With most organizations, the stuff that has happened at the NCAA over the past year (e.g., our investigation, the Muhammad matter, the Penn State mess, the O'Bannon case, etc.) would cause the organization to regroup, start on a new PR campaign to show that it has put its past behavior behind it, and then suffer its losses and move on. That approach would likely bode well for UM, since the NCAA would want to minimize the chances of further bad press and/or a UM lawsuit by erring on the side of a minimal level of penalties.
However, as the latest jersey thing shows, the NCAA either (i) doesn't care how it is perceived or judged, (ii) is too diorganized/stupid to realize when to cut its losses and move on, or (ii) both. I tend to think it is both.
Let's review the facts -- you have a pending case where former players are suing the NCAA, claiming their likenesses were misappropriated for use in video games and elsewhere without compensation. The NCAA, I assume, will argue as part of its defense that players don't own their uniform numbers, so no misappropriation has occurred. (No likenesses of players are used, no player names, etc.) I'm not sure how that argument plays out, but HOW ON EARTH DOES THE NCAA NOT VERIFY THAT ITS USE OF PARTICULAR UNIFORM NUMBERS IS NOT CONNECTED TO SPECIFIC PLAYERS? Did no one at the NCAA ever go on its website a do a search?!? If they did, was Emmert really that naive or stupid or blind to not see how the NCAA's approach to allowing name searches to pull up jerseys would hurt its case?!? This is not some piddly case for the NCAA -- it has major ramifications for what the NCAA can do.
Unfortunately, I fear that if given the chance, the NCAA would take the same approach to UM and our pending sanctions -- in other words, ignore common sense, and do what they think they are entitled to do, which as we know is throw the book at us. Perhaps the COI, which is independent from the NCAA, is a wiser group of individuals. For our sake, let's hope so.
