And so it begins in Chapel Hill...
- Greg Barnes of Inside Carolina, who was out front on the academic misconduct story and originally said 6-12 players could be involved, amended that report on 620 the Buzz this morning, now claiming that the number is on the higher end of that estimate, and that six was probably conservative.
- Erin Summers at WRAL is reporting that a person who observed Carolina's Friday practice saw pretty much the entire defense on the scout team. Among the big names were Robert Quinn, Bruce Carter, Da'Norris Searcy, Kendric Burney, Charles Brown, and Quan Sturdivant. Also reported on the scout team were Jared McAdoo, Curtis Campbell, Quinton Alton, and Darius Lipford, along with one other unidentified player. Marvin Austin apparently continued to work with the second team while Deaunta Williams did not practice while rehabbing an injury. Again, while I respect Dick Baddour trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle on this one, there is only one conclusion that can be drawn from that move 8 days before the LSU game.
- CBS Sports' Will Brinson, who reported yesterday that Kendric Burney and Charles Brown had been dismissed from the team, tried to stick by his report in light of the fact that both Burney and Brown did practice, albeit on the scout team, by saying his source in the athletic department still believes both will be removed from the team. Again, as was mentioned yesterday,this is the kind of stuff we can expect as the 24-hour news cycle rolls along and reporters and bloggers try to get the scoop on their competitors.
- The piling on of Butch Davis has begun as both Luke DeCock of the N&O and Joe Ovies of 99.9 the Fan took a swing at the head coach today. As the leader of the program, Davis does have ultimate accountability and may end up paying for this mess dearly. But the fact that the student tutor in the middle of these allegations was once employed by Davis as a tutor for his son may simply be how the woman gained access to football players. Davis said he had five people who worked for his family in some capacity, and as of right now it is simply difficult to surmise how this one person fits in.
- There has been some question as to how, if the academic misconduct was revealed in the course of the agent investigation, does it qualify as self-reported? There was some parsing of words last night in saying the NCAA had allowed Carolina to "acknowledge" a violation had occurred. I think the answer here is pretty simple: Baddour has said all along that UNC has been working jointly with the NCAA, so I would imagine there was someone from UNC in the room with the NCAA investigator and players. That way, when the player in question made the revelation, UNC duly reported it to the NCAA since it was actually a different arm of the NCAA (agents and amatuerism) doing the other investigation. That makes it a self-report.
As game preparations begin in earnest, it will be harder and harder to maintain a cone of silence over this issue over the next week. Maybe more information will be forthcoming.