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The biggest fallacies in Sports Illustrated’s work

Boone’s pockets seem like a good place to start.

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When this all started, I was worried.

According to Sports Illustrated this series was “a special investigative report that looks into the transformation of a struggling college football program into a national powerhouse.”

We were told that money, women, drugs, and leaky academics were all part of this allure of Oklahoma State to get good players and, when they tried to fail out, keep them.

We were told:

The report reveals that OSU went to extreme measures to build a winning program, with an increased willingness to cut corners and bend rules.

Two problems with that.

First, this:

Are those great recruiting classes?

And two, this:

In the time period Sports Illustrated investigated, Boone Pickens gave nearly $500 million to Oklahoma State (for both academics and athletics).

You know how many times SI has mentioned this?

Zero. This was as far as they went in Part 1:

T. Boone Pickens, the school’s most prominent booster, was not implicated in any improprieties by SI’s sources.

So I’m going to go out on a limb and say the reason Oklahoma State has finished in the postseason AP top 25 three times in the last 13 years (which, do we need to go into the fact that SI picked a “powerhouse” that has finished in the postseason AP top 25 three times in 13 years?) was because Boone gave nearly $300 million to athletics and not because a few backups got $100 handshakes and a few recruits had sex with some girls.

I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to beat the drum, that doesn’t mean those things didn’t happen, just that they don’t really line up with SI’s intended narrative.

Call me crazy but it seems like SI should have mentioned this.

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