Beloved Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel basically had no choice but to resign amid a coverup that athletes received extra benefits against collegiate rules. Then, Ohio State's star quarterback Terrelle Pryor said enough is enough to the media pressure, and left school for his role in the mess.
Coupled with what's going on in Columbus, with the fact that athletic administrators in Southern California were packing up its 2004 BCS championship crystal, and the bad headlines are everywhere.
That recent news comes on the heels of a scandal-plagued season, with NCAA investigators scrambling from coast-to-coast, and completely botching the Cam Newton pay-for-play fiasco.
The NCAA is a voluntary association, whose schools agree upon the rules, but it has turned into bureaucracy run amok. The organization has so many arcane rules it cannot even remotely begin to keep track of what's going on at college campuses.
The NCAA did not uncover the Ohio State scandal, and it certainly did not light the world on fire by exposing the Reggie Bush scandal. The NCAA's investigative arm cares a lot more about the public perp walk than the nitty-gritty of catching all the criminals.
So why even waste time with the pretense of the NCAA?
The money's there for major college football to split. The Pac-12 conference just inked a $3 billion, 12-year contract with ESPN and Fox, just the newest of the mega television contracts.
It would be a complicated divorce, but doable.
If the university brass from the Ohio State's, Florida's and Texas' wanted to form an independent group, they could. And it would probably bring change to college football much faster than the NCAA is willing to adapt.
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