LightningRod;1708092; said:
Summary of TSUN's response to the NCAA:
1. We're TSUN, we've won more college football games than anybody.
2. We've never been up for infractions before.
3. The media made a big deal out of missing CARA forms (for amounts of practice time) in August, 2009, but we discovered they were missing in the spring of 2009. The Compliance Services Office didn't receive these required forms for about 18 months, but didn't tell RichRod for well over a year that they needed these forms and weren't getting them. Although he did get a monthly e-mail reminder (actually his assistant, since RR had no e-mail) that the forms were due, he wasn't told the prior forms were never submitted. And in July, 2009 TSUN implemented a remedy for this.
4. OK, there were a lot of CARA violations about practice time, but most of them were for just little bits of time. 20 minutes here, an hour or two there.
5. RichRod raised the number of quality control coaches from 3 to 5. Almost all FBS football programs have at least 2 of those positions. But we're not using the "everybody does it" defense.
6. These 5 or 6 quality control coaches aren't football coaches, they're hourly employees who do things like make sure guys go to class, and assist in strength and conditioning workouts. Of course, S&C personnel by rule are supposed to be CPR certified, and most of the time, most of these QC coaches had no CPR certification.
7. In early 2008, the Compliance Services Office (CSO) learned of these new QC coaching positions, so CSO folks submitted requests for job descriptions for these QC coaches. Over a year went by without receiving the answers for these requests, but RichRod wasn't notified that these requests were unanswered, so it's not his fault.
8. OK, we are guilty of a 'Failure to Monitor' on compliance issues. But RichRod didn't fail to "promote an atmosphere of compliance". It wasn't that bad, and it wasn't all his fault.
9. Regarding whether we at TSUN are repeat offenders. OK, technically we are, since those basketball sanctions regarding Webber/Bullock/Taylor/Traylor getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Ed Martin (no relation to former AD Bill Martin) was finally resolved in 2003. But that actually happened mostly from 1992 to 1996, a long time ago. OK, the investigation was delayed because the TSUN booster refused to cooperate in the investigation, and only when he got in legal trouble did the athletics department get in serious trouble for that blatant cheating. And it may have gotten worse, but he died before the legal process ran its course (like Chris Webber's perjury trial, which was dropped after Ed Martin died). But that was in a different sport and it was about 15 years ago, so we're not really a repeat offender. Also, TSUN was on baseball probation for 3 years ('90-'92) for some violations in the '80s.
10. And we take all of this very seriously, so we're self-imposing 2 years of probation, and reducing the number of QC coaches, and cutting down on practice time, so that we'll lose twice the amount of practice and training time that we got caught being over the limit. We'll also put letters of reprimand in the files of a few people that didn't do their jobs well.
11. We're not imposing any postseason ban. We've already just gone through a two-year period without a bowl game, so that would be overkill.
12. We're not eliminating any scholarships, either. We don't want to deprive any slot receivers of the prestige associated with a TSUN kinesiology degree.
13. This is a direct quote: "The University obtained no competitive advantage whatsoever from the quality control staff conducting skill development." I've gotta agree with that statement - I think the 8-16 record is ample evidence to support it.
14. Graduate Assistant Alex Herron broke rules and then lied about it during the investigation. He was fired immediately after that.
15. The QC coaches that were not allowed to do any coaching during voluntary drills and 7-on-7 practices, and their backgrounds before becoming QC's at TSUN:
- Adam Braithwaite - TE/WR coach at West Liberty State in 2003, safeties coach at Wiliam & Mary in 2004, GA at WVU in '05/'06, Def Coordinator at Hampden Sydney College in '07
- Dan Hott - GA at WVU '98-'00, D-Line coach at Findlay '01-'06, GA at WVU '07
- Josh Ison - '06-'07 volunteer coach at Fairmont St, '08 S&C assistant at TSUN
- Bob McClain - video GA at WVU '00-'01, offense GA at WVU '02-'05, Off Coordinator Glenville St '06-'07
- Eric Smith - QB coach Glenville St '03, QB/WR coach Charleston '04, Off Coord/QB coach Pikeville '05, OC/QB coach WV Tech '06, video GA WVU '07
- Bryan Wright - S&C GA WVU '07
16. TSUN agrees that a violation occurred by having 6 QC coaches engaged in on- and off-the-field coaching activities. But almost all of their time was on non-coaching activities, and the violations were mostly for brief time periods in the offseason.
17. RichRod was wrong in thinking that QCs could assist in offseason S&C sessions, but that was a misunderstanding.
18. The QC coaches did do some 'coaching' in techniques and watched film with football players, but that was unintentional, and occurred because the QC offices were in the meeting rooms, so that happened on an impromptu basis. We've moved their offices to correct that problem.
19. RichRod didn't know the QCs were attending 7-on-7 practices, and he had instructed them on what they couldn't do, but they did some of that anyway.
20. Did athletic administrators know what the QCs were doing? Well, that's complicated. The compliance people didn't get job descriptions for those guys until the investigation was underway in August, 2009. That's despite asking for them over a year earlier, and copying RichRod's assistant on the e-mail request. So RichRod might not have known about this request for the job descriptions, but he should have been aware of it.
21. Were players required to participate in 'voluntary' summer conditioning and thus exceed practice limitations? Yes. RichRod thought it was OK to have QCs work with S&C coaches during summer conditioning, but he was wrong - that's a violation.
22. Were QCs present at 7-on-7s? Well, the interviews of the football players resulted in all types of answers, but enough of them recalled some QCs being there that it probably did occur. But we think that was just briefly on some occasions.
23. Did football activities occur during these voluntary activities, which are supposed to be limited to weight training, conditioning, and film review? Yes, there were drills done with blocking sleds, simulated football snaps/handoffs with a towel, pass routes with a mini-basketball, and a football-on-a-stick used to simulate the snap for D-line drills. But these violations were only for parts of the team and were for brief periods. One player siad a JUGS gun with a football was used, but he was the only one, so we assume he was mistaken.
24. During the summers, S&C coaches monitoring workout sessions sometimes used conditioning activities as penalties for things like missed classes. Yes, this did occur on a few occasions and that is a violation. Things such as having a guy push a 45-pound weight for 200 yards. These only happened for a few minutes, and neither RichRod nor Barwis were aware of those activities.
25. RichRod says he didn't know about TSUN's specific CARA procedures until the summer of 2009. CARA was on the agenda of multiple meetings, however, and Associate AD of Compliance Van Horn says she recalls discussing CARA with RichRod at meetings. She also says that after discussing them, he agreed to retain the CARA systems that were in place under Lloyd Carr.
26. A lot of the CARA violations occurred just because stretching in warm-ups wasn't counted as part of the time involved.
27. Back in 2006, a yet-to-be-enrolled football player received improper benefits by getting free lodging for 4 weekends at the place of a TSUN football player. It involved only lodging/utilites (no food or transportation), and totalled $84.42. This was discovered during player interviews.
