As awful as this has gotten for Baylor, the NCAA doesn't look like the best avenue to address it.
Civil lawsuits and a federal investigation by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) could produce far more effective discovery than anything obtained by the NCAA, which lacks subpoena power.
"I think the inclination is to always try to identify somebody that has standing to do something, and probably OCR is well positioned right now to act on these things," Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said.
"I know the OCR people have been on [Baylor's] campus. The conference and NCAA might have steps that are clearer after that process has run its course."
Making up interpretations on the fly didn't work for the NCAA when it took the moral high ground in the
Penn State scandal with Jerry Sandusky. The NCAA found itself woefully out of place by wading into criminal activities, and Penn State's penalties got overturned after the NCAA was sued.
The NCAA is very leery of going down that road again with Baylor without clear jurisdiction.
"I've spoken with a lot of people from the Big Ten and the NCAA about the Penn State process, and one of the things I've learned is when you don't have clear standing, you tend to have to be more responsive than aggressive on it," Bowlsby said. "I wish it was otherwise. Anybody that cares about young people is appalled by that sort of allegation [52 rapes over four years], and by what appears to be that sort of environment."