Analysis: Booting Bomar, Quinn was right
Quick decision to dismiss the two players helped lessen severity of NCAA sanctions.
OKLAHOMA FOOTBALL fans still rankled about the punishments handed down by the NCAA against their team can at least take solace in how quickly Rhett Bomar and J.D. Quinn were dismissed from the team last August.
When the OU investigating team ultimately uncovered the truth -- that Rhett Bomar, Quinn and walk-on Jermaine Hardison were getting free paychecks from the former management of Big Red Sports and Imports -- it took head coach Bob Stoops, athletic director Joe Castiglione and president David Boren no time at all to expel Rhett Bomar and Quinn (Hardison, who never played, was dismissed a few days later.).
At a press conference the next day, Stoops expressed that, unlike the dismissal of Dusty Dvoracek from the team a year earlier, Rhett Bomar and Quinn would have no chance of returning to OU.
"If you knowingly, intentionally and premeditatedly break NCAA (rules)," Stoops said last August, "you cannot be a member of this football team or of this university.
"They're gone for good."
It was that swift and sure decision that on
Wednesday saved the Sooners from a harsher NCAA sentence.
"The dismissal of the two student-athletes from the football team was very influential on the committee," said Paul Dee, the acting chairman of the NCAA's committee on infractions, during a teleconference Wednesday. "The university is to be commended, the coach, the athletic department, the athletic director and the president."
Had Stoops and Co. hesitated, had he tried to issue any kind of suspension or let them remain on the team until reaching a verdict, who knows how much more severe Wednesday's penalties might have been?
Among other penalties meted out, the Sooners lost two scholarships for the 2008 and 2009 season, meaning they can operate with no more than 83. Also, the eight victories during the 2005 season are erased (not forfeited), giving the Sooners -- in the NCAA's eyes and in the school's official record books and any public displays -- an 0-4 record. (The school doesn't have to repay any money, including Holiday Bowl payout and any television revenue, earned by the 2005 football team.)
Oklahoma is appealing the decision to vacate the wins, as well as the NCAA's determination that the school's athletic department did not adequately monitor the offseason employment of its student-athletes. The appeal process could take six months.
OU also got two years of NCAA probation, through the 2010 academic year. That ultimately may be the most significant penalty because Stoops must now recruit as the coach of a program that is on probation, a fact that doesn't sit well with parents of some recruits.
OU recruiters are in for a negative spin that hasn't existed under Stoops until now. Stoops has a strong start on verbal commitments for 2008, but recruits will hear a lot of information and misinformation between now and signing day next February.
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