North Carolina Football: NCAA Hands Down Bowl Ban & 15 Scholarship Reduction

The Heels waited 20 months to hear their fate, and in the end, it was either not nearly enough or far worse than expected—depending on which side of the fence that you fall on.

The NCAA handed down a year postseason ban to the Tar Heels to go along with 15 scholarships lost over three seasons. That's six more scholarships than the nine that UNC self-imposed but a far cry short of the massive swath cut from the USC Trojans program just a few seasons ago.

Coach Larry Fedora will have 20 scholarships to use over the next three seasons, not the full 25 but definitely manageable with smart recruiting and getting the most out of the talent he has on the roster thanks to Butch Davis.

Where the bowl ban is concerned it's a step back for a program that's been in the postseason every year since 2008, but it is hardly damning. The Heels senior class this year does feature guys like Erik Highsmith and Kevin Reddick who won't get to do four bowls straight, but in the grand scheme of the program there are plenty of Heels who will weather the storm and go into 2013 hungry to get to a bowl.

As for the penalties themselves, perhaps the Heels glasnost policy with the NCAA did help them in the long run. It most certainly would appear so given where their punishment stands in comparison to others—only six more scholarships lost than Ohio State sort of speaks to that point.

Perhaps this will be a lesson that cooperation does help.

Although in the end, I can't help but wonder how the penalties would have been handed down should the Heels have kept their mouth shut about the academic fraud or the bevy of violations revealed that the NCAA had no way of discovering until UNC goaded players into spilling all of the trivial beans.

Ultimately, the issue of how UNC handled the investigation is another story for another forum because the sacrificing of the players to maintain the image of the school is something that's irked folks like myself since the investigation's beginning.

For now, UNC got off relatively light; things are not much worse for the wear in Chapel Hill, and with spring ball kicking off in a couple days, the Heels can slap a positive spin on all of this—a spin led by the energy of Larry Fedora and the possibility of his high octane offense taking over at Carolina.