A bowl ban is not among Oregon football’s sanctions for its scouting services scandal of two years ago, according to the school’s Wednesday morning announcement. Former Ducks coach and current Philadelphia Eagles coach Chip Kelly is being hit with a two-season show-cause penalty, meaning he essentially can’t coach college football for a while. This probably doesn’t worry him at the moment.
Oregon football learns NCAA sanctions fate: No bowl ban, Chip Kelly penalized
After two years -- and the departure of almost every person involved in the 2011 recruiting scandal -- Oregon has finally learned the scope of its NCAA sanctions.
The list of sanctions from the Oregon document (the NCAA’s detailed report is also out -- we’ll have more here soon as we work our way through the documents):
1. Public reprimand and censure.
2. Three years of probation from June 26, 2013, through June 25, 2016.
3. The number of initial athletically related financial aid awards in football that are countable under Bylaw 15.02.3 shall be reduced by one from the maximum allowed (25) during both the 2012-13 and 2013-14 academic years. This limits the institution to 24 initial grants those two years under current rules. (Institution imposed)
4. The number of total athletically related financial aid awards in football shall be reduced by one from the maximum allowed (85) during the 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic years. This limits the institution to 84 total scholarships those three years under current rules. (Institution imposed)
5. Official paid [recruiting] visits in the sport of football shall be limited to 37 for each of the 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-6 academic years. The institution will not be allowed to retain unused visits for the following year [...]
6. The permissible number of football [recruiting] evaluation days shall be limited to 36 (of 42) in the fall of 2013, 2014 and 2015. The permissible number of football evaluation days shall be limited to 144 (of 168) in the spring of 2014, 2015 and 2016.
7. A ban on the subscription to recruiting services during the period of probation.
8. The recruiting service provider [Willie Lyles] will be disassociated by the institution’s athletics program upon release of this report. (Institution imposed
9. The committee concluded that the former head coach [Kelly] failed in his duty to monitor his program as it related to the recruiting service provider’s impermissible contact with prospective student-athletes, the football program’s use of the recruiting service provider’s business which did not comply with NCAA legislation, and the impermissible telephone calls placed by the former assistant director of operations. The former head coach agreed with these determinations. Therefore, pursuant to NCAA Bylaw 19.5, the committee imposes an 18-month show-cause order upon the former head coach. During this period, which begins on June 26, 2013, and runs through December 25, 2014, if any member institution seeks to hire the former head coach in an athletically related capacity, it and the former head coach shall appear before the Committee on Infractions to consider which, if any, of the show-cause procedures of Bylaw 19.5.2.2 (l) should be imposed upon him.
10. The committee concluded that the former assistant director of operations violated NCAA recruiting legislation.
This has been a long, long, long time coming. It’s been 27 months since word broke that the NCAA was investigating Oregon, meaning multiple recruiting cycle’s worth of free negative ammunition for recruiting rivals to use against the Ducks.
We first heard about Willie Lyles -- a Texas “street agent” -- in March 2011, when it became known Oregon paid him $25,000, and word the NCAA was investigating came soon after. At the time, Oregon asserted that everything was above board, and that it paid Lyles for national scouting services, something allowed under NCAA rules.
The majority of the parties in this scandal no longer have any connection to Oregon.
However, it became clear that wasn’t the case. Lyles’ scouting reports were comically useless, featuring players already in college, almost exclusively focusing on the state of Texas and were often of exceedingly low quality. Thanks to investigations by Yahoo!, the implication was that Lyles was paid to influence players toward Oregon. In February 2012, Oregon admitted it had committed recruiting violations.
The vast majority of the parties in this scandal no longer have any connection to Oregon. Chip Kelly is now in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles -- remember the silly idea that the Lyles scandal could cost him his job? Lache Seastrunk, one of the players allegedly guided by Lyles to Oregon, transferred to Baylor, where he ran for 1,000 yards. LaMichael James, also linked to Lyles, was most recently seen in the Super Bowl with the San Francisco 49ers.
And while we’re talking about people no longer at their jobs, the NCAA recently fired its head of enforcement, Julie Roe Lach, after the botched Miami investigation, meaning the person likely dealing with punishing the Ducks has also changed.
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