Michigan Announces Self-Imposed Sanctions, Two-Years of Probation

As promised the University of Michigan announced self-imposed sanctions this morning in response to the NCAA's recent investigation of the football team. Cutting to the meat of it, Michigan has self-imposed two years of probation on the football program, reduced its "quality control" football staff from five persons to three, self-imposing a reduction of 130 hours of training and practice time on the program for the next two years, and terminating the member of the quality control staff who lied to NCAA investigators.

Michigan was adamant in its response that the bulk of the practice overages that led to the violations were the result of the training staff's and the University's misunderstanding of the NCAA's practice rules. The University states in its response that its staff did not believe that stretching and warming up prior to their normal off-season workouts were countable minutes against the hourly workout clock. As David Brandon put it:

"We matched up to the extent we had overages in the summer, we've multiplied by two," Brandon said, adding the same formula that has been applied to fall and winter workouts. "We've proportionally penalized ourselves according to the part of the year we ... (had) overages."

The bottom line is there are no scholarship reductions and no self-imposed bowl penalties. The punishment seems to match the crime, and we'll have more on this as we've had time to review all the documents submitted to the NCAA.