UPDATE: UNC confirms. Here is what Dick Baddour had to say.
“I am disappointed for Deunta and Kendric and quite frankly the NCAA can kiss my lily white..”
Oh..whoa…that’s not right. Here is the actual quote:
“I am disappointed for Deunta and Kendric, but I respect the NCAA’s decision,” Baddour said in a statement today. “I appreciate the committee allowing us the opportunity to present their case”
Carry on
–
News is trickling out via Twitter and a local TV station in Eastern NC.
I am not entirely sure what, if anything, appealing these decisions accomplishes. I assume they concluded Deunta Williams was within the scope of the rule given the amount of the benefit but I still would like an explanation as to why Kendric Burney got more than four games. I would also like $10 million but I know that is not coming either.
My hope was the NCAA would reduce Burney’s suspension to four games and UNC would at least have 3/4 of the starting secondary for Clemson. As it stands now, UNC will have both safeties and Williams is a big part of the defense. Better than nothing I suppose.
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I said on this blog a while back that I had a random summer elective class with these two guys when they were freshman and I was a senior. I also said that there was no way that they were caught up in the academic issues, and I could see maybe a mistake being made on the agent/benefit front. I didn’t have any inside information, but I had my impression about their character from meeting them in a classroom setting (good character).
The problem with the NCAA is that they have such a limited ability to find the truth and judge character. Read the NCAA website about Enforcement:
http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/NCAA/About+the+NCAA/How+We+Work/Enforcement+process/
-no subponea power (which we have all heard)
-limited authority, dependent upon member schools
-and a handful of excuses (read the cold call story about waiting at people’s houses, begging for a meeting)
Excuse the colorful analogy, but the NCAA is like a blind bear that can’t smell. They can’t really see what is going on, and I say they can’t smell because their perception is so limited. All the NCAA can do is hear rumors and start swinging. And once they start swinging….sometimes, they get it right (Reggie/USC), and sometimes they get it wrong (williams/burney). There are going to be things that UNC has done wrong here, but Burney and Williams is taking it way too far.
Why can’t the following happen?
Agents-NFLPA should ban any agents that provide incentives to amateur athletes for some period of time. You have to make the punishment severe enough to alter the behavior.
Runner-Agents caught using unregistered runners or registered runners providing incentives/gifts should be banned.
Players- Loosen up the rules around preferential treatment. The easiest solution is to provide athletes with 5,000 of indirect benefits per year, like staying at a friend’s house. The wolfpackers should be aware that last weekend, my cousin (a current NC State student) bought some drinks for a few well known football players after a victorious win. Hopefully, the NCAA won’t discover this or the NCSU season is screwed too. My point is that these things happen everywhere and all the time. It is not a big deal. You are not a pro on 5,000 a year of indirect benefits.
The IRS gives you $400 a year of self-employed income that you do not have to report and $14,000 a year of gifts that you do not have to report. The self-employed income is like a direct benefit, and the gifts are like the indirect benefit.
I wiil say it and mean it, Screw the NCAA and the idiots who control it!
Go Heels!!
At this point, I say play ‘em all, eligible or not.
If the NCAA is going to be so arbitrary with their punishments, then we should just play ‘em and give back the wins after the season if the NCAA wants them. UNC is never going to compete for the highest win totals in the country a la basketball, so what’s the difference if we’re 8 wins shorter?
I’d like to poll the innocent players on the team and see if they’d be willing to give up 10 victories at the end of the season instead of 4 wins, which we’ll likely give up anyway.
UNC is getting played like a sucker by the NCAA. Cooperation gets you nothing. Two players who were innocent (Searcy and Draughn) have already been punished for doing nothing wrong. Two other players who hardly did anything wrong have been used as punching bags by the NCAA. Enough already – put all the rest of the players on the field and lets go down swinging!
so the report that Blake called Marcell Dareus…thats Dareus’ testimony to the NCAA.
how ballsy is that? youre a coach and you just call up a dude and recommend an agent. or maybe it isnt ballsy at all, maybe it happens all the time.
the rules in place now are clearly not working.