U of M Walks The NCAA Tight Rope Of Self Imposed Sanctions

Freep - The University of Michigan has acknowledged that it committed four major violations in its football program and self-imposed the following sanctions: The school has docked itself approximately 130 hours of practice and training time over the next two years — two hours for every one hour of violation, which is common in these cases. The school said it already had reduced its quality-control staff from five members to three and prohibited them from attending practices and games for the remainder of 2010. It also will keep those staffers out of coaches’ meetings, despite a new NCAA bylaw that allows them to attend.

David Brandon and company have come out and admitted they were guilty of 4 outta 5 major rules violations that the NCAA threw at them back in February. Although this is a little bit of a black eye on the football program, it is essentially nothing more than a slap on the wrist and a stern look from the NCAA. Michigan walked the tight rope and imposed adequate enough penalties to keep the NCAA happy while not shitting on themselves to the point where they could no longer be competitive on the field. Not like we have been lately anyway. A hearing will be held in August where the NCAA will determine if the self imposed sanctions were enough. My guess is Brandon did a good enough job and will get the benefit of the doubt.

As much as "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" Rich Rod haters would like you to believe this hiccup will drastically change the face of Michigan football, the fact is this whole thing will have little to no effect on the Rich Rod saga or the team in general. You won't see the hour less of practice time each day, or the fewer coaches patrolling the sidelines at them. You won't ever see inside the coaches meeting where staffers aren't allowed in and the fact of the matter is that any kid who would've played for Rich Rod before this will still play for him after this.

He's no angel, never has been, never will be. The damage to U of M's squeaky clean image was done the second he was hired and not when we all found out he is an asshole to people and doesn't care about the rules. Rich still has the potential to define his legacy. Right now it's in the shitter and it's gonna take a lot to climb outta there. No bowl equals no Rich Rod next year, which would be fine by me. You gotta win at U of M if you wanna stay. But things could get really sticky if he somehow beats OSU and makes it to a bowl with say 7 wins. Then what do you do? Love him or hate him, Rich sure makes shit interesting.

PS - When's the shit gonna come down on USC for paying Reggie Bush to play football? Seems slightly worse to me.