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Notre Dame Football

BK Notebook: NCAA Punishment

November 22, 2016
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Notre Dame will take on USC on Saturday to close a very long and difficult season, but news of the NCAA punishing Notre Dame was the bigger news at Brian Kelly’s Tuesday press conference.

A former Notre Dame student athletic trainer violated NCAA ethical conduct rules for two football student-athletes and provided six other football student-athletes with impermissible academic extra benefits, according to the Division I Committee on Infractions panel.

The NCAA prescribed one year of probation, a two-year show-cause order and disassociation for the former-student trainer and a $5000 fine for the university.

As you can imagine, Kelly was not pleased with the ruling.

“It's never happened before, in the history of the NCAA,” stated a fired up Kelly. “A penalty has never been issued in this fashion before. I think that qualifies for being -- first of all, it was discretionary. This was a discretionary action by the committee. That's number one.

“Number two, it was student on student cheating. There was nobody implicated. The NCAA agreed across the board with that finding. And it was clearly excessive.

“So as you know, we're going to appeal this, and one of the options or clear reasons for appeal is that the penalty is excessive in its discretion. And we believe we have obviously grounds there.”

You can read Notre Dame’s appeal here:




Notre Dame and Kelly knew the NCAA was continuing to investigate the situation, but he was ‘hopeful’ it wouldn’t get to this point.

“It had always been discussed,” Kelly said of excessive penalty. “You know, clearly there -- when you hear about vacating wins, you think of lack of institutional control. You hear of clearly abuse within the University relative to extra benefits, things of that nature. And when these don't even come close to that, although you hear those things, you just never think it would happen.

“I was always hopeful that we wouldn't be at this day, but here's what I can tell you: We did the right thing. I'm proud of our support staff, our academic support staff. I'm proud of the people that represented us here at Notre Dame during this time. And if doing the right thing means that you've got to put an asterisk next to these games, that's fine with me. We still beat Oklahoma. We still beat Wake Forest, we still beat all those times, so you can put an asterisk next to it. If that makes you feel better, then that's fine with me.”

The head coach was then asked if he felt responsible for the student trainer and the student-athletes.

“Zero,” stated Kelly. “None. Absolutely none.”

Notre Dame suspended players at the start of the 2014 season and dealt with the situation the best they saw fit. Kelly was also proud of how the University handled the difficult situation.

“Jack (Swarbrick) has been great,” Kelly said. “The University has been great. I've been in the loop on this the whole way. So internally, our -- I just think that everybody has been rolling in the right direction, from Father Jenkins, Marianne Corr, Jill Bodensteiner, everybody. I couldn't say enough good things about how this has come together.”

How does Kelly plan on making sure a repeat of the situation doesn’t happen again? Notre Dame has already made adjustments to make sure his players have all the help they need.

“I think our interaction with our players relative to academic specialists, we've addressed, we've added support staff,” explained Kelly. “We've added the necessary resources for our players to be represented as it relates to the work that they have to do academically. That's my responsibility, that if we bring them here to Notre Dame that they have the resources necessary to succeed.

“But let's not kid ourselves; 80 percent of colleges go through cheating. There's cheating that goes on in college. 80 percent of colleges. That doesn't condone it, but we know what the culture is.

“It's my job to support the student-athletes that I have here with the resources necessary on a day-to-day basis. We believe that we do that, and we do it in the best interests by providing those resources.”

In terms of the punishment itself, Kelly doesn’t believe going to a bowl or scholarship reductions will be part of the penalty moving forward, as the Irish are on probation from Nov. 22, 2016, through Nov. 21, 2017.

“I am not exactly sure as to what the one-year probation means,” stated Kelly. “I would assume that any violations that rise above secondary violations, that that's what it probably pertains to.

“There are no implications as it relates to bowl games or scholarship reductions or anything of that nature. Yeah. I think probation means if there are any additional violations during that probational period that rise above secondary violations, then you could find yourself into another category. That's what I'm assuming. But again, I don't know for certain.”

As for his job, Kelly believes he will still be the head coach at Notre Dame next season and won’t allow himself to into the how the public thinks of him, regardless of his hand in the scandal.

“I have no reason to believe that I'm not,” said Kelly. “No one -- like I said, I mean, I think you guys are confusing this statement with the win-loss record. A win-loss record is always under scrutiny at Notre Dame, and it should be. That's part of it.

“But this matter here has been a long-standing matter that the University has handled, handled in a positive way relative to how we handled it internally. Everybody has felt that -- every support staff member has represented Notre Dame in a positive way.

“Today's statement should be a validation that my collateral responsibilities at Notre Dame as the head coach are outstanding. However, he's got to win more football games. And so that hasn't changed. We're still 4-7. So if you want me to answer you the question on 4-7, I think every football coach that's 4-7 has got to win more football games.”
 
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