RR and Bill Stewart guilty of practice time violations at WVU

Submitted by MichTits on

WVU applies self-imposed sanctions similar to what we are dealing with right now.

Former West Virginia coaches Rich Rodriguez and Bill Stewart have been found by the NCAA to have failed to monitor the duties and activities of graduate assistants and non-coaching staff members while they were at the school, a source said Friday.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6749886

Hlprn302

July 8th, 2011 at 6:47 PM ^

everyone on the board seems to think he'll end up HC at Clemson or another ACC school. O'Leary, Mike Price et. al would disagree with this. If he brings the magic as an OC for 2-3 years at a BCS school, he'll be a HC at a good school in no time.

BigBlue02

July 8th, 2011 at 8:37 PM ^

The problem is that he has already been an extremely successful head coach at a BCS school. And I am not talking about 20 years ago.....4 years ago he was one game away from going to the national championship game as a head coach. This isn't like a OC or DC taking over at a school and failing as a head coach.  They would probably be better served to take another coordinator spot somewhere after getting fired.  RichRod has proved he can win as a head coach. He will be a head coach again very soon.

markusr2007

July 8th, 2011 at 6:47 PM ^

I think he'll be forthright and sort this out the right way for WVU.

WVU football appears to be in much better hands with Holgorsen as HC.  He did a hell of a job at Houston and Texas Tech. 

They have done well for themselves historically by hiring offensive-minded coaches like Don Nehlen (backfield coach, QB coach/passing coordinator), Rich Rod (OC Tulane, Clemson), etc.

 

Section 1

July 8th, 2011 at 6:57 PM ^

I just did, after posting earlier above.  A few talking-points about the differences and similarities between the Michgan and WVU cases:

  • WVU got hit with loss of a couple of scholarships, unlike Michigan.  Reason, apparently, was that the Mountaineers' "coordinator of recruiting operations (formerly director/ coordinator of high school relations)" had somehow been involved in "attending or observing meetings involving coaching activities or athletically related events," in some quasi-coaching role.  In other words, if your recruiting staff gets involved, then you lose scholarships.  It didn't happen at Michigan, and there is no time specified when it may have occurred at WVU.
  • WVU got hit with loss of two GA positions, reducing from 7 to 5.  Identical to Michigan.
  • Reduction of CARA time, by something like "23 percent."  A confusing and poorly-worded line from the NCAA.  I don't understand that paragraph.
  • Probation.  Yadda yadda.
  • Some more laughable NCAA minutiae:  "For example, five video graduate assistants monitored or conducted skills-development drills and attended position meetings where they worked directly with coaches. Their participation qualified them as countable coaches and the program therefore exceeded its allowable number of coaches."
  • And, significantly, the blame not placed entirely on the head coaches:  "The institution also acknowledged it failed to properly monitor the activities of the two former head coaches and their staffs. According to the committee, a breakdown in communication among the football staff, the student services staff and the compliance staff contributed to a lack of consistent NCAA rules education, allowing noncoaching staff to participate in coaching activities and coaching staff members to engage in impermissible out of season athletically related activities."  (Emphasis added in bold.)

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/ncaa/ncaa/media+and+events/press+room/news+release+archive/2011/infractions/20110708+wvu+coi+rls?pageDesign=old+news+releases+template

It is hard to imagine any more puny "Major" violations.  Significantly, I saw almost no evidence that anyone at the NCAA was even slightly concerned with large, wholesale CARA-time violations at WVU.  And of course that was almost entirely the focus of the Free Press story which led to the Michigan investigation which led to the WVU investigation.  And as well in the follow-up stories that were making Rodriguez out to be some kind of serial violator.

bfradette

July 8th, 2011 at 11:28 PM ^

Some more laughable NCAA minutiae:  "For example, five video graduate assistants monitored or conducted skills-development drills and attended position meetings where they worked directly with coaches. Their participation qualified them as countable coaches and the program therefore exceeded its allowable number of coaches."

 

 

and this is why the NCAA seems to have largely outlived its usefulness to me. I find myself imitating the Miz.....Really? REALLY?

 

 

mGrowOld

July 8th, 2011 at 8:16 PM ^

I'm not gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) but i have to tell you BiSB that you're my favorite poster by far and it's not even close.

That is all.  Back to your regularly scheduled discussion about RR, the Freep and Jihads.

mackbru

July 8th, 2011 at 7:06 PM ^

It's certainly not the biggest deal. But this does show that RR's violations at M weren't just the result of a totally benign "misunderstanding," as his apologists would have you believe. He repeatedly misunderstood.

El Jeffe

July 8th, 2011 at 7:40 PM ^

I don't get your point. Doesn't the fact that he repeatedly misunderstood make it less damning for RR? I mean, if he understood the rules at WVU but suddenly forgot he understood at Michigan, wouldn't that be worse?

jmblue

July 9th, 2011 at 12:50 AM ^

I don't think either one is defensible.  This is a completely needless rules violation - it's something that the coach can directly control.  Either way, by the time he arrived at Michigan he should have fully understood how to comply with this.

jmblue

July 9th, 2011 at 6:09 PM ^

Knowledge of NCAA guidelines is a prerequisite for the football head coaching job.  The official job posting (which can be found online, since we're a state institution) even says so.  RR wasn't paid $2.5M a season to be an intern.

 

BigBlue02

July 9th, 2011 at 2:37 AM ^

So you are basically saying RichRod should have corrected a problem he had at WV that he didn't know he had until 4 years after the fact so, by the time he got to Michigan, he wouldn't do the exact same thing? Yes, that is completely logical.

If we are going to stretch (pun intended) that much to put everything on RichRod's fault because we stretched for 20 minutes extra, why don't we put everything on our compliance office? I mean, if they would have been better about getting CARA forms, we could have caught this and self reported it with no penalties. RichRod did absolutely nothing wrong...it is all the compliance office's fault.

jmblue

July 9th, 2011 at 5:53 PM ^

His job, as an NCAA coach, was to know the rules.  If your head coach is operating in disregard of the rule book, that's a problem and can get your problem in trouble, which it did.  Your compliance department should not have to babysit the head coach.

And let's be clear here: our most glaring violation was not the extended stretching time, it was that we had grad assistants monitoring summer workouts.  The rules make it clear that only the strength and conditioning coach can be present.  The only plausible excuse there is to plead ignorance, and that's not a winning argument in the NCAA's eyes.

Bosch

July 8th, 2011 at 8:46 PM ^

Doesn't this make sense?  Since RR has held to the argument that he didn't know that he had exceeded practice hours at Michigan, I'd be more suspicious that he was lieing if evidence suggested that he adhered to the allotted time at West Virginia.