Nevermind that it’s hard to see how Emmert’s group comes to grip with the extenuating circumstances – “There was no evidence that Auburn University had anything to do with that or the student-athlete had anything to do with that, and under the rules that exist today, he could play ball.” – any better than it did to begin with, or that it sounds like they’re going to get bogged down in minutiae – “Who is an agent and who is a third party and how do you define that?”  “Is it a registered agent? A financial adviser? A counselor, an uncle, an AAU coach? Who is representing you?” – what’s really telling here is his ultimate justification for the ruling.

… The new NCAA chief said the backlash against the organization’s decision to clear Newton to play would have been worse if he were prevented from competing based on the evidence against him. At the same time, he acknowledged it’s a complex legal and ethical issue.

“I was not surprised by the volume or the vitriolic nature, but had we made a different decision, I do think it would have been worse,” Emmert said.

In other words, he was more concerned about incurring Mike Slive’s wrath than anything else.  And that Slive is satisfied with the decision is proof that the NCAA made the right call.

After all, let’s not forget that at this point, the ruling has been questioned by several other BCS conference commissioners and that while Emmert thinks he’s been unfairly subjected to vitriol (nice word, by the way) because his critics lack the knowledge of the facts that he commands – “The reason the backlash didn’t surprise me is that the face of the case seemed straight forward but we had to deal with the reality of the facts that were known.” – this is a crisis that’s largely one of the NCAA’s own making.  His organization chose to interpret “the rules that exist today” the way it did and Emmert evidently hasn’t felt it necessary to share the information gathered through the NCAA’s investigation with any commissioner besides Slive.

Yeah, this is gonna work out swell next month.