OP, It always was. Or, did you just have blinders on and hoped that it was somehow different? If anything, since there is so much more money to be made in football, the corruption has been/is worse.
Forget any money changing hands, it starts with the whole "student-athlete" premise. Just how many members of the UM football team would ever be admitted to the university under the merit standards applied to other non-athlete applicants? It escalates from there to the "bags" and whatever enters the picture.