Notre Dame Must Vacate All Wins In 2012, 2013 Over Academic Misconduct
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SOUTH BEND (CBSMiami) – The NCAA has ordered Notre Dame to vacate all football victories from the 2012 and 2013 seasons due to academic misconduct.
The announcement was made by the NCAA on Tuesday.
A student athletic trainer is to blame for committing the academic misconduct on behalf of several football players.
The football program will also be placed on probation for one year and will be fined $5000.
Additionally, the former student trainer will observe a two-year show-cause order and dissociate from all aspects of the Notre Dame athletic program.
"It was student-on-student cheating," said Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly. "The NCAA agreed with that finding. It was clearly excessive."
Kelly addressed reporters on Tuesday following the release of the findings. He expressed his feelings that the penalties were excessive and that the school plans to appeal.
"It's never happened before in the history of the NCAA, the penalty has never been issued in this fashion before," said Kelly. "This is a discretionary action by the committee. That's number one. Number two, student-on-student cheating, nobody implicated. The NCAA agreed across the board with that finding, and it was clearly excessive, so we're gonna appeal this, and one of the options or clear reasons for appeal is that the penalty is excessive in its discretion and we believe we have obvious grounds there."
Kelly went on to say that cheating goes on in 80-percent of colleges, though that doesn't mean he condones it.
An official statement was released by Notre Dame President Fr. John Jenkins on the NCAA's ruling.
"We disagree with the decision of the hearing panel to impose, at its own discretion, a vacation of records penalty," the statement read. "We believe that imposition of the vacation of records penalty without serious underlying institutional misconduct will not primarily punish those responsible for the misconduct, but rather will punish coaches, student-athletes and indeed the entire institution who did nothing wrong and, with regard to this case, did everything right."