscaloosa will be hoisting more crystal and Mack Brown will be tweeting congratulations to his good friend Nick Saban who scares him to death.

Think so? Try googling the administration's cover up of the rape cases involving the football players.

F'ing well said sir.

I realize there's absolutely no value in discussing the problem with statements such as these, but it's early on a Saturday morning, and I've admittedly got nothing better to do.

What rapes is Notre Dame covering up? In her statement to police, Lizzy Seeberg said the football player forced her onto his lap, fondled and licked her breasts and then threw her off of him saying that he could get kicked off the team for what they were doing. Her police statement never alleges rape, just to clear that up given your terminology above.

The player in his statement to police, alleges that Lizzy was giving him a lap dance, and noted the point, which they both agree on, that he stopped the interaction.

Now, I'm not calling Lizzy a liar, nor am I absolving the player of any possible wrong doing.

What I am saying, however, is that Notre Dame acknowledged that something occurred between the player and Lizzy Seeberg. There are statements to campus police from both parties. Where's the cover-up, if Notre Dame is acknowledging that some interaction took place? Not condemning the player who was never charged nor convicted doesn't automatically make them complicit in a cover-up.

Further, Notre Dame has a history of dismissing players involved in sex crimes, or even shenanigans.

Joseph Fauria transferred to UCLA after he was dismissed from Notre Dame. The reason he was dismissed was never specified but the university, but I was covering Notre Dame at the time, and the reason for his dismissal according to the media circles was streaking.

Also, Notre Dame dismissed three players and a former players for the alleged rape of a student manager a few years ago.

Yes, there was allegedly an incident following the Lizzy Seeberg situation where a resident adviser claims she assisted a woman who claims she was raped by a football player at a party. However, that woman never filed a police report. So again, where's the cover-up? If she had filed charges and those charges had been dropped or not investigated or if there had never been an arrest made, then your claim of a cover-up might have some substance.

I just fail to see where Notre Dame is "covering up rape cases involving football players."

The fact is that this is not a Notre Dame issue, and it's not a football-only issue. If one were to study the number of reports of sexual assault on college campuses vs. the number of arrests made vs. the number of convictions, one will discover a disturbing trend of either indifference or an inability to reach resolutions.

From the article linked here (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-06-16/news/ct-met-campus-sexual-assaults-0617-20110616_1_convictions-arrests-assault-cases):

"The survey of six schools in Illinois and Indiana found that police investigated 171 reported sex crimes since fall 2005, with 12 resulting in arrests and four in convictions. Only one of the convictions stemmed from a student-on-student attack, the most common type of assault."

...

"Three of the six schools surveyed by the Tribune had zero convictions from their 63 reported cases. For instance, the University of Notre Dame has had 34 reported sex crimes during the last six school years with four arrests and no convictions, and Northwestern University had 21 reported cases with no arrests or convictions at its main campus in Evanston.

"Indiana University has seen only one conviction from its 69 allegations of sexual attacks reported to police during that time period. On Thursday, a Monroe County judge accepted Hai Yu's guilty plea to sexual battery and criminal confinement, making him the only one convicted of a student-on-student sex crime in the Tribune survey."

...

"The Department of Education currently is investigating a number of colleges for how they have handled sex offense reports, including Yale University, Ohio State University and Notre Dame."

... and the problem certainly isn't Notre Dame's. From the Daily Texan (http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2012/12/06/policies-hinder-sexual-assault-survivors):

"Attempted and completed sexual assaults occur at a rate of 35 per every 1,000 female college students per year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Between 2009 and 2012, UT’s Voices Against Violence estimates that 2,625 sexual assaults occurred at UT, while only 76 were reported to the University."

The problem is just simply far more widespread than "football cover-ups." Is Notre Dame too indifferent or even callous when responding to allegations of sexual assault in general? Are they apparently unequipped to handle those cases diligently enough to make arrests and follow through with prosecutions? Those statements might be true ... but not just of Notre Dame but apparently many respected institutions of higher learning. It's way premature to accuse Notre Dame of a cover-up.