Compare and contrast – NCAA Allegations

UPDATE- We’ve incorporated all of the allegations into a table for those who prefer getting their information that way. Check it out here, or under the Media Table at the top right of the site.

UPDATE 2- Georgia Tech’s case has been added to the article for completeness. (You need to click “read more” before the link will work properly)

UPDATE 3- This article has been reposted with updates.

This is the article you have all been waiting for.  Rather than just looking at all of the allegations leveled at Ohio State like I did a couple weeks ago, I now list every single allegation leveled by the NCAA at several different schools.

This article is a public service for anyone who is interested in the details of the allegations for a number of different schools including: Southern California, North Carolina, Tennessee, Boise State and Ohio State.  Each table of allegations is a faithful representation of the allegation posed against the institution along with the response provided by the University for each.  I hope that everyone who reads this will find it an informative and useful resource for discussing the NCAA, amateurism and the recent string of investigations that have swept the nation.

This is not a short article, so you may want to take it in slowly and in pieces. Reading it in one sitting may cause any number of complications that we hold no responsibility for including, but not limited to; excessive optimism, finger pointing, extreme laughter and glassy-eye dazes.

I also point out that what is included in each table is entirely factual information based off the documents provided by either the NCAA or the university in question.  So too with the “results” of the investigation at the end of the discussion for each school.  The discussions themselves are entirely a matter of writer’s opinion and should be taken as such.

For an in depth look at each allegation and the violations therein,

The violations refer to the particular code in the NCAA bylaw handbook . This isn’t the current handbook, but the one for 2009-2010. Despite that, the majority of the pertinent rules for this article should remain unchanged.

The responses say “Agreed” if the university agrees to the allegation in full, “Denied” if the university finds no substantial evidence to support the allegation, “Partially Agreed” if some parts of the Allegation are confirmed by the institution, and “Unknown” if we don’t have a copy of the Response to Allegations.

When the response is “Partially Agreed”, the allegations that the university has agreed to will be listed.  First will be the appropriate violation, followed by all of the allegations appropriate to that violation.  If a “p” follows any particular allegation listing, that emphasizes that only a part of that particular allegation was agreed to.

Southern California

The University of Southern California’s Notice of Allegations (NOA) was never released to the public – they are a private institution and are not required to do so.  Obviously it would be nice to have the original NCAA document, which we do have for all of the other schools present in this article.  However, the USC response to the Allegations, which happens to be quite thorough, does detail most of the allegations posted against the University.

A big hat tip goes out to Paragon SC at the USC blog Conquest Chronicles for helping me get the facts completely straight here.  That blog has an excellent rundown of articles and pdf files regarding the investigation into SC and is well worth a look (“USC vs. the NCAA” – left sidebar, halfway to the bottom).  Paragon SC has also agreed to sit down with us for an upcoming podcast, so stay tuned for that!

* The comments were viewed as inadvertent, and not intended to be of a recruiting nature, nor did the prospects view the comments as an attempt to recruit them.

** The University viewed this as a secondary violation, but it is believed that the NCAA recorded this as a major violation.

Scope: Three sports teams (Football, Men’s Basketball, Women’s Tennis).

I give USC a lot of credit after reading their response on the whole.  While it clocks in at a ridiculous 169 pages, it is chocked full of delicious reading material – particularly if you’re not a huge fan of the NCAA.

For the most part, USC makes a fantastic case regarding the issues that it denied wrong doing.  In the vast majority of those denied allegations, the NCAA clearly had a weak case – very nearly on the level of what SI had on Ohio State.  USC drives the point home that the NCAA has failed to meet their own requirements for evidence, referencing previous NCAA investigations into other programs to prove their point.

I believe that USC got hammered beyond what they deserved.  Clearly, though, I’m giving USC the benefit of the doubt and saying that the issues they denied were done so well enough to warrant dismissal of those charges.  Ultimately, while I agree that a “failure to monitor” charge might be valid for the cases that they agreed to, the Lack of Institutional Control was certainly excessive.

But, obviously, my opinion is meaningless here.

One thing that is definitely worth impressing upon the reader is that USC closely worked with the NCAA! While the mainstream media has been trying hard to push the “USC fought the NCAA” meme, it’s absolutely not true.  USC’s former student athletes, and the agents and representatives therein, may not have worked with the NCAA, but the University absolutely did.  That is even expressed (apparently) in the Notice of Allegations, where the NCAA thanked USC for their help and support.

One last point – making a comparison between Ohio State and USC might be completely moot.  The violations are substantially different.

1. USC’s violations occurred in multiple programs over the course of several years while Ohio State had only one and with a limited timeframe.
2. Both Reggie Bush’s family*** and OJ Mayo took a much larger sum of money, though Ohio State had a greater number of players breaking the rules.
3. Most of the players breaking rules at Ohio State were (and are) still at Ohio State to take punishment for their actions, while in USC’s case, the players had already left.
4. Finally, we know that Jim Tressel broke bylaw 10.1, while the evidence for McNair was not nearly strong enough to suggest that he really did violate bylaw 10.1.

As Buckeye fans, if you are hoping for leniency solely because Ohio State self-reported and worked with the NCAA, you could be in for a shock.

*** Officially, the vast majority of the benefits provided in the Reggie Bush part of the scandal were officially given to his parents and family.

Result:

• 4 years probation
• Vacate 14 football wins from 2004-2005
• Eliminate any connection with Reggie Bush from the program
• Loss of 30 scholarships over 3 years
• 2 year Football postseason play ban (2010, 2011)
• 1 year (self imposed) Basketball postseason ban (2010)
• Basketball scholarship reduction (self imposed)

North Carolina

North Carolina’s Notice of Allegations is available on the web, but their response has yet to be finalized and will be submitted at a later date.  For now, we will simply list the allegations and appropriate violations.  Hopefully we will be able to return and post UNC’s responses, but that will depend on if their response is released to the public.

The actual Allegations start on page 17 of the provided pdf.

Scope: One Sport (Football)

UNC was another case (along with Ohio State) where the Media expected a Lack of Institutional Control charge, but none was forthcoming.  However, UNC did pick up the almost-as-bad charge of Failure to Monitor for the violations of their football program.

I believe this is probably a fair charge.  Given the quantity of violations committed by the football program, and given the fact that one of their Assistant Coaches was in the back pocket of a professional sports agency, it seems the UNC Athletic Department missed the boat.

That said, considering the charge exists solely for one sports team, I highly doubt the institution lacks control.  It’s more likely that certain details escaped their notice due to clever concealment by a coach and sneaky sports agency.

Also worth noting is that UNC did cooperate fully with the NCAA during the investigation.

Result: Unknown at this time; North Carolina has not released its response to the allegations, nor has the NCAA leveled any penalties as of yet.

Tennessee

The University of Tennessee has already met with their Committee on Infractions, meaning that they are getting closer to a resolution of the issue at hand.  While Tennessee’s Notice of Allegations is available on the internet, the response, which was due on May 21^st, does not appear to be.  Therefore, we have no idea how Tennessee responded to their violations.

That doesn’t mean we can list their allegations like everyone else!

Scope: Two sports (Football, Basketball)

I’m actually fairly impressed that Tennessee was able to avoid the Lack of Institutional Control.  Failure to Monitor on two separate sports teams, the entire basketball coaching staff acting contrary to the principles of ethical conduct and both Pearl and Kiffin failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance?  It almost seems like a no-brainer.

It’s possible that the complete lack of impermissible benefits charges was (as far as we can tell considering the horrific redactions) what ultimately saved Tennessee in that regard.  It could also be that the NCAA thinks that Tennessee has an acceptable compliance department that just missed the boat on a few things (or, more specifically, that Pearl, Kiffin and company did a good job of concealing their activities).  I doubt we’ll ever know for sure, considering how fickle the NCAA tends to be in regards to penalties and violations.

I was surprised how much redacting Tennessee had done compared to Ohio State and UNC (names) and USC (replacing names with non-descriptive identifiers) and Boise State (both, depending on the document you look at).  A Tennessee staffer must have handed a black sharpie to their 6 year old and let them go to town.  Given what the Dispatch put together a couple of years ago, I suppose no-one should be surprised by Tennessee’s strong-arming method of redaction.

The results below are not the final say against Tennessee, as we still have to wait to hear the final response from the NCAA after the committee of infractions. That usually requires one to two months after the hearing.

Result:

• The firing of successful head basketball coach Bruce Pearl.
• The resignation of UT’s Athletic Director Mike Hamilton.
• This set of self-imposed penalties on Bruce Pearl and the UT Basketball coaching staff.
• The disbanding of the Orange Pride, a group of UT ambassadors. They are likely the source of one of the redacted allegations, and were being investigated for improper contact with recruits.

Boise State

The Broncos are the surprise in the bunch, if only because the media reports regarding their allegations and penalties have been few and far between. BSU’s list of allegations is actually quite impressive overall, as you will see shortly.

Like Tennessee, Boise State has already faced the NCAA Committee on Infractions and therefore has filed their response to the allegations.  Unfortunately, again, the Boise State response is not available on the net – despite the fact that I know for certain that it was released to the media.  Like before, expect this list of responses to change if and when we see a copy of the BSU response.

* This last statement is partially redacted, so take it with a grain of salt.  However, the statement does best fit based on the additional information provided.

Scope: Five sports (Men’s and Women’s Track and Field, Men’s and Women’s Tennis, Football)

This is quite an incredible list of violations.  A full 22 allegations against the Boise State athletic department account for as many as three other schools on this list combined.  It’s not surprising that Boise State got the dreaded “lack of institutional control” charge at the end.  It spanned four sports teams and more than 5 years of misdeeds.

The interesting part is that the majority of the violations occurred in “non-profit-earning” sports.  Usually you see the vast majority of major violations occurring to the programs that have a lot riding on their success, or where there is a lot of prestige to gain or lose.  It’s refreshing to see another group of athletes and coaches go rogue.

You may have noticed that I was very kind to USC during the course of this article, but a bit harsher to the other three.  This is primarily due to two factors.

1. We have USC’s response to their allegations, and therefore we can have a close look at their side of the story.  USC made a compelling argument regarding their case, and I’m disappointed I didn’t get a chance to see what the other schools’ athletic departments had.
2. The USC and Ohio State stories were way overblown by the media, and received a disproportionate number of hours rehashing the story – particularly the parts that were wrong.  Tennessee, Boise State and UNC have been relatively less discussed on a national scale.

Result:
Boise State has self-imposed a large number of penalties on all five of their programs, those penalties include:

• Public Censure and reprimand.
• Three years of probation with continued improvements in rules education and compliance monitoring.
• A laundry list of other penalties including recruiting limits, practice limits and scholarship limits depending on the sport.

Ohio State

Last but not least, even though we’ve already seen it a hundred times before, let’s look at the allegations facing Ohio State.  Keep in mind, the NCAA could still submit a second NoA if Ohio State finds and self reports more issues, or if they have discovered anything additional from their investigations.

Also, like USC, we have access to the full range of information Ohio State used to respond to the NCAA.  That gives us an opportunity to discuss our thoughts regarding what OSU has said.

Scope: One Sport (Football)

Of course, if ESPN had their way the scope would extend all the way to the fanbase, the students, the dirt the university sits on, and the water that flows through the Olentangy.

It’s worth noting that the NCAA filed an updated Notice of Allegations on July 8th to reflect additional findings during further investigation into the program.  That investigation was the result of the Sports Illustrated article and the reported findings by ESPN.  The updated notice clearly indicated that the NCAA found only one point of merit in those reports, the inclusion of a 7th current player to Allegation 1.  That still may change, but for the time things seem to be winding down in this investigation.

It’s surprising in simply looking at the number of violations alleged by the NCAA at this point that anyone at all was asking for the failure to monitor charge, let alone the lack of institutional control.  The primary basis for that claim was the fact that Tressel lied, and committed the unforgivable “10.1” violation.

Amusingly, in every other case cited above where a 10.1 violation was handed down, the individual in question also violated other NCAA bylaws, or other parts of the 10.1 bylaw itself.  The only exception to this is Todd McNair of USC who picked up the single violation of 10.1-(d) in Allegation 3, though he also picked up additional violations in Allegation 1.  Tressel himself picked up violations in both of Ohio State’s allegations.

It’s also worth noting that the violations were limited to a 2 year span (2008-2010) and to only one sports team at the university.  The only other program that can claim such a limited time frame, and such a limited scope, is North Carolina which clearly committed a larger set of NCAA sins – assuming they don’t successfully appeal any of them.

I’m not going to end this with a comment about what I think the NCAA is going to do.  First off, that would be fool-hardy, as even the luckiest can’t successfully predict what is going on in the NCAA’s head.  Second, there’s always still the possibility of more to come – at least until the committee on infractions meet.

Result:

• The eventual forced resignation turned retirement of successful Head Football coach Jim Tressel
• A 5 game suspension for the players involved in Allegation 1
• Vacating all wins from the 2010-2011 football season (including the Sugar Bowl) (self-imposed)
• 2 years probation (self-imposed)

I do want to finish this article off with a discussion of Ohio State’s self-imposed penalties.  Interestingly, Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated believes that these penalties are entirely reasonable for the crimes though many in the media, and many fans of other teams, think otherwise.

In fact, I’ve even heard some Buckeye fans complaining that we should have hit ourselves harder; maybe even adding some scholarship reductions or a post-season ban.  There is one major flaw with that plan, however.

The University has spent an incredible amount of time and energy focusing all of the violations on Tressel himself.  The entire narrative has been that of Tressel being a loose cannon and putting an unsuspecting University in the cross-hairs of an NCAA investigation.  Thus far, that strategy has worked.

If the University decided to self-impose penalties on the institution – such as a post-season ban or scholarship reductions – they would, in fact, be suggesting that the institution itself is at fault.  That goes directly against the narrative they’ve tried so hard to set up.

Another big issue involved with imposing a more strict set of penalties is that those penalties take effect immediately.  Ohio State does not want to take a post season ban, particularly this year, if they absolutely don’t have to.  By not self-imposing a ban, Ohio State in effect allows their football team to play the 2011 postseason.  This occurs simply because the NCAA’s penalties don’t take effect until after the appeals are complete, which by this point would almost certainly occur after the 2011-2012 football season.

If you think the penalties take effect the moment the NCAA hands them out, please see the USC investigation case.

Homerism aside, I think Ohio State made precisely the right choice in their self-imposed penalties.  They willingly sacrificed the Sugar Bowl (as painful as that is for us as fans), a game that the NCAA had declared the players eligible for and let the NCAA decide the remaining fate.  Given the quantity of charges, and assuming nothing else comes down the pipe, Stewart Mandel may in fact be more right than many want him to be.

Georgia Tech

The recent release of the NCAA Public Infractions Report on Georgia Tech has allowed us to enhance this article to include their allegations. In the subsequent search for information, we were able to find the Georgia Tech Response to Allegations, though not the Notice itself. Thankfully, like USC, Georgia Tech did a good job of replicating the Notice of Allegations within their response.

I’m going to leave the commentary to a minimum, and allow the information to stand on its own.

Scope: Two Sports (Football, Men’s Basketball)

Results:

• Public reprimand and censure.
• Four year’s probation.
• A $100,000 penalty.
• Men’s basketball will have a reduction in “recruiting-person” days, a limit to 10 official visits for each of the next two academic years, and a limit in complementary tickets to individuals associated with prospective student athletes.
• Football will vacate all victories between November 24th, 2009 and the bowl game for that season (one victory: ACC Championship).
• Additional requirements in compliance education and advancement.