It's awfully quiet out there....
We can only assume the folks at UNC are plugging away with the academic review and the NCAA does...well...whatever it is that they do.
Late yesterday, UNC decided to announce some changes to their social media policy for student athletes.
UNC has updated its 2010-11 Student Athlete Handbook to stipulate that "each team must identify at least one coach or administrator who is responsible for having access to and regularly monitor the content of team members’ social networking sites and postings." The athletics department also reserves the right to have other staff members monitor athletes’ posts; and if any of an athlete’s online content violates the law or NCAA, University or athletic department policies, sanctions could range from removal of the posting to dismissal from the team.
Now social media has moved from being something UNC sort of glanced at when necessary to UNC actually tasking employees with actively monitoring when Dexter Strickland feeds his snake. Here is hoping the coaches know how to look up the latest slang being used by these young kids today.
As far as the academic scandal goes, DE and Breaker of QBs Robert Quinn told The Daily Tar Heel he was not involved in the academic scandal. Quinn stated he did work with the tutor in question but did not receive illicit assistance from her. Do we read anything into this? Could Quinn have been told he is in the clear and felt free to tell the campus newspaper? It is interesting that UNC being in charge of the academics probe means more information coming from all sorts of places vs the mode of operation on the NCAA issue. It should be noted that many players were named and held off the first team probably because they had contact with the tutor. That contact may have been perfectly innocent or a part of her duties when she was employed in the academic support center. However, since no one knew for certain what this was when it broke, UNC erred on the side of caution and put a question mark by anyone who was known to have worked with the tutor. At this point we are probably at the stage where UNC is beginning to figure out who is in hot water and who isn't on the academics issue while still waiting for the NCAA to get their collective rear end off the proverbial pot. Hopefully we are only talking about a few players and the list can be narrowed down to those by the time Saturday rolls around.
At the other targets of the NCAA's curiosity, The Charleston Post is reporting SCAR expects a ruling later this week on the hotel issue. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama has DE Marcell Dareus listed on the depth chart but has not commented on his status for what is sure to be a dramatic game on Saturday vs San Jose St.