The only slap that former University of Oregon football coach Chip Kelly got from Wednesday’s NCAA sanctions was probably self inflicted, no doubt from hitting his knee in uncontrollable laughter.
And, really, who could blame him?

After 27 months of probing and deliberation of what it classified as “major infractions,” the NCAA Committee on Infractions decided that Kelly should be subject to an 18-month show-cause order for using an illegal middle man to help recruit.

Basically, that means that the NCAA would look askance at anybody who tried to hire Kelly for a college job before Christmas Day 2014.

Of course, Kelly figures to be gainfully employed elsewhere in the interim since he is less than six months into a five-year, $6.5 million-a-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Meanwhile, Oregon loses one scholarship a year for three seasons, some official recruiting visits and evaluation days, and is banned from subscribing to recruiting services.

If the NCAA really wanted to send a message to the Ducks — and anybody else tempted to employ a thinly disguised street agent to send recruits its way — it could have limited Oregon to one set each of home and away uniforms each of those seasons.

You would have heard screams from Niketown on that.

The problem with NCAA sanctions once again is that while players and schools take the brunt of them, the coaches who incur the violations, or on whose watch they take place, too often skate unscathed. Often to bigger-money NFL jobs.

It is a college tradition as old as ivy, it seems. Ron Meyer left Southern Methodist for the employ of the New England Patriots before the NCAA rode into Dallas in the 1980s to level the so-called “death penalty” on the Mustangs. More recently, Pete Carroll skipped off to the Seattle Seahawks before the NCAA hammered USC.

And though Kelly said in a statement Wednesday that “… I accept my share of responsibility for the actions that led to the penalties,” he is untouched.

What is lacking here is more reciprocity between the NCAA and NFL headquarters. The kind, for example, that was employed when quarterback Terrelle Pryor was suspended by the league for five games after bailing on NCAA sanctions at Ohio State.

At the time, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell cited the league’s “integrity” and said Pryor left Ohio State “in order to avoid the consequences of his conduct while in college …”

You could make a case that Kelly did much the same thing.

Slap on the wrist?

Not even.  
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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.