Until last week, it was possible to think of the NCAA as something other than a protection racket. No longer.

The extraordinary Taylor Branch cover story in the October issue of The Atlantic lays out in precise and killing inventory the mortal sins of the NCAA. Frank Deford called it "the most important article ever written about college sports." I'm sure you've heard about it by now. Please read it.

The Branch article -- likely sourced and reported with the same grave rigor he brings to his book-length histories, and along with months of bad news based on reporting from other sources on other fronts -- might mean that a kind of cultural critical mass has finally been reached. The NCAA is about to collapse. At least in our esteem. It is now understood, even by the most obtuse and earnest members of the sporting press that not only does the National Collegiate Athletic Association fail to prevent corruption, it requires it.

In that way, there's no going back.

And while it is well known among regular readers of this column that I suffer institutions and bureaucracies (even the one employing me) without patience or charity, I approach today's subject with as much fairness and disinterest as I can. Because the evidence against the NCAA needs no embellishment. The argument against it as any kind of operative force for good is overwhelming.

From Ohio State to the University of Miami; from Reggie Bush to Cam Newton to Jim Tressel; from Yahoo! Sports to the Columbia Journalism Review to a hundred other outlets in just the past few weeks (see sidebar for links and stories), consensus has been reached. Euthanize the NCAA. Blow it up. Tear it down. Cut it loose. The NCAA is a fire department staffed by arsonists.

It's a "clearinghouse" that brokers the sale of college-age athletic services to broadcasters and shoe companies for money. Sound familiar?

Just leave that $800 million on the nightstand, champ. Thanks.

What's left is how we fix it.