The Florida State Seminoles Respond to the NCAA's Notice of Allegations.

by Bud Elliott on Sep 12, 2008 12:41 PM EDT

Today, FSU released their response to the NCAA's notice of allegations. I have yet to get my hands on this directly, but have spoken with some who have. This stems from "music appreciatorgate", the now well known scandal where students (including student athletes) took an online class that featured the same test for at least three consecutive semesters.

This thread will be updated throughout the day. I am trying to get my hands on the documents, and if I do, they will be posted here.

Here are some highlights:

FSU Football will lose 2 scholarships in 2009 and 3 in 2010, per FSU's proposal. The NCAA has the option of accepting this sanction, reducing it, or increasing the penalty.
It seems that the NCAA and FSU are seeing eye to eye on most issues. Disagreements now stem from interpretation of evidence.
One interesting tidbit is that the NCAA believes that an academic advisor told one of the tutors in question to provide answers to FSU student athletes. FSU believes that the advisor knew about the practice, but that she did not direct the tutor to do so. FSU believes that the advisor (who is not cooperating with the NCAA, which she is not required to do by law), simply told FSU student athletes to come to the computer lab (2nd floor of communications department, located in football stadium) at a time that she knew the tutor would be present. This seems to be an interpretation of evidence issue.
FSU had previously reported that all witnesses were cooperating with the NCAA. The NCAA's NOA alleges that Hilliard Goldsmith (advisor I mentioned above) is not cooperating -- which is itself a potential violation. A former employee cannot be subpoenaed. The violating institution (FSU) is responsible for making all employees, current and former, tocooperate. This is probably a violation on our part.
Lot's of things are violations. Most violations of NCAA policy are not punished. I don't expect that this will be a huge factor in determining the final punishment.

More to come later.

What are you hearing? Let's make this a collective effort.

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Comments

Penalty

Do you guys think the penalties will be stiffer than that?

Is FSU merely negociating? (i.e. I say 2 & 3 schol. hoping they will go 4-6 instead of higher?)

It seems to me that when the NCAA starts taking away previous seasons wins, it is usually suplemental to keep from having to ravish scholarships accessively… what are your thoughts?

by truecolors on Sep 13, 2008 10:51 AM EDT reply actions

I don't think this penalty will stick.

I think a loss of 7-10 Scholarships is MUCH more reasonable.

You may be onto something with the forfeiture issue, but I’m not ready to comment on that at this time because I just don’t know.

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by Bud Elliott on Sep 13, 2008 8:25 PM EDT up reply actions

Forfeits

Having to forfeit games would normally not be a big deal for any team unless it’s championship victories. However, it is interesting in this case because it could mean that FSU could now have losing seasons in the last year or 2 and it also would affect the race between Bowden and Paterno.

by nolesblogger on Sep 14, 2008 10:24 AM EDT reply actions