Thursday Update: Baddour and the BOG

Where to start?

** I’m sure by now you’ve heard that UNC athletic director Dick Baddour, in an interview on Wednesday with Adam Gold and Joe Ovies on 99.9 The Fan, said “there will be violations” as a result of the NCAA’s investigation into the Tar Heel football program.

This is not exactly front-page news, nor is it unexpected. You don’t have the NCAA poking around for two months and suspend or withhold over a dozen football players and have no violations as a result. It is significant only because the AD is on the record as saying it will indeed happen.

** The UNC investigation circus took its show on the road to Wilmington for a regularly scheduled committee meeting  of the UNC System Board of Governors to update the board on the investigation. UNC System President Erskine Bowles, UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp, and Baddour stood shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the committee as Baddour dropped another nugget of the investigation for the record: that the academic infractions being investigated “may date back a year or more“.

Again, this is not entirely unexpected as most of the players apparently involved in the academic prong are upperclassmen so it is logical to expect the tutor issue to go back further than just this past spring. Baddour said they would go where the information takes them, including past years if need be.

Baddour also noted that “we are near the end” of the investigative phase of the inquiry, but as THF tweeted, that does not mean we are near the end of what the NCAA actually doing something with what they have found. Baddour would not put a timeline on when the inquiry was expected to be concluded.

For his part, Bowles said that he is proud of the way Thorp and Baddour are handling the academic investigation, and the BOG committee. Likewise, the committee expressed confidence in UNC’s handling of the investigation and have confidence that the school’s leaders will do the right thing.

Share This Post: