NCAA Investigation Finds Michigan Football Out of Compliance

Well, yesterday was a hard day to be a Michigan fan as the NCAA handed our football team with five major violations. Now, in case you haven't heard of the violations yet here they are:

-Five Michigan quality control staffers regularly engaged in both on-field and off-field coaching activities that are prohibited by NCAA rules. By participating in these activities Michigan exceeded the maximum amount of coaches allowed to participate.

They are supposedly to have coached the players two days a week in film room, weight room  and coaches meetings.

-Michigan also violated NCAA rules by having football staff members conduct voluntary summer workouts, conducting activities outside the regular season, requiring football student-athletes to participate in summer conditioning activities for disciplinary purposes like missing class, and also exceeding the time limits for athletically related activities during the season as well as during the offseason.

During the past two offseasons the maximum number of hours that could be spent in the weight room is eight hours and Michigan spent 10.

During the season they worked five hours a day instead of four hours, the maximum amount allowed by the NCAA. Also there is a maximum of 20 hours per week, which they went over by 20 minutes.

If you ask me, 20 minutes is totally bogus.

Also, during the 2009 season they sometimes worked 4.5 hours a day exceeding the time limit by 30 minutes.

Graduate assistant Alex Herron is accused of "providing false and misleading information" to both Michigan and the NCAA enforcement staff when he was confronted about the allegations.

The first two allegations have led the NCAA to issue a violation on Coach Rodriguez for failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance and failure to monitor the duties of the quality control staff, grad students, and student assistant.

Also, because of the first two allegations they have attacked the athletic department for failure to monitor its football program with compliance.

So those are the allegations that Michigan is facing.

Now, I personally think that four of the five allegations are totally bogus. The one about the not filing the practice logs is well...lazy!!!

How hard can it be to file logs when you're done with practice, it takes at most five seconds. That one I believe is the most serious against Michigan. Now I was, as I'm sure all of you were, "upset" when I heard about the allegations and we have every right to be.

I mean all of a sudden a program that has been clean throughout our history has been handed five potentially major violations. But I think that we can agree on one thing and that is Rich Rodriguez needs to win. Yes, he needs to WIN games now and that is all he can do because we already know that were getting punished for this.

Michigan will meet with the NCAA in August to discuss the penalties. But, until then we all have to wait anxiously for the next six months until the new season starts. Buckle up everyone. I think it's gonna be a long ride......

Even though the school is facing NCAA violations there is one thing that I think we're forgetting......this is really about the team, not that we are under sanctions. This is really about the team and what they can do to make this a good season.