I'm not interestred in taking any coach's side in their dealings witht the NCAA because they know what their getting into when they sign their contracts, but I think the arbitrary way in which the NCAA appears to meter out punishment makes it, at the very least, confusing to understand just what will and what won't get you into trouble.
The rules governing the behavior of coaching staffs exist and are readily available to any and all interested parties, but understanding the manner in which they are enforced can be mind boggling.
A offensive tackle from a storied SEC programs graduates with a degree in comminications but can't find employment because it's later discovered that he can only read on a fifth grade level, and that news barely causes a stir with the NCAA. But an entire basketball program is put on probation (no post season play) because its players fails to maintain sufficient academic progress.
At both schools something is terribly wrong, but only one suffers when the rules governing the academic requirements for an athletic team are so haphazardly enforced.
North Carolina has historically had a strong reputation for academic excellence (in at least some fields of study), and they (the administration, the board of trustees, the alumni, the student body, the athletic department, et al) should be ashamed of what has taken place there for more than a decade, but in many ways they are just the ones who got caught.
The permissiveness exhibited relative to the abuse of academic standards by athletic departments has allowed, perhaps even encouraged, the hubris of the major players at NC in developing their "alternate' study programs for their student-athletes .
Schools make millions from successful athletic programs. Coaches are paid handsomely when they win, and are dismissed when they lose. Alumni contribute when the product on the field/court allows them to proudly tout their Alma Maters.
Every now and then a big name coach gets caught and he and his program is sanctioned, but by and large if a school fields winning teams the fan base doesn't really care whether or not their institution is playing by the rules.
The NCAA knows this and reacts accordingly. Sanctioning a major football program is bad for business; keeping a major draw off of TV hurts everyone in the trickle down world of big time college sports.
But along the way some kids who helped their schools to raise money go back to their home towns with worthless degrees and sometimes damaged bodies; unprepared to find careers, while the NCAA does little to address the systemic abuses that allowed their schools to use them to add capital to their operating budgets.
If and when NC gets punished AD's everywhere will gasp a sigh of relief and the NCAA will proclaim proudly that they've done their job, but the P-5 schools (and others) will continue to encourage their athletic departments to embrace the words of the late Al Davis. "Just Win Baby".
