This is going to be the last post I make in this gem of a thread before tuning out and waiting for the official announcement.
There have been so many rumors throughout this whole thing and almost all of them that have been positive or "conspiracy theory"-esque have been wrong. Oh well. The beauty of the internet is you get lots of information, the bad news is that so much of it is unreliable. Here's my feelings after talking to people on campus Saturday.
I've been one of the biggest critics of the "process" from the very beginning. And I stand by all of that. And I know there is a huge chunk of very influential people (including BoT folks) that are extremely unhappy with every aspect of how this investigation has been executed. Is what it is... but IMO the numerous procedural and PR flaws are beyond obvious.
From talking with people who are current students and peers of those in question I'm pretty much convinced that these kids have all cheated to some degree. This isn't surprising when statistics show that 80%+ of college kids admit to cheating on written assignments. The question is what proof/evidence do they have that they cheated? It sounds like it's mostly circumstantial and hearsay, but there is such a large quantity of potential transgressions under review that I don't see how they dodge all the bullets. And I don't think this committee intends to show significant leniency, or demand a high burden of evidence like a court of law. But maybe they will.
The probe was huge and it involves a lot of non-football people. I think one of the biggest questions everyone needs to ask is why the investigators thought it appropriate to basically do an extensive audit of all papers they could get their hands on going back years when none of those papers triggered any investigation at the time they were submitted. It'd be one thing if they had a process in place to regularly audit papers, etc. in a timely (yearly?) fashion... but they don't, and the only reason there is ANY NCAA exposure is that they... the administrators... couldn't/didn't catch offenses as they happened.
Towards vacating wins... it was definitely recommended in the early stages, and I don't think what the investigation turned up is going to do anything to dissuade that recommendation. I don't really get why the University didn't do more to fight to cover their ass like basically every other school would do. The people who ran this investigation put a premium on finding every skeleton in every closet that they could. IMO, that makes no sense. The focus of the investigation should've been first and foremost limiting exposure/PR fallout and second being punitive. I really doubt you're going to see any true "sanctions" but having seasons wiped off the books because the administration couldn't effectively police their classrooms to catch transgressions as they happened, but then doubled down with an investigation that would make the FBI proud to uncover every little thing they missed, is just a complete and utter failure by everyone on the academic side of this.
So in short... process was FUBAR and everyone knows that. But they did it, and it really seems like they found enough for this to end poorly for everyone, and the biggest shame is that our record books are going to take a hit as if we paid players, etc. when really it's just them being bad at catching people in a timely fashion doing things that the majority of college students do.
There's still quite a bit of hearings to be concluded and you might hear something this week if they start issuing results in a piecewise fashion (kind of doubtful) but most likely I imagine you're going to see an announcement on the "self sanctioning" or conclusion or whatever in a matter of weeks, not "tomorrow" or anything like that. ND may also sit on the actual sanctioning/report to NCAA for awhile until all those ducks are firmly in a row... but that timing is anyone's guess.
