Michigan's Response

Released this morning, is the University's response to the NCAA allegations that Michigan commited major violations over practice time.

Long story short: In August 09, The Detroit Free Press published a story that claimed Michigan had grossly gone over their allotted practice time limits set by the NCAA. Michigan did its own internal investigation and was also investigated by the NCAA. In February of this year, the NCAA concluded that Michigan had indeed gone over their time limits, but not nearly as much as the Free Press story claimed.

So yesterday, Michigan submitted its own recommended sanctions to the NCAA which are:

• Reduce the number of internal quality control staff by 40% (I think there are 5 staffers now)
• "Give back" 130 hours of practice time over the next two years
• Take measures to ensure this never happens again
• 2 years of probation

So, that's it. No loss of scholarships, no reduction of past wins (not that there were that many), no loss of coaches, and no future bowl forfeitures.

In the official report given to the NCAA yesterday, Michigan drops a little bomb on the Free Press:

"The University is satisfied that the initial media reports are greatly exaggerated if not flatly incorrect."

Thanks Free Press. You completely dropped the ball on this one. Not only was your story grossly over-exaggerated, but in many regards, just wrong all-together. I'd say a full apology would be forthcoming from the Detroit newspaper, but I won't hold my breath.

Now the ball is in the NCAA's court to either accept these self-imposed sanctions (which they will), or come back in August and impose further sanctions. Given the reality of how these allegations began, and the nature of the infractions themselves, I'd say no further sanctions will be handed down.

Unless something huge happens or further news is released (like a Freep apology), we'll consider this story closed. Time to move on.