Rules.

For some people that word represents order, safety and regulation. For others that word represents authorities over-stepping their bounds and making life difficult.

Then there’s NCAA Football. For the NCAA, it seems, rules represent a means to a financial end. To some, NCAA rules seem to be a way for universities to make money while the athletes doing all of the work get nothing.

Already this month we had this season’s version of the game of the century, featuring Alabama and Texas A&M. After Alabama defeated A&M in an instant classic, one couldn’t help but notice the smug, smirking face of former coach Lou Holtz on the set during the postgame. In fact, Holtz seemed downright giddy. The reason? Holtz has done little to hide his disdain for A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel and had been publicly looking forward to this game against Alabama to see Manziel finally go down.

Holtz had a particularly memorable rant concerning Manziel’s taunting of opposing players in A&M’s season opener. It seemed at the time that everyone on each of the major network sports shows was going out of their way to cast Manziel as a villain. The true reason for the Manziel-hate is the perception that he is a rule breaker. He was recently involved in an autograph sale scandal for which he was basically absolved by the NCAA (he was suspended for one half of the season opener). But the stigma of being a loose cannon cheater has followed him.

After all, everyone hates a cheater ­­– especially one who gets away with it. The rules are there for a reason, we say. We say that even if we don’t agree with the rules, they still have to be enforced. We are stuck in a perpetual “that’s the way it is because that’s the way it has always been” mentality when it comes to NCAA rules and regulations. But should we? Across the nation in college football the rules seem to be strictly self-serving for the NCAA.

The NCAA rules about players receiving money and gifts or profit are more archaic than the Dead Sea Scrolls. We like to believe that these rules were written with a mind towards fairness – that every college should get a chance at that star recruit, that amateurism is a romantic ideal.

But the truth is these rules were written nearly two generations ago to prevent the mob from getting players to point shave or throw games. They were not written for an era in which colleges were making hundreds of millions of dollars from the exploits of their star players, while the players themselves are supposed to live in poverty.

Last season during Manziel’s Heisman trophy run, Texas A&M made $119,702,22, according to USA Today. Forbes reported that the game between Alabama and Texas A&M set a record for ticket prices. The reason?

It was for a chance to see Johnny Manziel.

Every single season we see some new university or player under scrutiny for some “major” NCAA rules infraction. The actual infractions turn out to be things like a players’ mom getting a fur coat. A star player got a $45 tattoo after making his university $130,000,000. A player sold an autograph. Players in Wisconsin got free shoes in Black Earth. These players can’t get free shoes but their athletic director has homes in three different states off of revenue from those players’ hard work and talent.

Every year this happens and every year we have to listen to some old, out of touch relic like Lou Holtz got on a soapbox about it as if it’s the kids who just never learn.

But the reality is it isn’t the kids’ fault. It’s an unfair, extremely unbalanced system that is exploitative, self-serving and greedy on the part of the NCAA.

Lou Holtz was angered by Johnny Manziel’s “show me the money” gesture. Manziel potentially being involved with autograph sales enraged the NCAA. Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin was enraged by Manziel’s attitude during the season opener against Rice.

Yet none of these entities are declining the television face time (Holtz), school revenue (Texas A&M), ticket sales/television ratings (the NCAA) or job security (Sumlin) that are all being provided to them by the stellar play of athletes like Johnny Manziel.

Manziel was lambasted for his money gesture. Alabama’s TJ Yeldon was penalized for imitating that gesture during the game against Texas A&M. It was considered taunting, an affront to the integrity of the game.

Sadly, out of everyone involved – the refs, the coaches, the institutions, CBS, the stadium, Lou Holtz, Kevin Sumlin, the NCAA – Manziel and Yeldon were the only ones punished for saying “show me the money.” Yet they were the only ones not making any.