Violations were announced last week and the bad news spread like wildfire.
Oklahoma football remains out of control.
Nothing has changed in the last 50 years, from the Sooners' first NCAA probation handed down in 1956 to today.
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It is a program run amok, fraught with a lack of institutional control and blatant disregard for rules.
OU's football coach is always right. Its players are always victims. The program is always vilified. And the fans will always defend their own.
It's still the same sordid story in Norman, right?
Hardly.
There is a significant change in attitude at Renegade U since the scandalous 1900s.
OU quarterback Rhett Bomar and offensive lineman J.D. Quinn were overpaid somewhere between $2,500 and $6,000 for work they did not do at a Norman car dealership.
For this, they were dismissed permanently.
There was no trial, no jury, no second chances.
These players just as easily could have served a suspension, paid restitution and been reinstated.
Other NCAA schools have used this procedure in the past. More will do so in the future. But no-go at the new OU.
Had this Bomar-Quinn incident transpired 20 years ago, the loudest fan outcry steadfastly would have sided with the players.
The offending booster would have been ridiculed for not being smart enough to pay in cash, so to not leave a paper trail.
Though the players were guilty as sin, the fans' most popular refrain would have been, "So what? It happens at other schools. Why don't you go after them? You just go after us. Our poor kids."
That was the old OU, not the new one.
Instead of feeling victimized last week, OU fans seemed to feel genuine shame.
There was no finger pointing at other prominent football programs, which have had more than their share of problems this off-season.
Instead, Sooner supporters reveled in their own housecleaning.
Blame was placed squarely in the lap of the players and the booster. Not a single person polled last Friday at Media Day targeted the compliance office.
The school held an internal investigation of Bomar and Quinn and blew the whistle on itself.
Used to be, OU would swallow that same whistle.
No one is screaming for Bomar's return to the program.
Used to be, fans wondered if Charles Thompson would be allowed back on the team after his stint in federal prison, and how much eligibility would he have remaining?
David Swank was OU's interim school president in 1989 and was viewed as the devil for firing coach Barry Switzer.
Today, Swank is an OU law professor and was viewed as a voice of reason while explaining the program's latest transgression.
Whose decision was it to dismiss Bomar and Quinn? Was it president David Boren, athletic director Joe Castiglione or coach Bob Stoops?
My money is on Boren. But it doesn't matter who made the call, as long as the call was made.
For one of the few times in OU history, the school's president, athletic director and football coach were all on the same page.
Progress indeed. John Rohde: 475-3314, jrohde@oklahoman.com; John Rohde can be heard Monday-Friday from 6-7 p.m. on WWLS-FM 104.9 and WWLS-AM 640, and on KYAL-AM 1550 in Tulsa.
