While Ohio State may be the current center of the NCAA violations universe, the wife of former Texas quarterback Colt McCoy may have caused some problems for Texas on Tuesday afternoon. Rachel McCoy called into Colin Cowherd's show on ESPN Radio on Tuesday and then started talking about Texas football players being offered things for free while in Austin. Thankfully, SB Nation was kind enough to transcribe the key parts for us.
People in Texas are just being friendly and they don't mean anything by it at all. They don't realize most of the time it is a violation. Texas is very clear with their players ... You cannot expect 19- to 20-year-old men to not accept free stuff while they're in college ... There's no way that college kids can really, honestly say no to all this stuff ... It's hard for a lot of these guys to even know ... I saw so many of his teammates who maybe didn't have some of that self-control to be able to say no to somebody. It's hard because you've got adults who you respect who you think will know what's right and what's wrong ... You do what adults say; that's how you're taught. So you have adults offering things, promising the world, doing all this stuff: we're taught to go along with that. That's the respectful thing to do. It's interesting to see adults really putting kids in these positions where they're taught to agree and go along and respect.
Now that excerpt is far from Rachel McCoy's words in their entirety. After listening to the entire conversation -- you can listen to it yourself here -- I'm of the opinion that there really isn't much here. While McCoy talks about people in Austin offering things to Texas players, she never actually says that any of her husband's teammates accepted anything. She just talks about how hard it would be for kids to say no to such minor things like free dinners.
So while some people may try to make more out of what McCoy said about Texas football, I'm rather confident that nothing she described during her radio appearance doesn't take place on college campuses everyday throughout the country. It's certainly nothing that I think the NCAA needs to worry about, as they've got some bigger fish to fry at the moment.
Though this doesn't mean Texas is going down, it was interesting to say the least. I can't find the quotes, but she alluded to extra-benefits being directly given by boosters.
“Regularly it’s just dinner. People in Texas are just being friendly, they don’t mean anything by it at all. They don’t realize realize most of the time it’s a violation. At Texas you’re taught to take absolutely nothing, I don’t care if it’s a hot dog or soda.
“But you’ve got guys, grown adult men with law degrees – educated men – what are they going to gain out of this? It’s to say, ‘Hey, I bought so and so dinner, hey I took so and so to do this’ … It’s grown men and their pride.
“You cannot expect 19-20 year old kids to say no to free stuff when they’re in college … It’s hard, I think, for a lot of these guys to even know to say, ‘I can take this, I can’t take this, nobody’s going to know, will someone find out?’ Things that could be handed to you that seem so minor – a dinner, a hunt, a fishing trip – most kids don’t even realize are illegal.
“I know Colt was approached quite a bit [by agents] but I saw so many of his teammates who didn’t have some of that self control to say no to somebody … it’s hard, because you have adults who you respect and who you think will know what’s right and wrong … when you have adults promising things and offering things …
Here is the discussion/interview titled; Rachel McCoy
Colt McCoy's wife Rachel talks with Colin Cowherd about the boosters surrounding college programs and what it was like during her husband's time at Te...
