Freep on the NCAA Football Sanctions
Here's an ad-free link to the Freep's treatment of what will not be a good week for Michigan football:
http://tinyurl.com/snyder-is-a-dbag
It is clear that new AD Brandon is walking a tightrope when you try to self-impose sanctions. It's is like Goldilocks and the porridge. Too harsh, too weak, or just right.
Any way you slice this, it sucks, it's the last thing we need, and I guarantee you this incompetence will not happen on David Brandon's watch. As a former corporate executive, he understands that compliance is something you just have to get right without excuses.
I really want Michigan to be in the news for what it does on the football field, and not what is contained in NCAA filings.
the best he possibly could. Us as a fan base and them as Football organization just need to take our lumbs and move on because nothing will be program crippling and when they start winning all will be forgotten.
an insider involved. That will go a long way toward making sure whatever self-imposed sanctions come of this are in the right ballpark and therefore hopefully adequate. Sure the NCAA rarely accepts self-imposed sanctions, but then again they have never ruled on them coming from Michigan.
I do resent the tone of the article, which is overwhelmingly negative, though I'm not surprised given the source.
Let's see, in writing this article, I want to be sure to point out the following:
1. State that UM could be on probation for 2 years and use the word 'certainty' here, where later in the sentence this is qualified with an 'if they', yessssssss.
2. In the synopsis, be sure to mention USC as a factor in an attempt to link the practice overages with infractions as egregious as paying your players, b/c they are certainly on the same level.
Be sure not to:
1. Mention that UM has cooperated fully and been a willing participant in every step of the investigation, acting openly and honestly in dealing with the NCAA.
2. Come to the conclusion that bringing on a sports lawyer with experience on the NCAA committee is soley for the purpose of minimizing any potential infractions and not to be sure that rules that were previously not intepreted correctly for compliance are better understood in terms of how the NCAA views them.
Don't get me wrong, I hope that Brandon is doing everything he can in good conscience to keep whatever sanctions may result to a minimum, but I do take issue with the tone of the writing that acts as if this is some kind of 'behind the scenes', surreptitious attempt to skirt paying a penalty ala USC. If it is so 'behind the scenes', how come we know about it?
Spot on analysis. As usual, not exactly objective journalism.
a restriction of practice time and the loss of a quality control staff member or two. nothing major
I'd vote for the loss of one graduate assistant for two years as the penalty for his misdeeds alone.
On the quality-control staff acting as coaches, I'm not ready to concede anything. But I think it is safe to assume that while the University will dispute the bulk of those (very broad) allegations, it will also make some concessions. The loss of quality-control staff is not a sufficient penalty, since the allegations are that they were acting as coaches. So maybe the loss of another graduate assistant?
On stretching, I don't know what would be an appropriate penalty. Maybe have Rich send daily text messages reading "Time spent stretching before practice counts as practice" to every other BCS coach for one year?
Michigan will announce they have eliminated the role of Quality Control Staff (which they have already done), that Alex Herron and Bob McClain are no longer on staff. They will announce new clarified job descriptions for Staff Interns -- Ison and Wright -- with specifc restrictions for what constitutes coaching. Braithwaite, Hott and Smith have all been moved to coaching positions: Safeties Coach, and GAs (whom I think can coach).
It will be interesting to see if they move Braithwaite to a non-coaching position and give up a coach (or one of the GAs).
I'm guessing whatever we propose will be accepted, and then a few additional things will be added on top -- Rich having to have remedial training. Herron getting some kind of warnign letter that follows him to his next job, etc.
So yeah, the game is punishing yourself enough, but leaving room for the addtional hand slap on the way out the door.
Agreed, especially on the latter. Thats really all thats happening. Much ado about nothing, and I havent really been losing any sleep over this. Our back seven, however........
This article is more to keep it in the news. There isn't anything new that was revealed. Notice how the Detroit News, Mlive, and other news sources didn't run a similar article.
Det News articles earlier in the week. Two of them - talking about the NCAA and Coach Rod..
other than just to remind people of what is happening Tuesday.
I mean seriously:
U-M must craft a response that isn't so lenient the Committee on Infractions adds additional penalties but isn't so harsh it punishes U-M more than the committee would have.
No shit. I mean that's some high level analysis right there.
And the Free Press keeps pointing to the SDSU case, but I think that case is way more extreme. As summarized by Brian the SDSU case included "extra benefit infractions" and the coach videotaped the off-season workouts and then sold the tapes. That is a far cry from what happened here. SDSU lost scholarships but I think that was in part to the "Extra benefit" charge.
The FIU case posted by Brian seems closer to me but even to the extreme as it was deliberate and intentional over practicing by the OL coach.
what the Freep says?
I'll put my faith with the former NCAA sanctions officer UM hired on the matter
Without exception, every one of the Rosenberg/Snyder stories that is a furtherance of the Free Press "investigation" is timed for release with one of its Home-delivery days. (The only exceptions are when actual developing news events drive stories, and even then the Freep will often sit on stories to hold them for home-delivery days.)
The good news is nobody under the age of 112 gets the Freep home-delivered.
But what exactly does it mean to be on probation, as U-M is likely to be after admitting to a major violation?
It means you don't talk to the Freep for a specified period of time.
Simply put, it means that the school needs to be good while it's on probation or it could get bigger sanctions should it become a repeat offender.
Probation itself isn't too big a deal, but the ramifications of further bad behavior are significant.
for the AD and compliance there will be extra reporting requirements and if any UM team gets busted during the probationary period that's when the dreaded "repeat offender" and "lack of institional control" starts getting real. But probation does not mean anything in the way of TV appearances, bowl appearances or anything of substance.
I don't see a whole lot to get upset about here.
The "Freep Analysis" suggesting that it will not merely take the self imposed sanctions is more enemy fodder for the negative recruiters...And you do not think it will merely stop with this. The freep follies will toot their own horn etc... to justify its "sweatshop" image...
Am I right that Michigan won't have 85 scholarship players this year? If so, one year penalties sound like a great way to placate the NCAA while allowing them to seem harsh in the media. The NCAA is mostly interested in symbolic penalties anyways, why else does the NCAA ever "vacate" wins?
That's penalizing players, and I don't see enough here to warrant that. The players did nothing wrong.
Rasmus, the reason we may forfeit a scholarship or two this season is simply because it wouldn't actually hurt the players. It would simply be a symbolic gesture that would allow the NCAA to appear tough--which is really the point.
Losing one scholarship would be effectively symbolic for this year.
+1 for the custom URL.
[[derogatory term mocking Snyder]] knows he is plying his trade on a sinking ship and is doing whatever he can to keep himself relevant in the eyes of future employers. Even though they failed in their original goal to bring RR and the program down, Rosenpuke and [[derogatory term mocking Snyder]] will celebrate whatever sanctions are enforced, and proclaim it as a "victory" and "proof" that their hatchet job was "journalism."
And both will continue to seek other opportunities before the freep goes under for the last time.
to think that term would EVER be acceptable to use under any circumstance?
Most people have no clue that the word has ties to anti-semitism. I heard Captain Cragen on Law and Order SVU say that word and I just about fell off the couch. Even though the etymology of the word is unclear, it's too close for comfort.
Regardless of all of that, it's completely sophomoric to change someone's name in a limp attempt to insult them. It's no different than referring to Michigan as scUM.
Even "Rosenpuke" should be subject to the -100000 penalty.
Hurr hurr Rosenpuke lololol.
for the tiny url customized name of the link.
Feels like a whole lot of nothing. One point I found interesting was the reference to the USC basketball and football controversies as indicative of how the NCAA will come down on UM. What UM did is not even on the same football field as what USC did, so I'm not sure what we can take from that (in)action except that if the NCAA doesn't come down hard on the Trojans, UM will be treated even more generously.
Don't bet the farm on that, however reasonable it might seem. I won't be remotely surprised if the NCAA sanctions on UM match or exceed whatever they levy on USC. I won't even be surprised if that august organization decides that they don't have enough proof to do anything to the Trojans. The fact that it's taken the NCAA this long to do exactly nothing yet does not fill me with confidence.
They would really risk doing some serious damage to their credibility as an agency of enforcement and would set an extremely bad precedent in acting in that manner.
1. The message that would send to programs would be, commit as serious an infraction as you want, just be sure that you protect yourself by not leaving any concrete evidence as to your trangressions and you will be left alone for years until it all blows over and there are no or minimal penalties involved.
2. Should you be investigated, be sure not to cooperate fully and openly becuase that will only result in the least amount of leniency and instead get you a maximum penalty for the most minor of infractions, commensurate or in excess of penalties for far more serious transgressions, but for which there was less evidence.
Anything is possible, but I have to imagine that the NCAA will judge the cases separately and not let the treatment/result of one influence the outcome of the other.
You could actually make the opposite case, whereby UM gets a more lenient result b/c of their openness and willing participation.
My fingers are crossed we get the latter.
Is that UM is considered a "repeat" offender because of the Martin issues from basketball. And while those incidents are well outside the 5 years, UM agreed to keep the investigation open while it cooperated with law enforcement authorities on that matter. Three more months, then no repeat offender...the timing sucks. Otherwise, 99 percent fo the time, UM would merely submit written response and likely accept what it proposed.
NCAA renders the whole thing farcical in my book. Paying players is major. Altering grades is major. Providing players with exam answers is major. Giving recruits gifts to sign LOIs is major.
By any rational standard of comparison, practicing 20 minutes longer than is permitted under NCAA regs that even its own writers have admitted are hard to understand is not. Having a grad assistant impermissibly present at some practices is not.
The fact that the NCAA can't see a difference between these transgressions, and the fact that the NCAA has had months to pore over an alleged mountain of evidence in the USC/Reggie Bush case and has yet to do anything is enough to convince me that the NCAA is simultaneously incompetent and corrupt.
Way back in 1997, reporters for the Kansas City Star discovered that the NCAA manual for cities holding Final Fours "required a series of gifts to be delivered every night to the hotel rooms of NCAA officials. These mementos cost Indianapolis an estimated $25,000, said John Parry, athletic director at Butler Un iversity there at the time. At a minimum, gifts for each official included a Samsonite suit bag, a Final Four ticket embedded in Lucite, a Limoges porcelain basketball and Steuben glass."
There should be no doubt that these gifts are nothing other than bribes or payola, and there shouldn't be any doubt that the practice has continued to this day. The Final Four was held in Michael Rosenberg's home city just two years ago, and despite the great interest the Freep had in uncovering the rampant corruption in Kwame's tenure, there was no interest on the part of that or any other local news organization in what huge amounts of swag were delivered to the hotel rooms of the NCAA bigwigs while they were in Detroit.
The Kansas City Star article is here:
http://www.commercialalert.org/issues/culture/sports/revenues-dominate-the-college-sports-world
It's really aggravating that none of this would have happened if not for the Freep's horribly unethical actions. As I've said before, the Freep can burn for all I care.
It also wouldn't have happened if Michigan hadn't broken the rules. The staff is ultimately at fault, regardless of how the rule-breaking was exposed.
I could really care less what they say about Michigan anymore, their newspaper is dead to me.
the whole self-imposed sanctions thing seems a little bizarre. just about every school does it now, but it's an odd game to have to play. the ncaa is rarely completely satisfied with a school's self-imposed penalties, so you always have to plan for an additional hit beyond whatever you self-impose. it's a game of minimizing the sum of your self-imposed penalties plus the extra hit you'll take from the ncaa, which means going fairly light on yourself (well below the expected ncaa sanctions) but not so light as to enrage the ncaa by incorrectly predicting their punishment.
i guess there's some face-saving value in letting the schools self-impose, but it seems like we'd get more consistent, fairer penalties -- with a less ridiculous process -- if the ncaa just took care of it.
sanctions, then it would not be looked upon favorably. Michigan is not denying that there were technical problems - i.e., strecthing times counted incorrectly. But it is nowhere the sweatshop suggested by the freep.
As a former corporate executive, he understands that compliance is something you just have to get right without excuses.
Nothing against Brandon personally, but ... I can think of some examples of corporate executives screwing the pooch pretty fucking hard in terms of lack of compliance.
Another year of hair-pulling loses and off the field garbage is enough. I'm behind the program all the way. However, this should never happen at Michigan I'm sorry. We donate way too much money and put way too much sweat into to the program to insure the program is run right. Seems like the real story will be coming forward. Not negative just can't believe this is happening. For what has been explained to have happened, this is way too much over kill and "piling on" with no strong rebutal. Maybe that is coming. Go Blue as always !!!
.... is absolutely terrible, not only for turning a blind eye to U$C for so many years, but they can't seem to get anything right. i was amazed that they suspended dez bryant for an entire season. and that payolla shit is everywhere to, makes me sick i dont even listen to the radio anymore because of it
thing to say: Fuck The Freep.