Where there’s smoke, there’s a fire and right now, Chapel Hill is ablaze. After concluding their execution of the USC football program last month, the NCAA has now set their sights on Butch Davis’s North Carolina Tarheels. The allegations have yet to be announced to the public, as both the NCAA and UNC are staying quiet about the issue. However, according to Joe Schad’s ESPN article on the issue, it seems that some of the players may have made illegal contact with “agents” after some of UNC’s junior decided to pass on the NFL draft this year.
Also, it appears that the NCAA will investigate whether current players had received any extra gifts or benefits before or after they enrolled at UNC. According to Schad’s article, the NCAA was interested to see who funded Austin’s recent trip down to Miami and also who was currently funding the rent for his off-campus apartment. If the investigators find that any of these players had illegal contact with “agents” of any kind or accepted any money from illegal sources, then they could be ripped of their eligibility and forced to miss the entire 2010 season.
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This process will likely take a few weeks or even a few months to play out depending on what turns up in the investigation. However, UNC’s Athletic Director Dick Baddour had this to say about the NCAA’s probe.
“I can acknowledge that representatives from the NCAA have been to Chapel Hill to speak with some of our student-athletes. One of the things that they instructed us in very clearly is that we are to maintain the confidence of their visit and their review. They’ve requested that we not discuss it publicly. Obviously, we’re going to fully cooperate with the NCAA in every way that we can by making things available to them and in particular by following their instruction on discussing it publicly.”
This isn’t likely to become as dramatic or as serious as the recent USC scandal involving Reggie Bush but this could definitely hurt Butch Davis’s football program if something turns up and he is forced to surrender a few key players this year.
According to Insideblue.com, Marvin Austin and a few of the other returning seniors weren’t the only ones the NCAA was interested in.
“The investigation includes seniors Marvin Austin, a defensive tackle, and Greg Little, a wide receiver, but is not limited to them. The NFL Draft prospects in question weren’t the only ones interviewed by the NCAA representatives.”
Where there’s smoke, there’s typically a fire and since I’m still bitter about UNC stealing Landon Turner away from VT, all I have to say is burn, baby, burn.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Burn, baby, burn!!!
If UNC gets busted badly think any of their recruits could defect
I doubt it. The Hokies have already moved on from Turner and Holts although if they did back out of a commitment, I’m sure we would begin to re-recruit them. At this point, if anything bad does happen to UNC (a lot is still uncertain but it seems like UNC is in the clear at least as of now) then that may help us with 4 star LB Travis Hughes and 4 star CB Demetrius Nicholson.