North Carolina Football: Tar Heels Slapped With Heavy Sanctions by NCAA

The North Carolina Tar Heels football program has been under NCAA investigation for over a year now, but the findings and penalties were finally handed down Monday.

North Carolina was found to have violated several rules over the course of three seasons as it pertains to the recruiting of players and the payments from player agents. According to the NCAA website, the Committee found many punishable offenses during their investigation, including academic fraud, impermissible agent benefits, ineligible participation and a failure to monitor its football program.

The Tar Heels have been penalized with a “one-year postseason ban, reduction of 15 football scholarships, vacation of records and three years probation.”

The NCAA Infractions Committee stated in its report:

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This case should serve as a cautionary tale to all institutions to vigilantly monitor the activities of those student-athletes who possess the potential to be top professional prospects. It should also serve to warn student-athletes that if they choose to accept benefits from agents or their associates, they risk losing their eligibility for collegiate competition.

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For the football program at UNC to take a blow like this is both bad for the school as a business and for the football program in terms of respect in the community.

It’s hard enough to develop and recruit talented players in a hot belly of college football like the Carolinas, but complicating that by adding bowl bans and fewer scholarships, and the NCAA has dealt a truly heavy blow to the Tar Heels football program.

While the allure of the baby blue and white will always be there for many players, most kids don’t want to wait to be in postseason contention, so they will choose another school. That’s the kind of punishment the NCAA is trying to use to show schools that this isn’t a joke.

North Carolina will come out of this fine, but it will be a long journey back to relevance.

Check back for more on the NCAA Football as it comes, and check out Bleacher Report’s College Football Page to get your fill of College Football.

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