ND Investigation Announcement & Results Rampant Speculation Thread (No New News)

Submitted by LKLIII on

**I created this thread since the ND academic investigation & consequences are likely to be a significant & specific source of conversation leading up to our game with them this week.  Rather than have people dig deep into the general game week thread, I figured this would be easeir.  Mods, feel free to delete or edit if necessary....**

 

Notre Dame announced that the fact-finding part of the investiation is over, and that some or all of the cases will be sent to the univeristy honor code panel for a final determination.  No word yet, but my understanding is this will happen prior to Saturday.  

Any rampant predictions or rumors?

How much will this impact our game with them on Saturday?  Obviously if key starers are held out it hurts ND, but if they are somehow cleared early, how rusty will they actually be?  Folks on ND boards are saying that the suspended players are still working out and attending meetings & film sessions with the team, but not actually putting on pads and running drills.  Will this even matter?

Once any official news comes out, somebody else can create a fresh thread.

 

EDIT:  Learning the ropes of creating new threads.  Rather than making this the entire thread on this issue, Mods have helpfully told me it's all about the time stamp.  In that case, I'm letting this be the repository for rampant speculation and then if/when real news comes out Tuesday or Wednesday, etc. somebody else can post up a fresh thread w/ links to the real news.

LKLIII

September 1st, 2014 at 2:33 PM ^

You are not high.  No new information.  But I figured I'd create this pre-emptively, since:

 

1) My understanding is they are going to announce something in the next day or so, at which point the OP title will be updated and links to actual news provided, and

2) The general game week thread was getting polluted with people asking/speculating about the ND academic investigation, so I figured it'd be best to carve it out into its own topic. 

If the mods hate the idea, they can delete it.

LKLIII

September 1st, 2014 at 2:39 PM ^

It's all just speculating right now.  Some wishful ND forums are saying that one or more will be exonerated.  But others in ND forums are saying Williams basically admitted he cheated and will be definitely be out at least for the UofM game.  Most ND fans are saying that Russell is the real blow to their strength, and they're hoping he's cleared this week.

But at this point I don't think anybody knows anything definitively.  It's all just rampant (but amusing) speculation.

 

MaximusBlue

September 1st, 2014 at 2:34 PM ^

These guys must have done something way more minor than what Gholson did because he was gone for the whole season. Nothing has been announced yet, but there's speculation in the earlier thread that the players will conveniently be back Saturday.

O S Who

September 2nd, 2014 at 7:51 AM ^

no - i think golson's investigation didnt leak to the public before completion like this one did.  he was found guilty during the investigation, so then he was punished. 

and the players who are found guilty will probably get similar punishments, the players who were found innocent will have no punishment at all (since they didnt cheat). so im not sure what kind of point you are making.  they are actually being overpunished if found innocent.

the players most likely to return are russell and daniels, and maybe williams.  i heard kendall moore is out for sure, and i assume eilar hardy is out since he was brought in later.

SF Wolverine

September 1st, 2014 at 2:35 PM ^

I'd guess that Finding # 1 is "man, do we need some of these guys back to have a chance against Michigan." Expect Daniels back at least; Domers were bitching about some dropped passes from "clearly in the Heisman hunt" Golson

LSAClassOf2000

September 1st, 2014 at 2:38 PM ^

As a note to the OP, it's probably better if you create the thread as the news is released only because changing the title will not change the timestamp on the thread necessarily - that's the thing which would need to change for this to remain near the top. We can do that for you, but it would take one of us remembering this thread was buried somewhere within the first few pages, of course. 

That being said, as it was purposed to be a thread for speculation on the results of this investigation and such threads are a semi-tradition here, we'll leave it. 

LKLIII

September 1st, 2014 at 2:47 PM ^

Good to know.  Still getting the hang of this creating threads thing.

For reasons that will become clear later this week, I'm not going to be around a ton in the next few days, so what I've done is just make this the "rampant speculation" junk thread, and then when real news comes out, maybe somebody else just makes a fresh thread with the actual links/updates on Tuesday or Wednesday whenever it hits.  That way nobody has to remember to dig this thread up from the 2nd or 3rd page.

Or, you could always delete this one if you don't think the topic merits its own thread this soon.

charblue.

September 1st, 2014 at 3:51 PM ^

imply anything more than speculaiton about possible results of an academic fraud investigation, which is now complete. If anything, that is the headline, with the news portion being simply an acknowledgement when and if results might be made available. 

There will always be speculation about the case results. And if the OP were actually writing this as a news story, he would have incorporated details indicating if, whether or not, results might be forthcoming and how that process might be handled before Saturday night when Michgian plays the Irish. He didn't. He just wrote what he wrote to get the topic out on the forum for discussion, which, I think is fair game. 

This is what it is, a blog post seeking to stimulate discussion. 

 

GuloGulo

September 1st, 2014 at 2:39 PM ^

WHO Notre Dame has on the field.

What matters is how Team 135 plays. If they play the way that I think (and hope) that they are capable of, Michigan wins.

MGoClimb

September 1st, 2014 at 2:45 PM ^

When Notre Dame made their announcement last week, the only thing they would say other than their investigation was finished was that they were holding out another player. If these accused players were innocent, I would think that we would have heard something to support that. So far there is only speculation. I have not been able to find any source even suggesting that these players could be cleared this week.

 

LKLIII

September 1st, 2014 at 2:55 PM ^

I tend to agree.  You'd think if they were going to clear one or more players, they'd have sped up that process so they could fully rejoin the teamp ASAP prior to Michigan week.

But, out in the ND forums, there's a ton of wishful thiking that one or more players will be let off the hook once anything is officially announced this week.  Particularly Russell.

 

 

UnkleBuck

September 1st, 2014 at 2:47 PM ^

Just speculation, but punishment will probably be time served, which means the valuable players will play Saturday.  ND's athletic administration will not waste a final chance to try to stick it to UM.

Needs

September 1st, 2014 at 3:10 PM ^

If they're ruled guilty of what's been reported (submitting work they didn't do under their own name) they would almost certainly fail the relevant class, which would likely render them academically ineligible. It's kind of all or nothing at this point given the way academic discipline boards work.

Double-D

September 1st, 2014 at 2:53 PM ^

I read they have been working out but not at practice or team prep meetings. It would be tough for them to be 100% effective even if they come back tomorrow. The timing does seem a bit odd but ND seems to run a strict house. It's something to watch.

FigThingIrishInMI

September 1st, 2014 at 3:22 PM ^

I respect those of you saying ND is rigorous and unlikely to let a contributing player off the hook just because he is a "contributer". Every guy in this investigation was a contributor. Moore is the only one who wasn't a starter but even he could be used meaningfully against power run teams on our schedule like UM, Stanford, etc. I forgot about Hardy as well who was the late addition and is a back up safety.

I doubt ND would have brought this to the NCAA's attention if they didnt plan on doing a proper and thorough investigation. You don't see many schools holding out KEY players (Golson all of last year) for academic issues. Maybe a slap on the wrist punishment or a game or two suspension. To me this speaks volumes about ND's willingness to be a respected academic institution over a powerhouse athletic/football program. It doesn't help us win more games, that's for sure. 

The investigation was held completely seperate from anything dealing with athletics. Only academics were taken into account and even coach Kelly had no idea of the investigation until the day before it was announced. It has since concluded last week and the meetings to determine the athletes eligibility are SUPPOSEDLY going to happen this week sometime.

Everything is pretty much speculation at this point tho and no one knows for sure who (if anyone) will be cleared, suspended, expelled, etc.

Oh and to answer any questions about the players availability while suspended during the investigation...I think (could be wrong) they were just suspended from team activities like practice. They had access to the facilities and training table and that sort of thing so they should have been able to stay in shape if they wanted to. I'm most unsure of what they were and werent allowed to do tho...something I'll have to look in to more.

Hopefully if you guys have any other questions I can help as much as I possible. But I'm no "insider" or anything like that. Just follow all things ND so maybe I can answer some questions. Feel free to ask away or critique me. I'm pretty easy going so I wont get worked up if you wanna make fun of Manti or something haha.

BradP

September 1st, 2014 at 3:39 PM ^

UNC has already established that the NCAA has given up on this sort of thing regardless of how much visibility it has.   It doesn't have power to do anything, and the courts are already trampling the "student-athlete" line.

I think ND brought this to light to get in front of any public fallout had the information emerged from a different source.  And as far as that goes, I'm not sure it matters how thorough the investigation was because that is all buried by FERPA.

 

FigThingIrishInMI

September 1st, 2014 at 3:52 PM ^

I agree that that is most likely why ND brought it to light in the press conference. But they had already reported the investigation to the NCAA prior to the press conference. That's all they could really do...what more should they have done? The NCAA is the governing body if I'm not mistaken and has the power to do any sort of investigation they want after ND is finished if they so choose. I could be wrong on that...I'm no lawyer. But that's my understanding.

I also agree that the NCAA has proven to be inept when dealing with this sort of thing. UNC basically had a program set up by high ups in the university to take the "student" out of student-athlete. It wasn't a case of a few players cheating (which I can almost guarantee happens everywhere) like at ND, it was a whole different thing UNC had set up and they got off VERY lightly on the punishment side of things from the NCAA in my opinion. They (the NCAA) lost  A LOT of credibility overall in their handling of that situation in my eyes.

Needs

September 1st, 2014 at 4:09 PM ^

As someone who teaches in higher ed, I don't want the NCAA anywhere near academic matters internal to a university. The NCAA deals, poorly IMO, with matters relevant to athletic departments. Anything to do with academics properly falls under the purview of that university's faculty as the central part of its governance of academic matters at the university. If students are receiving fradulant grades or grades for classes that don't exist (as at UNC),  the proper body to handle that is the accredidation agency supervising the various departments of the university itself, not the NCAA (which is what happened at UNC).

ND seems to be handling this entirely according to the procedures set in place by its faculty and the NCAA should have nothing to do with it. 

FigThingIrishInMI

September 1st, 2014 at 4:24 PM ^

That makes sense to me. Thanks for the explanation. I personally don't think ND will put athletics ahead of academics (Golson last year) but they had to report it somewhere and the NCAA is the most logical place to report it to, right? If they didnt everyone would be saying ND was trying to cover this up or something.

I've heard things about a lot of people in ND's honor committee and positions of discipline who could care less about the football team or any athletics and basically want ND to be more like the Ivy League schools where athletics are of no impotance. That sucks cuz I'm an ND football fan first and foremost but I also want us to win the right way and with people like that in those positions it seems like we will do things the right way. The STUDENT-athlete way. I don't expect ND to lose sight of the student aspect anytime soon. They've proven this by suspending their (aguably) most valuable athletes in 2 sports in the same year (Golson in football and Jerian Grant in Bball).

Needs

September 1st, 2014 at 4:36 PM ^

I've been following this peripherally. To what extent did ND involve the NCAA? Did they just make a public announcement that these players are being held out because of an academic disciplinary matter or did they make some kind of report to the NCAA?

From what I know of ND, which comes from someone who used to be on the faculty but has since moved elsewhere because being a young single faculty member at ND is not ideal, most faculty realize that football's a big deal but are very focused on making sure it doesn't impinge upon the academic side of things. My friend was there for Willingham/early Weis, but I doubt that sentiment has changed (the Golston expulsion certainly seems to suggest it hasn't). 

FigThingIrishInMI

September 1st, 2014 at 4:47 PM ^

My understanding is that they reported it to the NCAA prior to the press conference...the day before if memory serves me right. I believe the reason for the press conference was because someone from the NCAA was going to leak, or had leaked, the info... so ND got ahead of it publicly with the press conference.

I appreciate your info as well. That sounds about like what I've heard. MOST faculty are aware that football is a big deal and want the team to succeed and see the benefits that a successful football team can bring to the university both athletically and academically but there are SOME who couldn't care less about the football team and would rather have it done away with. I have no source for my info like you do tho...just things I've heard from people who supposedly do have sources inside ND or who work there themselves.

phork

September 1st, 2014 at 3:30 PM ^

From everything thing I have read from people in the know, 3 players will be cleared of any wrong doing.  Ishaq Williams admitted to his error and no idea on Eilar Hardy.  

I will tell you that if any of them is found guilty its cause for immediate expulsion (a la Golson) and they won't be back for UM or any game this year.

You can say its convenient all you like, but the student part of the ethics board didn't get back until last week.  But if a kid is innocent he should be free to play.

MGoClimb

September 1st, 2014 at 3:37 PM ^

I've asked you twice if you are willing to share what/who your sources are. Is it just "people in the know"?

There's a rumor over at Irishenvy saying that some player(s) may be suspended because they didn't talk about the involvement of other players. How is your information more relaible than all of the other rumors floating around?