My Sunday Feeling

13 guys.



That's how many players Arkansas native Butch Davis and the North Carolina Tar Heels left behind when they boarded the plane for Atlanta Friday to face the LSU Tigers.

13 guys.

The trouble started with questions about whether a couple of players violated the "extra benefit" rule when they allowed a former player to purchase tickets for them to travel to California-I think it was California- to work out with him at a gym out there. Then it turned out that the gym was owned by the former player's agent. Who is close to assistant football coach John Blake. And once the dots got connected red flags were seen whistling up the flag poles all over Chapel Hill.



The problem with any sort of investigation, at least from the perspective of the investigees, is that once suspicious types start digging around Lord knows what is going to unearthed.



Here, what got kicked up is that a number of Tar Heel players are suspected of having a tutor perform school work for them. Even more interesting is that supposedly the same tutor was retained by Davis to work with his own kids. This led to 13 guys being suspended until the NCAA and UNC sorts all of this out.



13 guys.



Davis says he didn't know anything about the allegedly illegal work the tutor was doing with the players. And I suppose this is possible although it certainly looks as fishy as all get out especially when you consider the apparent fact that the tutor in question supposedly worked with Butch's children in his own house. I would be more inclined to believe him if there were only one or two guys involved. The tutor? She hasn't said a word. According to my buddy out there, her name hasn't been disclosed yet.



But it's not just one ot two guys. It's 13 guys. How can that many people be involved and somebody in charge not know something?



The hell of it is that Butch Davis has a reputation for being squeaky clean. Or had. After all, he was hired by the University of Miami specifically to shut down the party at the U. Which he did. Now this.

It is a good thing for Davis that folks in North Carolina don't care much about the oblong spheroid. Football is just a diversion until hoops season begins. But I predict he won't survive all of this because North Carolina is a real school. With academic integrity and everything. A scandal involving what appears to be academic fraud on a systemic basis in the athletic department undoubtedly is not amusing to the President Tar Heel.

Because 13 guys is a lot of guys screwing around for nobody to know about. I bet that folks in Norman and Auburn are even aghast.

13 guys. I mean, really!