the embarrassment and shame Brian Kelly just brought on Notre Dame."
(and so it begins)
The poor results on the field — the seven-loss debacle of a season — are nothing compared with the embarrassment and shame Brian Kelly just brought on Notre Dame.
Kelly refused to accept any responsibility Tuesday for NCAA violations that resulted in the Irish being stripped of 21 victories from the 2012 and 2013 seasons. The 12-1 record in 2012 that included a trip to the BCS title game, easily the high point of Kelly’s contentious tenure, is now vanished.
And right along with it Notre Dame’s moral high ground.
Notre Dame has always prided itself on being different, a cut above the college athletics world that, let’s be frank, sometimes looks more like a cesspool. It only recruited players of the highest quality, their character as sterling as their talent. Its coaches were the role models for doing things the right way, refusing to compromise their ethics for a couple of extra wins.
Turns out, Notre Dame’s principles are every bit as malleable as the Miamis, the Auburns and all those other schools it’s looked down upon over the years.
It’s true that Kelly did not have any direct involvement in the violations. The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions found that a student-trainer had violated NCAA rules by committing academic misconduct for two football players and providing six others with impermissible extra academic benefits.
“It was student-on-student cheating,” Kelly said. “This matter has nothing to do with me and my status here.”
Wrong. As head coach, it is Kelly's job to know everything that’s going on with his team, the good and the bad.
Maybe Kelly wouldn’t have first-hand knowledge. But when a team is this high profile, on a campus as insulated as Notre Dame’s, it’s implausible to think people didn’t know about the shadiness. If he or his assistants didn’t hear the whispers and the rumors, it’s because they didn’t want to.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...-notre-dame-ncaa-violations-21-wins/94292314/
(and so it begins)
The poor results on the field — the seven-loss debacle of a season — are nothing compared with the embarrassment and shame Brian Kelly just brought on Notre Dame.
Kelly refused to accept any responsibility Tuesday for NCAA violations that resulted in the Irish being stripped of 21 victories from the 2012 and 2013 seasons. The 12-1 record in 2012 that included a trip to the BCS title game, easily the high point of Kelly’s contentious tenure, is now vanished.
And right along with it Notre Dame’s moral high ground.
Notre Dame has always prided itself on being different, a cut above the college athletics world that, let’s be frank, sometimes looks more like a cesspool. It only recruited players of the highest quality, their character as sterling as their talent. Its coaches were the role models for doing things the right way, refusing to compromise their ethics for a couple of extra wins.
Turns out, Notre Dame’s principles are every bit as malleable as the Miamis, the Auburns and all those other schools it’s looked down upon over the years.
It’s true that Kelly did not have any direct involvement in the violations. The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions found that a student-trainer had violated NCAA rules by committing academic misconduct for two football players and providing six others with impermissible extra academic benefits.
“It was student-on-student cheating,” Kelly said. “This matter has nothing to do with me and my status here.”
Wrong. As head coach, it is Kelly's job to know everything that’s going on with his team, the good and the bad.
Maybe Kelly wouldn’t have first-hand knowledge. But when a team is this high profile, on a campus as insulated as Notre Dame’s, it’s implausible to think people didn’t know about the shadiness. If he or his assistants didn’t hear the whispers and the rumors, it’s because they didn’t want to.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...-notre-dame-ncaa-violations-21-wins/94292314/
