Michigan Football 'Failure To Promote Compliance' Charges Dropped

Michigan football finally catches a break, in the investigation that time (and we) forgot: The NCAA Committee on Infractions is dropping the "failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance" charges against the program, which were biggies, and is expected to announce this afternoon that the Wolverines' self-imposed sanctions will largely suffice as punishment for extra practice time. They're facing three years' probation for the football program, cuts in their staff roster, and reduced practice time.

Our brothers at SB Nation's Maize N Brew have a few choice words for the Detroit Free Press, whose staffers are going to have to take up knitting now that their hilariously overt campaign to run Rodriguez out of town has crumbled:

This whole thing started with their crusade against Rodriguez and the only thing it did was strengthen everyone's original perception that it was an honest mistake and make the paper look like a bunch of angry lemurs jumping up and down on a typewriter. I'm still mad at Rodriguez' handling of the defense this season (and last season, and the season before that), but I've never questioned that he is a man of integrity. The muck raking and dirt flinging by the Free Press in an attempt to paint Rodriguez as a, to borrow from Joe Tiller, a snake oil salesman has been inexcusable. It simply represents another reason why newspapers like the Free Press and their brand of "sports journalism" are dying.

Stay tuned to Maize N Brew for more on the specifics of the report when it's released in a few hours.

Much of the chatter around the Michigan sanctions situation has revolved around the near-certainty that the Wolverines only got caught doing what every other major program does to be successful when the cameras (and vengeful newspapers) aren't around. Now that the hand-wringing over the self-imposed penalties is dying down, one of SBN's Maize n Brew bloggers is of the strong opinion that Block M faithful need to live in the now and join the rest of us in accepting the shadiness inherent in big-time college athletics:

We've been sanctioned for the first time in our history, and all of the sudden our little ivory tower has a little smudge on it.  But guess what?  That ivory tower never meant anything anyways because while we were holding our heads high on some kind of faux moral supremacy, those schools who already were pushing the limits were winning championships and building sustainable programs that would compete nationally well into the future.  The sanctions on Michigan - as ridiculous as the circumstances that brought them about are - have brought Michigan down into the mud with the rest of them, and maybe - just maybe -  we can start holding our heads high about winning football games rather than holding our heads high because our tower is whiter than yours.

I'm not saying that you can't have it both ways, but ask Notre Dame how that's going.  What I think I am saying is that....the sanctions don't bother me.  It doesn't bother me in the least that our "good reputation" was besmirched because no amount of NCAA rulings will take down our reputation faster than 3-9, 5-7 which have both already happened.

I hate to say this about any Michigan man, but he's got a very valid point here. Winning is forever. Sanctions just live on in internet jokes. (Auburn players cannot read! Good night!)

We went to our Michigan blogger extraordinaire, Maize 'n Brew, for his opinions on this morning’s announcement of self-imposed sanctions for the Wolverine football program. We had questions. He had answers.

1. First: what exactly happened to prompt this self-punishment anyway?

All this nonsense started in 2008 with a couple of misunderstandings of the NCAA rule book. First, Rodriguez and Michigan didn’t think that quality control staffers counted as coaches under the rules. Second, Michigan’s training staff didn’t believe that stretching and warm up routines were countable minutes towards he off season workout restrictions (the university emphasizes this by pointing out that the staff actually counted stretching time as a safeguard during the season to prevent overages). Third, Michigan was internally very, very sloppy. The AD staff and football staff didn’t confirm that its training paperwork was up to date for over a year. It won’t surprise you that this particular faux pas is the one the galls Michigan fans the most.

The result was offseason workouts going about 15-20 minutes too long due to stretching and a few instances of quality control staffers overstepping their bounds during voluntary summer workouts. One other thing that’s worth mentioning is that the NCAA counted Michigan punishing its athletes with extra-heavy-duty workouts for missing class as extra practice time. Yeah. So there’s that, and that’s generally how we got here.

2. With that established: how exactly is Michigan punishing itself here?

As Michigan’s AD, David Brandon, has basically put it, Michigan is matching the punishment to the crime, and then doubling it. Michigan has self-imposed two years of probation on the football program, reduced its “quality control” football staff from five persons to three, self-imposing a reduction of 130 hours of training and practice time on the program for the next two years, and terminating the member of the quality control staff who lied to NCAA investigators. So what does that mean? We’re punishing ourselves at the times we broke the rules. Where Michigan went over during the football season (maybe five hours total), they’ve taken away 10 hours of practice. Where Michigan went over during the off-season, the bulk of the infractions, Michigan will double that up as well and reduce practice time during the coming off seasons. The grand total of reduced practice time 130 hours. That’s what will affect the athletes.

The University, gets a swift kick as well. Michigan reduced it’s quality control staff from five to three members and canned one of the QC guys who misled the NCAA investigators for no real reason. Personally, I think reducing the QC staff is a good thing. This will put more of the onus on the coaching staff to be on top of things and get rid out overzealous grad students. There’s a joke there, but I’ll let you make your own. As an additional punishment, seven members of the administration will be told they are bad, in letter format, and not be allowed to have any cake at office birthday parties for a whole year. Actually, there are letters of reprimand going in several people’s files, many within the athletic department, for their involvement. It’s not a hammer on the head sanction, but it does effect career prospects in some ways and this is basically having their boss sit them down and say “your ass is on thin ice”, at least for the non-coaching staff recipients. As for the Coaches, they know that already, so wins and losses this coming season and carefully documenting everything will determine their future.

3. Has this ever worked with the NCAA? More importantly, when hasn’t it worked?

No. No. A thousand times no. We we’re extremely cooperative with the NCAA’s investigation of the Chris Weber/Ed Martin scandal and we not only got hammered, but because we voluntarily left the NCAA investigation open until the Feds nailed Ed Martin, the NCAA actually extended the time we were under investigation and the period of time for us to be a “repeat offender.” How does that make any sense? When USC is given a bouquet flowers and an apology for putting them through such a tough investigation by the NCAA, you’ll see just how much it sucks to work with the NCAA voluntarily.

4. Really, on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being “used cardboard cutouts of a recruit illegally” and 10 being “the 1981 SMU football program,” how bad is this?

I’d say it’s a three. In terms of stupidity, it’s a five. The fact that Michigan, yes, Michigan, was so sloppy that it couldn’t find paperwork on NCAA requirements is inexcusable by any standard. I mean Michigan State gets this sort of stuff right. In terms of competitive advantage? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… /wipes tears from eyes/ ….. Oh… good one. It’s really been helpful to have all that extra stretching. I don’t think these were serious violations and some of it can be chalked up to a misunderstanding of the rules, but it’s still a systemic issue. And because of that it ratchets up the seriousness of the violations. But in terms of violations on the college football landscape, these infractions aren’t of the “OMG BARRY SWITZER IZ N UR HOUSE” variety.

5. Based on your hunches alone: should Michigan have punished themselves further, or will this be enough to keep the NCAA away?

Based on the crime committed… these self-imposed sanctions are probably the right move. I think they fit the circumstances and I’m happy with the way the University responded. I think there will be an uproar outside the Michigan ranks about scholarships and why UM didn’t take away any in their announced sanctions, but I don’t think those were warranted. Another reason taking away a scholarship or two doesn’t make sense is because Michigan is currently short of scholarship players as it is, so taking away scholarships that Michigan currently isn’t using might be seen as a transparent attempt to circumvent any real penalties. However, logic and the NCAA are usually two separate things. Look at Alabama’s text-book scandal or Auburn’s psychology grade scandals in the last four years. Crime and punishment don’t usually match up when the NCAA is involved.

Ever pull the "I'll go away and never come back!" routine as a kid as a preemptive strike to get yourself out of trouble? Michigan has announced its intentions to basically do just that in the interest of saving itself some major-infraction flagellation from the NCAA:

[Athletic Director Dave] Brandon did not disclose what the punishment will be. U-M will announce that next week — likely on Tuesday, one day after U-M’s deadline to file its response to the NCAA’s notice of allegations. The NCAA sent U-M that notice in February after a five-month investigation — an unprecedented development for a storied football program that never has been found guilty of a major infraction.

It's a strategy that really does work with the Association, from time to time. But SBN's Maize n Brew crew worries that the results of the Michigan investigation isn't the only news the school has to get out in front of, and that their fate might be accidentally twined with that of USC:

Michigan's in the position of being singled out for a countable hour issue that totaled less than a dozen total hours of practice that nearly every coach in the country admits their program would be in violation of too. Alabama self-reported, self-investigated, and self-sanctioned and still got hit for a universal text-book exchange program.

After years of being called incompetent for their protracted investigation of Reggie Bush, the Committee is finally ready to hand out sanctions. Let's just hope they get all that frustration out of their system before they start dishing out "justice" on us.

Wolverine faithful have little to do at this point but sit on their hands, which will be good practice for football season, but they might be sitting a while: If there's one thing the NCAA's better at than dispensing uneven-handed justice, it's dragging its bureaucratic loafers. If you're planning to wait this one out, I hope you brought a book.

Lamar Clegg Greene, the man accused of running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded Rich Rodriguez and others out of millions, was also a banned booster at Clemson, where Rodriguez was the offensive coordinator under Tommy Bowden prior to taking the head coaching job at WVU. Greene used the money to pay for cosmetic surgery among other things, but nothing should surprise you. The man used all three names, and was not a '50s intellectual, serial killer, or country blues artist. He was clearly not to be trusted.

Michigan's administration appears to be taking no chances when it comes to the alleged practice violations with its football team. According to the Detroit Free Press, the university has gone into full CYA mode and hired an outside legal firm to assist with its internal investigation. From the Free Press:

The University of Michigan has hired an outside law firm to assist in the investigation of its football program.

The firm is to work with the athletic department’s compliance office, run by Associate Athletic Director Judy Van Horn. She reports to athletic director Bill Martin, who said Monday that he would not be a part of the investigation.

On Tuesday, Bruce Madej, associate athletic director for media relations, said: "We have engaged an outside counsel to come in as a partner to discover and assess the facts."

Very smart. Despite the dubious nature of the allegations, it's better to get out in front of any potential violations to mitigate any NCAA sanctions. I guess they've learned their lesson from the Ed Martin fiasco.

That's the question SB Nation blog Maize n Brew asks itself after reconsidering the allegations the Detroit Free Press made this past weekend. Sifting through the original "Practicegate" piece - and really, nothing screams fake controversy more than adding "-gate" as a suffix - Maize n Brew finds a few problems:

But this is all smoke and no fire. There is no examination of what the alleged broken rules actually say. No examination of previous violations to give us an idea of what constitutes breaking the rules. There's nothing to support the contention that Rodriguez and his staff have been intentionally and knowingly been doubling or tripling the mandatory workout allowances since he was a coach at West Virginia. You'd think an opponent might have pointed that out before Rosenberg "stumbled" across it. But that's just window dressing.

What troubles me the most is that the article routinely takes the quotes of Michigan players out of context to support its flimsy contention. The fact that the quotes of Brandin Hawthorne and Je'Ron Stokes were taken out of context and manipulated to imply that they supported Rosenberg's contention is inexcusable. Manipulating the words of two 18 year-old kids who were not asked about voluntary or involuntary workouts, but were excitedly answering questions about their transition to the college level, is beyond reprehensible. The article takes quotes from Terrence Taylor in 2008 who was bragging about the work the team had put in preparing for a game, and twists them to imply the team broke rules. There isn't a single named quote in the article that isn't taken out of context. Frankly, this article was as dishonest a piece as I've read in a long, long time.

SB Nation blog Maize n Brew breaks down the news surrounding the alleged violations at Michigan. The big question on their minds - and everyone else's for that matter - is why do so many players seem so willing to rat out Rodriguez? From Maize n Brew:

For my entire life, I've been involved in sports. As soon as that involvement went away from pee-wee mentality and in to legitimate competition, the "voluntary" workout has been involved. These are workouts that probably don't include the coach, but uh, you'd better be there if you want to play. There is nothing wrong with this; I would wager that every BCS team does this to some extent....

 

My question, much like Rittenberg, is why the hell does Michigan have so many former and current players willing to throw the program to the wolves? What is it about Rodriguez that has proved to be such a lightning rod for these kind of things?

Watch below for yourself as Rodriguez chokes up on several occasions during the press conference. Stick around for the enlightening and pithy comments you have come to expect from Youtube denizens!

...or at least the closest you'll get to it thanks to LSUFreek on EDSBS. In other news, the Freep needs a new copy editor.

During his weekly press conference, Rich Rod addressed the alleged violations. Things got a little emo, as the Detroit Free Press explains:

He appeared to choke up for the first time while making this statement: "The thing that bothered me the most that were recently written or said … was the perception that was out there that we did not care for our player’s welfare. That is heartbreaking." Then he paused and appeared to tear up. "That is misleading and inaccurate, and goes against everything I have ever believed in coaching." […]
Rodriguez talked for 15 minutes on topic, stopping several times when he appeared to choke up.

If the internet is as awesome as I know it is, there will be video to follow shortly.