Baxter's Fabrication Likely Violated NCAA Bylaw: Suspension Coming ? (There Is A Precedent)

It was the school that believed Baxter’s accusations without doing basic followup (i.e. ask for phone records to validate this allegations) and promptly fired off a letter and launched PR attacks against other schools (right when the NCAA sanction story was exploding).

It is more than a reasonable argument that the school had a duty to exercise some basic due diligence in fact checking the Baxter’s allegations (given Kiffin’s well known track record) before drawing other schools into the mess. So yes, the school in this case did have a responsibility IMO.

In Dez Bryant’s case, the NCAA approached the player and asked him questions. OSU was not directly involved in the initial investigation.

In Baxter’s case, *$c approached the NCAA with false allegations, making the institution directly involved in advancing false accusations. Whether the NCAA holds *$c responsible for the accuracy of its report remains to be seen.

Which is why every conference gets to make its own rules regarding off-the-field matters, employ its own refs, and negotiate its own TV contracts.

Very good points all around. I’ll be interested to see if the Pac-10 takes any action.

Still, if you get to the section of the bylaw I linked to headlined Institutional Control, one of the things the NCAA requires is that “On learning that a violation has occurred, the institution takes swift action.” If USC even got to the point of being questioned on an institutional level about the Baxter matter, it would probably argue that it had no reason to believe that the player lied and that sending the letter to the Pac-10 was a part of its “swift action.”

It’s a CYA argument that would be at least 50% spin, but it might be enough for the NCAA. You never know with those guys from one case to the next.

Quoting the bylaw:

A. Violations do not result from a lack of institutional control if:
…
4. On learning that a violation has occurred, the institution takes swift action.

B. The following actions are likely to demonstrate a lack of institutional control if:
…
5. The institution fails to make clear, by its words and its actions, that those personnel who willfully violate NCAA rules, or who are grossly negligent in applying those rules, will be disciplined and made subject to discharge…

Now that USC has learned that a violation has occurred, it must take “swift action” to “make clear by its words and actions” that the player who broke the rule is disciplined.

took the bar exam?

but there is no way that UConn pays football players more than just$c* pays them. (Basketball would be a different story, probably.) I think he’s eating the pay cut to get a chance to play, thinking he’ll get drafted higher.

   The very idea that Baxter and Baxter alone came up with this story makes no sense, because he gains absolutely nothing.

  That, given Year 2’s very insightful point about the “relationships” between the four big schools to Lame, plus the fact that he wasn’t allowed to become the starting QB at the fifth in his playing days, creates a scenario where the “scapegoat,” if you will, has no stake whatsoever, while the hapless u$c “victims” have all the motive in the world.

   This is the worst job of subterfuge in history.

The reprimand from Mike Slive was related to an SEC-specific rule that requires all complaints from one school about another to be lodged quietly with the conference before being aired publicly. It’s in place so that differences can be worked out behind closed doors in a civilized manner without the conference’s dirty laundry being aired for all to see. I don’t know if the Pac-10 has a similar rule.

Now telling the truth – that would be a shocker.