Half of FBS schools committed a major violation in the last decade

NCAA Major Infractions at the FBS Level

The results of this recent study by Inside Higher Education have been making the rounds lately.  Their article sites the fact that 53 of the 120 FBS schools were found to have committed a major NCAA infraction within the last ten years (2000 - 2010).  While I doubt they cited my 178 page graduate school thesis on this topic, their analysis does point to three of the common causes of NCAA major violations in the research that is out there:

• That major violations have grown in number because the NCAA enforcement staff has grown in size
• That there are "bad apple" schools and/or coaches that are the ones getting caught committing major violations
• That the NCAA rules are so complex that an indirect cause of that is schools committing violations because the rules are so hard to keep up with

The article then goes on to talk about the increase in violations in the areas of acacemic honesty and eligibility.  The article has quotes from both Gene Marsh and Jo Portuto, two of the best FAR's in the business (both retired) and both former members of the NCAA Committee on Infractions.  It is an interesting read and I would recommend it if you have a few minutes.

KU Attendance Policy

KU Makes Sure SA's Attend Class

As an alternative to Attendance Sheets, the Kansas athletic department employes retirees to walk around campus and check on the attendance of various KU student-athletes.  It is quite the alternative to attendance sheets, but according to the article several other schoools use students to check on the attendance of student-athletes.

Don't Bet On It!!!!

NCAA Super Bowl Gambling Reminder

Just a friendly reminder that NCAA Bylaw 10.3 prohibits gambling on NCAA sponsored sports at any level if you are a current student-athlete, coach or other athletic staff member.

USC's Kiffin In Trouble for His Time at Tennessee

NCAA Decision on Tennessee Recruiting Scandal Looms

This is an interesting article discussing Lane Kiffin and the time he spent at UT two years ago.  If you remember back about 15 months there was the controversy around a few of the schools "Hostesses" who drove to South Carolina to watch the game of potential UT recruits.  NCAA Bylaw 13.01 lays out who can recruit off campus and also makes clear that the University is responsible for recruiting activities undertaken by the school.  Unless you are a countable member of the coaching staff who has passed the NCAA recruiting test, you should not be recruiting PSA's. Period. 

What seems to be the new information that has come out in this article is that one of the UT coaches was encouraging these "Hostesses" to call/Facebook the UT recruits in order to recruit them and/or gather information on how their other visits have gone.  This is a big don't for any coach; you should never encourage current student-athlete's, current students or boosters to have interaction with PSA's at any time.  It appears all of this has lead to rumors that UT will be charged with "Failure to Monitor" the actions of its football staff during the 09/10 year.  The interesting twist to this that they may penalize Kiffin and the other coach for their actions at UT, even though both coaches are now with new schools.  As the article points out this is not new, but may be somewhat uncommon in NCAA violations.  If it turns out to be true, it just goes to show you that you can't escape your past just by heading off to a new school.

Compliance Tip of the Week #6

For those of you who celebrated National Letter of Intent signing day yesterday, please remember that many of the restrictions that you have relating to the form and frequency of contact with PSA's get lifted the day after a PSA signs a valid NLI with Northern Arizona University.

• Bylaw 13.1.3.3.3 allows you to have unlimited phone contact with a PSA beginning with the day after they sign their NLI.
• Bylaw 13.1.7.17 allows you to have unlimited evaluations of a PSA beginning the day after they have signed an NLI.
• Even though we may have unlimited contacts/evaluations with a PSA, please remember that we must still follow Bylaw 13.1.6.2, which governs contacts at a practice or competition site.  This Bylaw needs to be followed for all PSA's, even those who have signed with us.
• Finally, Bylaw 13.4.1.2.1 states that there are no limits on the forms of electronic communication you may use to contact a student who has signed an NLI with us, beginning the day after they have signed with us.  For students who signed yesterday, this means you may now send them unlimited texts (I hope you don't do that), Facebook them, Tweet with them or have any other kind of electronic communication you can think of with them.

I'm glad yesterday went smoothly and we were able to sign a good group of future Lumberjacks!!

Top Recruits Mother Forges Signature

Ole' Miss Recruits Mother Forges Signature

In one of the weirder stories you will see from signing day, one of the top DB's in the nation, Floyd Raven, has his mother forge his signature and fax it in to the University of Mississippi without his knowledge.  The Ole' Miss AD had some fun with this on twitter and called it a "soft NLI".  Houston Nutt addressed the issue in his press conference, which is also odd because technically Raven did not sign a valid NLI with the Rebels; but this case appears so unique that it would probably need to be addressed by the University at some point.  As for Raven, earlier this evening he signed a valid NLI with Texas A&M and will be off to College Station next year.

It has been a long, but successful day, here at Nothern Arizona University.  I have been camped out by the fax machine for almost 13 hours now and will be heading home shortly.

Information on the NAU signing class can be found here at the Signing Day Central on the NAU Athletics official website.

National Letter of Intent: Signing Day February 2nd

Right now we are a little less than 15 hours from National Letter of Intent signing day here at Northern Arizona University.  Tomorrow morning at 7:00AM fax machines in athletic departments all across the country will be receiving NLI documents from high school students in many different sports.  Here at NAU it will be signing day for our women's soccer team, men's and women's XC/track & field teams as well as the football team.

Once a prospective student signs and submits a valid NLI document, they are committed to attending that school for one full academic year.  That student is also then off the market, they cannot be actively recruited by other schools after signing an NLI; and for coaches here, the day after we receive a valid NLI our coaches can have increased contact with their commitments.  If you are a booster checking in here, please remember that you are not allowed to interact with any prospective student-athlete until that student has attended either a class or an official practice in the fall according to Bylaw 13.01.4.

If you are curious to read more about what a National Letter of Intent is, or how the process works, below are a couple of interesting articles that offer some information about that big day in February (not the Super Bowl):

Evolution of the NLI

Improving the NLI: From a Compliance Perspective

We hope to have a busy day tomorrow here in the Athletics Department.  As always, NAU Athletics will have all the latest news on the signing as they come in tomorrow morning.