Some 22 months ago in an attorney's office in Palm Beach, Fla., two NCAA investigators met with a man named

, who runs a legitimate and reputable college scouting service. The interview lasted three hours. The questions were wide ranging, and often, puzzling. Among the topics, Fishbein was asked about business he conducted with then-Ducks coach

,

, and the University of Oregon football program.

"There are two people you never want to hear from," Fishbein said Friday, "an area code from Indianapolis and the IRS. I remember seeing that Indianapolis area code on my telephone and thinking -- 'NCAA.'"

Fishbein hasn't done anything wrong. He's committed no crimes, broken no rules. In fact, he's since received the blessing of the NCAA and an approval as a registered scouting service, a process that was born of this Oregon-Lyles mess. But he's an important player here because he says he's been consulted on background, and for context by the investigators. Fishbein's company,

, not only did business with Kelly, but it employed Lyles before the Texas man went on his own and did $25,000 worth of suspect business with the Ducks.

Said Fishbein: "The NCAA never called me back after that meeting. Maybe Oregon is on the back burner with everything else going on."

Maybe they are. Maybe this painstaking two-year wait is just the NCAA working through the process. But Fishbein isn't alone in wondering what's going on with an investigation that sprung open in March 2011, became polarizing fodder, and has since cooled to puzzled talks and passing conversation in which fans ask one another, "You think it's going to be bad for the Ducks or what?"

Take a stab. That's where this NCAA investigation is today. Lyles didn't return messages seeking comment for this column. NCAA president Mark Emmert didn't, either, bound by a policy of not commenting on ongoing investigations. Those are your bookends on this saga: Emmert and Lyles. Oregon is smack in the middle, with its attorneys, athletic director, new football coach and a bunch of innocent players, awaiting a date with the 10-member NCAA Committee on Infractions that will either take place this spring, or summer, or whenever the governing body of college athletics gets around to giving us all closure.

Fans want this over, one way or another. Fishbein has since moved on, registering with the NCAA and restructuring his own business into

. The UO administrators, punch drunk and under a staggering pile of unfilled public records requests, have been asked so often about the investigation they must wake in the middle of the night, sit straight up, eyes rolled back in their heads, mumbling, "It would be inappropriate for us to comment on an ongoing NCAA investigation. ... We're cooperating."

Something about all this doesn't feel just, efficient or authoritative.

The Ducks deserved their licks for whatever they did wrong, but then, to get to move on. Oregon fans deserve to go free of the shadow. This has turned into a slow affliction of absurdity, and hardly anybody left in Eugene deserves real blame. Instead, the investigation is headed to a day in which recent five-star signee running back

, just a sophomore at Aloha High School when this all began, somehow ends up held more accountable than Kelly, who was foolish and desperate to do business with Lyles.

Kelly has moved on to the NFL. A reporter this week asked the Eagles coach about the distractions for the Ducks during this investigation and Kelly said, "I'm focused on my own football team." It's, "Win the day," not "Dwell on yesterday." Problem is, nobody at Oregon can entirely focus on the true trajectory of the football program with the investigation lingering as unfinished as a long-overdue mural project on the side of a prominent downtown building.

Fishbein said those two NCAA investigators told him that this inquiry began after someone at University of Texas alerted the NCAA to the Houston-based Lyles, who they believed had grown oddly influential with in-state players.

"I think it was tough for Texas to look at Oregon playing in the national championship game with a backfield from Texas," Fishbein said.

Still, buried in that three-hour interview was a pretty telling tidbit.

Said Fishbein: "I realized from the questions they were asking that they had no idea what a recruiting service was."

That's how far behind the NCAA was when this race started. They're barely catching up. What we have here is a fact-finding mission that turned into an opportunity for the NCAA to set new recruiting-service guidelines. That was interrupted by a tragic disaster Penn State, a dire situation at Ohio State, a migraine at Tennessee, and now, a bungled investigation into Miami that makes you wonder if the NCAA is just plain distracted right now.

Through it all, I've gone from believing the Ducks were going to get slapped on the wrist, to believing they're going to get slugged in the gut, to wondering if any punishment at all should matter given the mostly innocent parties left to deal with it.

Remember former Ducks assistant director of football operations, Josh Gibson? He was implicated as the main contact for Lyles while at Oregon. He's since been hired by Kelly in Philadelphia as a scout. Unless the NCAA is going to call NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and somehow slap the Eagles with a postseason ban, what exactly is being pursued here anymore?

Lyles, who was deemed a "booster" and not a "scouting service" by the NCAA during its investigation into Tennessee's athletic department, has maintained at different points over the last two years that he doesn't believe he broke NCAA rules. He told me once he was just trying to help players, and run his own business. But he was mostly helped to $25,000 of public-institution money in this state. Also, Lyles said he felt betrayed by Kelly and Oregon when the university dumped his "scouting service" documents in that massive public-records release, making Lyles look incompetent.

Thing is, that records move made everyone look bad, Willie. Or Will. Or whatever they called you around the football offices. But the slow pace of this investigation, and Fishbein revealing all these years later that the questioning of NCAA investigators he met with for three hours, "went in circles," makes you wonder.

Will we get a decision out of this? Or just get dizzy?

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