North Carolina gets NCAA sanctions, promptly blames the SEC

By: @LivingCrimson

After the debacle of UNC coaches working as insiders for agents, academic fraud, and players taking gift-ola and free trips to sunny destinations, the NCAA sanctioned North Carolina this week. Surprise, surprise. Included in the punishment is a one year postseason ban, reduced scholarships for three years and brand new zeroes in the win columns for 2008 and 2009.

So, of course, guilty-as-sin defensive back Duenta Williams ran to the nearest reporter with a laptop and spilled the remorse beans? Not quite. College Football Talk has some pithy quotes from Williams in essence saying the Tar Heels are angelic children preyed upon by money-grubbers -- enabled by the S-E-C.

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“What happened at Carolina is child’s play compared to what happens at the SEC,” ex-UNC defensive back Duenta Williams, who was suspended four games in 2010 for his role in the scandal, told the Charlotte Observer. “The SEC pays for players. I’m not afraid to say it, but the NCAA doesn’t go after them.”

“It’s a broken system,” said Williams of the NCAA and the game of college football. “College football is a business, and the people who run college football are only interested in money and using the players as product to make money.”

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Hmm, nothing about the players at UNC embracing every handout they could find. But then personal accountability is so passé these days.

By the way, according to Rivals North Carolina native Williams was officially recruited by only two SEC schools: South Carolina and Tennessee. He was recognized by scouting services as one of the five best "skill" athletes in the nation coming out of high school. If the SEC was really doing what Williams claims, why didn’t one of its schools snap him up with their nefarious ability to pay players? It’s not like he would have found a conscience and turned down the money.

Williams was first team All-ACC and remains undrafted in the NFL.

More Bama updates on Twitter at @LivingCrimson.