NCAA punishes ASU football

TEMPE, Ariz. — The day of reckoning has arrived for ASU football. The NCAA finally finished its investigation on Arizona State’s recruiting violations during the COVID-19 dead period.

The violations range back to the 2020 pandemic season when ASU staffers hosted numerous recruits on campus during the NCAA’s recruiting dead period.

Last season, ASU gave itself a self-imposed one-year bowl ban while waiting for the full result of the investigation.

The penalty for ASU football

The release from the NCAA states the following:

“The agreed-upon penalties in this case include four years of probation for the school, a fine, a self-imposed postseason ban for the 2023 football season, vacation of records for contests in which ineligible student-athletes competed, scholarship reductions and recruiting restrictions in alignment with the Level I-mitigated classification for the school. Additionally, the school disassociated an involved booster for a period of five years. The individuals also agreed to or did not contest show-cause orders ranging from three to 10 years consistent with the Level I-aggravated classifications of their respective violations.”

In simpler terms, all of this means that:

• ASU will be under more strict surveillance for the next four years
• A fine of an unannounced amount
• Self-imposed bowl ban (already occurred for the 2023 season)
• Turn over documents and records on illegal student-athlete payments
• Scholarship reductions
• Restrictions on recruiting, mainly restricting the number of days the staff can host or visit recruits.
• One booster is not allowed to contribute to the team for five years
• Show cause order is when a coach must report to the NCAA every roughly six months for a check-in. The coach must report everything they are doing seemingly making it impossible for them to acquire another job during their show cause period.

Several coaches are receiving show-cause penalties, including Herm Edwards. Edwards will likely never coach again however, this does indicate that the NCAA investigation saw Edwards as being involved in the wrong-doing.

NCAA Praise

While ASU has been hit with numerous major penalties in all of this, they were praised for how they handled the situation.

The NCAA noted that  “Arizona State’s cooperation throughout the investigation and processing of this case was exemplary, and the cooperation began with the leadership shown by the university president,” said Jason Leonard, executive director of athletics compliance at Oklahoma and chief hearing officer for the Committee on Infractions panel. “The school’s acceptance of responsibility and decision to self-impose meaningful core penalties is a  model for all schools to follow and is consistent with the expectations of the NCAA’s infractions program.”

Why did this take so long?

Many Arizona State fans have wondered why this process has taken so long. Other programs like Tennessee, and Michigan, also have been punished for illegal recruiting during the NCAA dead period during the pandemic, why was ASU’s taking the longest? Today that answer arrived.

Arizona State’s case was simply massive, over 30 recruits illegally met former staffers. Other cases like Michigan and Tennessee had less than a dozen. The sheer scale of this case was significant, leading to a longer investigation period.

While certain wins will be vacated, Arizona State’s 70-7 victory over Arizona in 2020 will not be vacated, per Chris Karpman of Sun Devil Source.

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