The dark cloud that has lingered over the Mississippi State football program for the past three years has finally dropped its consequential rain.
The NCAA Infractions Committee distributed penalties on the football program Wednesday, almost four months after Mississippi State appeared before the committee to present its case on June 12.
The university received four years probation, which started on the date of the hearing and will expire June 11, 2008. In this time frame Mississippi State must not be in violation of NCAA rules in any sport or severe consequences will follow.
“The best thing about this is that it’s over,” said head coach Sylvester Croom. “The uncertainty is gone and we can move our program in a direction that we want to go.”
Other penalties the Infractions Committee imposed include a post-season ban for this year. At 2-5, the Bulldogs would need to win their remaining four games to reach bowl eligibility. So while making a bowl would have been possible, it was not probable.
However, since MSU cannot partake in a bowl game at the end of this season they will not receive any revenue from the Southeastern Conference from SEC bowl games and from the SEC Championship game.
Athletics director Larry Templeton said last year’s revenue shares from bowls and the SEC championship totaled $2.7 million.
“We’ve just got to find a way to deal with (the revenue loss),” Templeton said in Wednesday’s press conference.
The money will be escrowed in an account and State can reclaim half the money when the probation ends.
The committee also took away four scholarships from the football program for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 academic years. The NCAA allows a team to have a running total of 85 scholarships. Therefore, State will only have 81 those two years. The University self imposed a two scholarship ban for the 2005-06 year meaning that Mississippi State will only be allowed to sign 23 players (out of a possible 25) in the 2005-06 recruiting season.
The committee has also limited Mississippi State to only 45 expense-paid recruiting visits, which are 11 less than the normal 56 in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 academic years.
Head coach Sylvester Croom said he and his staff have used three of those visits already, which means they have 42 expense-paid visits remaining for this season.
This particular NCAA investigation began in the summer of 2001 after NCAA enforcement staff received information about improper lodging for two junior college football recruits. Other credible information about additional NCAA violations surfaced in January 2002.
From there, the recruiting violations were uncovered at an alarming rate. The violations occurred starting in the fall of 1998. That season Mississippi State won the SEC West crown. More violations were discovered in the 1999-2000 season when the Bulldogs finished with a record of 10-3.
Violations also occurred in the 2001-02 year and the 2002-03 year where the University was tabbed for giving money in the amounts of over $120 to recruits on visits from Memphis.
Former head coach Jackie Sherrill was cleared of unethical conduct and the allegation that he offered a substantial recruiting inducement to a prospect and his family.
Sherrill did not return phone calls Wednesday evening.
The chair of the Committee on Infractions, Thomas Yeager, said the penalty ruling was actually made in June after MSU’s appearance before the committee, but several large and complicated cases delayed the announcement of the penalties. Yeager said that the death penalty, which would be a total shut down of the football program for a certain number of years, was not discussed.
“It was not appropriate in this case,” Yeager said in a teleconference Wednesday afternoon. “There is a new atmosphere surrounding the program (MSU).”
That “new atmosphere” Yeager pointed out is led by the first African-American head coach in SEC history, but Yeager said that Sylvester Croom making that history played no role in the outcome of the sentence.
The members of the NCAA Committee of Infractions who heard this case are Paul T. Dee, athletics director, University of Miami (Florida); Jack H. Friedenthal, law professor, George Washington University; Alfred J. Lechner, Jr., attorney, Morgan, Lewis & Bochius, Princeton, New Jersey; and Josephine R. Potuto, law professor, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
Mississippi State was found guilty in 1996 of major infractions, including improper inducements made to recruits by a former recruiting assistant, unethical conduct, improper benefits provided to athletes by a booster, and lack of institutional control over the program. Among the penalties: one-year probation, public censure and reprimand, and the loss of 13 scholarships (from the maximum 25 to 12) for the 1997 recruiting class.
This is the fifth major infraction case in Mississippi State history. Besides 1996, State was penalized in 1967 for improper recruiting in basketball. In 1975 they received a number of penalties for improper recruiting and extra benefits in football and in 1986 State was put on one-year probation in the following sports for violations relating to the use of telephones: women’s and men’s basketball, women’s tennis, golf and softball.
Since some of the violations in this case happened inside a five-year window of the 1996 infractions, the Bulldogs are viewed as a repeat violator, but due to the action of the university by ridding of the past coaching staff the penalties were lighter than normal for a repeat violator.
“We have a new coach, a new direction and a new sense of purpose,” MSU president Charles Lee said. “We also have a new commitment to 100 percent compliance with the rules and to zero tolerance for activities by athletic staff, athletes, alumni or fans that jeopardize our program.”
Sylvester Croom let his team know of the violations at practice Wednesday.
Croom told the media that he has already made phone calls to prospects to inform them of the penalties. He has said in the past that rival universities have used the uncertainty of the consequences of the investigation as a tool to draw recruits away from Mississippi State.
“We lost four prospects at the end (of last year’s recruiting season). I thought about those young men this morning. All the rumors and innuendoes that they had to deal with in making their final decisions on those last days of recruiting last year and none of it turned out to be true,” Croom said. “Even this year there are prospects that are out there who I know are leaning toward us and have not committed simply waiting on this decision.”