Nick Saban not most powerful man in college football anymore … Tom Mars is

The kangaroo court in Indianapolis that has wallowed around in its own hypocrisy for decades has apparently just finally shrugged and put the rulebook in the bottom desk drawer.

Some say the NCAA has been there for years.

But Friday’s ruling that Ohio State can put former Georgia quarterback Justin Fields on the field this coming season is maybe the most laughably hypocritical move the NCAA has ever made.

Seriously, 14 months ago Fields was in high school and now he’s on his second big-time college. The former five-star recruit couldn’t beat out Jake Fromm with the Bulldogs so now, well, he’s going to try his luck with the Buckeyes.

Before you jump into never-never land, there is no blame from this corner for Fields. He’s doing what he thinks is best for him.

All of this is just a couple of weeks after the NCAA apparently got so mad over Missouri self-reporting a tutor they put nearly a fourth of the athletic department on probation and banned them from the postseason. North Carolina did almost the same thing and got off with no penalties because it was available to everybody in Chapel Hill.

The NCAA’s punishment for the Tigers was so egregious the all-too-familiar jock-sniffer Jeff Long was aghast from his new perch in Kansas. Apparently he finally opened his eyes to the fact that sucking up to folks ain’t the way to get anything done.

It’s always better to have a good attorney who happens to be a pit bull for whoever’s paying him (and that’s not a negative from this view … that’s what you want from your lawyer). The NCAA punished Ole Miss by dragging things out for years … not the actual penalties, the overwhelming majority of those were already self-imposed.

Nick Saban isn’t the most powerful person in college football anymore … Tom Mars in Little Rock is. He’s the attorney that got six former Ole Miss players immediate eligibility and now has somehow beaten down the NCAA for Fields.

I don’t blame Mars, either.

Until just two or three years ago if you had eligibility left you had to sit out a full year before you could get onto the field in a game. Ask former Razorback and current UA Board of Trustee member Steve Cox. He started at Tulsa, transferred to Fayetteville, sat out a year and finally got to play.

If the NCAA made an exception to that rule, I don’t recall it.

At least the rule originally was an attempt to allow players at a school that was hit with penalties to get away from all of that.

The NCAA changed the rules last spring to make it easier for transferring athletes to find an immediate path to the playing field. Now a player can be granted a waiver to play immediately if he can show “documented mitigation circumstances” that the change of schools was made to better impact his “health, safety and well-being.”

Apparently Mars can show those circumstances better than anybody else these days.

Part of this is because the NCAA’s track record in court is miserable. Maybe they should pay a bigger portion of the millions they pay the top guy to better lawyers.

Now I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve been around long enough to know that “documented mitigation circumstances” opens the gate and “health, safety and well-being” widens it enough to turn a semi around in a complete circle.

There’s no way of knowing what Mars is charging for this immediately-eligible legal work. If his law firm is doing all of this pro bono, well, that would be interesting. No, I’m not setting anyone up for a punch line there.

But who IS paying the legal bill for this stuff if it’s not being done pro bono? Are these players coming up with the money on their own and is it really that inexpensive to get done?

And I’m assuming the schools receiving the transfer player wouldn’t be allowed to pay the legal fees.

That assumes, of course, there’s actually a rule left that prohibits that. Assuming there ever was one in place to handle something that didn’t exist until a little over a year ago.

But it is an interesting question.