Oh, they absolutely would be vindictive as all hell. They already have been. Basically they never left after the old Cornbread investigation. Just kept digging. And even went so far as to make specific rules for use against us and applied them retroactively.
Can you tell me more about why you think the new arrangement would solve that problem?
The NCAA's tyranny reestablished has been my primary concern about this. I'm afraid we may look back on these allegedly "wild west" years (I call them "freedom') as the golden age. I don't understand why you say
But also
Is it because the power conferences could separate in football? The big favorites have continually cheated with impunity while directing the NCAA against their rivals. It's sickening, and they are primarily to blame. But I have also long suspected that the smaller schools and also womens athletics representatives are major problems because their hugely overweight numbers in NCAA positions. It seems that they cow tow to the big NCAA favorites because they see them as cash cows, and also afraid of them, but also are full of resentment and love to "punish" or "attack" other big schools like us that the favorites are happy to see singled out for attack. The smaller schools' big interests are the basketball and baseball tournaments which they participate in, and they are huge moneymakers for those schools. That's one reason that one of those tournaments has expanded yet again to 68 and the other is at 64.
What crooked enforcement requires above all are caps. And pushing as much as possible out of the free market and into the schools' dominion.