ItsAUThing.com — Formerly allCanesBlog.com — It's All About 'The U'!

You never expect the Miami Herald to get the collective back of the University of Miami. At best you simply hope for some unbiased coverage and a small number of cheap shots. As Nevingate rolls on, nothing could be further from the truth, courtesy of the local rag.

Less than two weeks in, sportswriters continue coming out of the woodworks, offering stale take after stale take and bringing nothing new to the table regarding a scenario that all stemmed from one lone sensationalized expose.

Last I checked, the Herald is the hometown paper and the Canes are the hometown team. That’s not a free pass for Gainesville Sun-style blatant homerism and a local bias, but how about at least taking a glass-half-full approach? The rest of the national media has used this story as a free pass to pile on America’s least favorite program and Miami beat writers have followed suit.

The latest; the Herald’s Greg Cote, who channels his inner Charles Robinson with his latest take on the UM situation and eight players declared ineligible.

Without even hinting at any positive in reference to the four cleared players and talk of this lending credibility to the Nevin Shapiro story being somewhat embellished, Cote opens with the following: “The grip of the scandal that would choke University of Miami football got a little bit tighter Thursday night. A little bit more real. More undeniable. More now.”

Thanks, Greg. We’re on the edge of our seats as you build unnecessary soap opera-like drama.

Cote calls UM’s procedural move of declaring eight players ineligible, “ominous” and “desperate”. He goes on to state that a “significant chunk” of the current UM squad has now been implicated in the scandal and that there’s “reason to suspect their guilt in having accepted improper benefits”

Most college teams have upwards of 125 players, both on scholarship and walk-ons. How in the hell is eight a “significant” chunk of anything other than a dozen?

Cote continues with his bias, letting readers know that “a school does not declare players ineligible on the eve of a season unless strong indications are that playing those athletes would result in later penalties including forfeiture of victories for using players who proved to be ineligible”.

Thank you for clarifying the obvious, while trying to do so in a worst-case-scenario possible way – and while on topic, how does this represent the “eve” of a season when kickoff remains ten days out?  Another futile attempt to bring more drama to an over-dramatzed situation that’s lost steam over the past several days.

NCAA president Mark Emmert has all but said the ‘death penalty’ is off the table and any logically-minded college football fan knew the notion was a stretch when the media started liberally tossing it around last week. Miami didn’t receive the ‘death penalty’ for Pell Grant fraud in the early nineties and to date, SMU remains the only program who was hit with the ultimate penalty.

The NCAA has oft stated that the ‘death penalty’ is a worst case scenario option and it’s universally known what it would do to the innocent teams in conference with any team receiving that harsh punishment, as well as crushing TV revenue and impacting the bottom line for many. The only reason ‘death penalty’ was mentioned in relation to the Miami case was to satisfy a hypocritical lynch mob who wanted to point fingers – yet Cote goes there, finding a way to re-bring it up.

“I continue to believe Miami will not and should not receive the “death penalty” for this scandal, meaning the abolishment of the football team for a season or two. But having said that, there is no way that Thursday’s development can be seen as anything other than a darkening of the cloud now pregnant over the program.”

One more time, gracias Greg.

In closing, one final dig and falsehood from Cote: “The immediate impact isn’t the worst of Thursday’s news, though. The worst is that the University of Miami found itself saying out loud, for the first time, that Shapiro wasn’t lying.”

The fact that four players have already been reinstated actually does prove Shapiro was lying, Greg. That’s not to say there isn’t some truth to what he said – but look at the source and motivation behind the Yahoo! piece.

A sports reporter going ‘all in’ with what he hopes is a career-changing write-up (and one that could be career-ending if it’s disproved.) A jailed, bitter, spiteful man, writing “gotcha” letters to former players he’s looking to bring down – making it clear that revenge is his motivator – as is a ‘tell all’ book. The more sensational the allegations (re: strippers and an abortion) the more shock value the piece would have.

Shapiro’s story appears to be mostly embellished lies, sprinkled with some truth, yet Cote paints the industry standard, school-imposed declared ineligibility of players as the smoking gun that Shapiro’s claims are rock solid.

“That this liar and swindler serving federal time for a Ponzi scheme was, in this case, telling the truth,” wrote Cote. “This really happened to UM football.”

Back the felon instead of the hometown program and the fans. Can you really expect anything else from the Herald these days?

Us against the world … even some should-be allies. – CB

(NOTE: The same time Cote was going the ‘doom and gloom’ route, Dave George of the Palm Beach Post penned the following piece – Commentary: Is it time to stop piling on the Hurricanes? Nothing like having to look to West Palm Beach for proper coverage on the Miami Hurricanes. Thanks, Dave.)

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