Journalists and sports pundits alike have criticized, analyzed and hypothesized about why the system of college sports is breaking down at length in the past week. But we've been ignoring a big black elephant in the room.

High profile football players caught in the center of booster controversies are disproportionately African American.

USC's Reggie Bush, Oklahoma State's Dez Bryant, Georgia's A.J. Green, Alabama's Marcell Dareus, Auburn's Cam Newton and the latest poster child of "amorality" in sports, Terrelle Pryor of Ohio State, have all become infamous for proven - or sometimes unproven - cases of having friends with benefits.

We've seen public disgust directed at these athletes and now even NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is exposing his frustration with NCAA rule-breaking by punishing Pryor with a five-game suspension.

Oddly, Goodell didn't share this same outrage against Pete Carroll when he bolted out of USC's embattled football program to the Seattle Seahawks last year.

Black athletes who break the rules are more likely to face a harsher judgment in the court of public opinion or - even worse - Goodell's court. The facilitators of cheating, many of whom happen to be white, move on to NFL jobs or cushy TV jobs with significantly less criticism.

I have to wonder, does this discrepancy represent an underlying prejudiced attitude towards African-American athletes?

Contrary to popular belief, African-American men don't make up the majority of college athletes. According to the 2009-10 study from the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports, black men made up just 24.9 percent of all college male athletes.

Equally interesting is the fact that black male athletes don't even comprise an overwhelming majority of Division I football players. Until last year, white athletes made up the majority of college football players since the 1999-2000 season. Black and white athletes currently share near equal representation at 45 percent, with African-Americans holding a slight edge at 45.8 to 45.1 percent.

I don't believe high profile black athletes are the only group of rule-breakers. I do believe they're more likely to get caught.

Given the string of high profile cases involving black football players, I spent hours conducting research, speaking with multiple sociologists, a former USC linebacker and even a college runner to determine if African-Americans really are breaking the rules more and if so why.

Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Players Association and a former linebacker at USC, summed up the questions best.

Cheating often takes place behind closed doors so it's impossible to determine who is doing what.

"You only know what comes out," he said.

It's not a stretch, however, to believe black athletes are targeted more by rogue agents, boosters and runners. Black athletes in skill positions like wide receivers, running backs and - in the modern era of college sports - quarterbacks are more lucrative and visible, which translates to greater opportunity for temptation.

Race aside, there is a long history of high-profile athletes receiving and asking for benefits. Most of them see this as an act of rebellion against a college system producing millions on their likeness and image.

But, as proven, this type of rule-breaking doesn't bode well for the image of black athletes.

"I think there does tend to be a perception that African-American athletes and African-Americans in general are more prone to criminal behavior and that might encourage certain individuals to approach them and perhaps not approach other athletes," said Timothy Davis, a law professor at Wake Forrest University who has authored several books about sports, business and race.

Characterizing an entire race of people based on the actions of some is prejudiced. And the reality is that we live in a prejudiced world.

I cringed when hearing that one of the United Kingdom's largest media providers, British Broadcasting Corporation, allowed guest analyst David Starkey to go unchallenged on his thought that "whites have become blacks" in reference to the disposition of rioters in London.

The inference here, of course, is that black people symbolize delinquency. Apparently, some of those rioters had been infected with "blackness."

As I see one high-profile athlete after another vilified for rule-breaking, I wonder if this same perspective about delinquency and blackness is being applied to college football.

I'm not condoning cheating, but I do hope the attitude toward corruption in college sports is not black and white.