Tagged: College Football

UNC-Chapel Hill officials are in Indianapolis this morning. They are there to face the NC-double-A infractions committee over improper activities in the football program.

Chancellor Holden Thorp and outgoing athletic director Dick Baddour hope to convince the committee to accept the punishment the University has already given itself. Those penalties include vacating all wins in the 2008 and 2009 season, losing nine football scholarships and a 50-thousand dollar fine.

North Carolina will vacate all 16 victories from the 2008 and 2009 football seasons following an NCAA investigation into improper benefits and academic misconduct. The university issued a response Monday to the NCAA's notice of allegations. It says three scholarships will be cut for the next three years and the football program will be on probation for the next two years as part of self-imposed penalties. UNC will pay a $50,000 fine, but did not impose a postseason ban. The school still has to appear before the NCAA infractions committee in October.

College football fans will be flocking to Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh this weekend. UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, and N-C State will hold their season opening games.

It’s been a tumultuous off-season for major college football programs. And no program has been under more scrutiny than Carolina, for everything from parking tickets to academic integrity issues.

Tomorrow, the team finally takes the field. Everett Withers is the interim head coach.

This has not been a good few months for major college football. Schools like Ohio State, U-S-C, and Miami have run afoul of the NCAA. That’s also the case at UNC-Chapel Hill, where football coach Butch Davis was fired just before practice began, and school officials will face the NCAA infractions committee in October.

While this environment would seem to make college presidents run from big-time football, one UNC system school is running toward it.