After all the hoopla, what will Bama get?
Friday 8/24/01
OK so after looking over the actual FACTS of NCAA major infractions cases involving SEC schools and football in the 90s… And of course making the assumption that Bama’s case will be similar to these past cases (either the same or worse)… What will be the actual punishment Alabama will have to endure? I think we can assume that the Alabama and Kentucky cases involve major infractions and there will be penalties.
What will Alabama’s case summary look like in a few years? That is all it will be, just another case summary. Yes, people’s lives are being and will be drastically effected by the this case but the way the penalty effects the football team will be all the alumni and fans see. So back to the question, from the SEC NCAA penalties of the last decade what can we deduce about Alabama’s penalty? Let’s take it by each penalty category listed in the summaries…
TV: I doubt
this will be used against Alabama. Now
the NCAA does seem to pull this out for serious violations but it looks like it has gone away from that in
punishing SEC schools. That might be
because it hurts the revenue sharing and “King Roy” (SEC commish Roy Kramer)
wouldn’t like that… I may be way off
there but that is how it seems. Also TV
has become such an intrinsic part of the game that it is almost like taking
away a team’s stadium. However it is
still a possibility but I don’t think it will be part of Alabama’s penalty.
POSTSEASON: An almost standard part of any major penalty. I think Alabama will probably get a 1 year postseason ban. The NCAA used it freely against Auburn, Ole
Miss and Alabama in the 90s. It is also
the one piece of Alabama’s appeal to their 1995 penalty that they lost. However it became a moot point when Alabama
went 4-7 in 1997 anyway.
PROBATION: Most of the probation time periods in the 1990s for SEC schools have been 1-2 years except for Ole Miss who were slapped with 4 years. I think Alabama’s probation will be 3 years long.
SHOW CAUSE RESTRICTION ON EMPLOYEES: I believe that Ronnie Cottrell and Ivy Williams will probably have some personal sanctions against them. It is a good bet that they will be targeted in some way in the penalties. Mike Dubose might get hit as well. There was something under this category for most of the SEC probations in the 90s. Also, it is just human nature to offer up scapegoats.
RECRUITING: Again, this category is not talking about scholarships. This penalty category includes restricting official visits, restricting the number of coaches that can recruit, etc… I can almost guarantee there will some of these penalties against Alabama. It will probably be a reduction in the number of official visits. It will probably not be severe. The only one who really got killed on this was Ole Miss. They lost a total of 32 official visits. Also, if you look at Georgia’s most recent case they were restricted from recruiting in Palm Beach County, FL. There might be something like that restricting Alabama from recruiting in Memphis.
REDUCTION IN FINANCIAL AID: The BIG one. This is what everybody will be looking for when the penalty is announced. How many scholarships will be lost? After all the talk, after all the articles, it comes down to this. Now of course it is still hard to predict this not knowing exactly what the NCAA has on Alabama. My first question is will it be better or worse than Alabama’s 1995 penalty? That one was pretty stiff and there seemed to be a lot less involved. However, fair or unfair, I think some of that will be made up in the way the case is being handled this time. Will Alabama get a penalty like Ole Miss? Again it is hard to predict. However I will take a shot…
First I think there will be some reductions in “total grants” or the overall scholarship limit of 85. The SEC has done that in the two most recent cases involving Georgia and Miss St. I look for something in the ballpark of a first year reduction from 85 to 81 and a second year reduction from 85 to 83.
As for the number of initial scholarships I would throw out a ballpark figure of around 20 total taken away. It could be distributed like: 10 the first year, 8 the second year and 2 the last year but it is hard to guess exactly how it will be distributed. Now I am trying to hit about in the middle of the expectations. If the NCAA has hard evidence on Alabama for all of the stuff that has been written about I think Alabama might be closer to losing 25 scholarships total. However I just don’t think it will happen. Ole Miss lost 24 and I do not think Alabama will get more or as much as Ole Miss. That is my strongest take on this issue. If this case has been completely overblown then the number might be closer to 15. However I tend to think it will be a little more than that.
At any rate, after all the hoopla it will really come down to a sentence involving these 6 categories and this is my best guess as to what that sentence will be.