Numerous follow-ups by other papers and an internal investigation (that was received and accepted by both SACS and the NCAA) showed that nothing of the sort was happening. Basically, you had one guy that was providing way too many directed reading courses, because of the insufficient resources of the department. But it’s very clear that: 1.) That was done for all students in the department, not just athletes; 2.) The students still had to do and did do the work. It was a situation that needed to be changed because of the potential for abuse, but no abuse was ever found. Student took classes, did the work. Pretty simple concept. The worst thing that was found was that some athletes were taking an easy major. Duh.

In the end, there was nothing more damning to the Auburn football team than what can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/ogopc

The answer to your question….Mike Stoops!

Arizona cleaned it up real quiet like, rolling in with an 883 APR.

WOO!

#19 and 21, as a senior in highschool trying to decide what institution of higher learning I would be learning high in, Alabama sends me a pamphlet. The heading was, and I quote, “Thinking Ivy? Think again. Think Bama”

I hate bob witt.

Certainly, but this is true in any regulatory context. Its only problematic here because, as Orson and DevilGrad over at Miami Hawk Talk assert, BCS schools are better able than smaller schools to take advantage of the loopholes.

I find this difficult to believe. These non-BCS schools you speak of no doubt employ lawyers and other legal-type folks to comply with a panoply of local, state and federal regulations. If the policy is as incoherent as you guys assert–if it truly has loopholes that you can drive a truck through–then Delaware State should have no trouble skirting the policy, right?

Evidently not, if this year’s results are indicative of the long term trend. But they might not be: This is, after all, pretty early in the program. We’ll have a much better idea next year, after the squad size adjustments are eliminated, whether small schools will continue to bear the brunt of the APR sanctions.

Assuming they do, this might not be a bad thing. Its not clear from Orson’s post or the articles I’ve read that the overrepresentation of smallish schools on the APR sanction list is due to disparities in legal resources and not to, say, actual differences in satisfying the otherwise legitimate goals of the program. If Michigan is better able than FIU to provide the resources needed to graduate student athletes, then maybe FIU shouldn’t be fielding a football team.

In short: I think its too early to condemn this program as yet another instance of NCAA overreaching.

As an aside, the reaction to this APR business is the most conclusive proof yet that the NCAA can do no right by most of the blogging community. They implement a flexible program and its condemned as incoherent and loophole ridden. Had they designed an airtight, consistent, loophole free regulatory regime, everyone would be condemning Brand for overregulating.

Orson’s point, if I understand it correctly, is that the BCS schools with Zevonesque resources will figure out ways to skate around these rules while Delaware State dies for our sins.

“Through an increasingly incoherent and flexible policy, the NCAA’s done little more than subsidize the growth of an industry devoted solely to countering its own policies, and one that will likely require the services of that most pricey and ornery of professionals: the attorney.”

This policy sounds plenty coherent to me. Moreover, that the policy might encourage schools to pay lawyers to fight it says nothing about the merits of the policy itself. If the SDSUs of the world aren’t educating their athletes, why should they be allowed to field football teams?

MATT- AW man why all the anger?? You know I was really trying too think of some dumb AL athletes too make fun off, but really just cant think of any…..I guess its just been so long since you guys put any real talent in the pro’s…..
maybe ya’ll do better next season?

When my mom was at UAB, she was talking to one of her professors about how totally fucked up my grandmother is. The prof said it was because my grandmother was from Albertville and suffered from Sand Mountain syndrome, a nasty combination of manic-depression, paranoia and other psychoses caused by the total isolation of that area, and the inbreeding that resulted.

Nice to know.

That’s close to what the yokuls call Northeast Alabama CC in Rainsville (Rains-vuhl) atop beautiful Sand Mountain (AKA, Meth Mtn): “Harvard on the Hill”.