Well, the week has come and almost gone, and despite reports that the NCAA could deliver its Notice of Allegations to the University of Miami this week, it doesn't appear that that's happening.
However, the general feeling inside the school is that the football program could avoid major institutional sanctions, and that the NCAA has shifted to investigating individual former coaches instead.
State of the U claims that they've been "checking with people we know over the last few days." That's important to remember that those sources are probably associated with the school, and not the NCAA, so who really know what the NCAA is thinking. But apparently the generally sentiment is cautiously optimistic.
To begin with, the main thing that we are hearing is that the NCAA is taking an individualized approach to this situation. While they are still looking to punish Miami in some way, they are spending a LOT of time and effort in putting together cases and allegations against former coaches, boosters, and possibly players. The three major names that will likely be targeted in all of this are Aubrey Hill, Frank Haith, and Clint Hurtt. While we have been told nothing specific, those three will likely be looking at some sort of show cause order at minimum. Other former coaches, namely former basketball assistants Jake Morton and Jorge Hernandez, have come under intense scrutiny as well.Haith, the former 'Canes basketball coach is now at Missouri, where somehow he transformed from average coach to the 2012 AP Big 12 Coach of the Year. He was directly implicated in the original Yahoo! report, and seems to be a bit nervous if his public comments on the situation are any indication. Hill had left for the University of Florida, but is not coaching at the moment. Hurtt is now an assistant coach at the University of Louisiana.
Because the scandal seems to have only involved a few rogue assistant coaches and staffer and didn't go to the top (remember neither Randy Shannon or Larry Coker were ever directly implicated), SOTU's sources seem to think there's a chance, though far from guaranteed, the school could avoid a Lack of Institutional Control charge.
Best case scenario: the NCAA could find that the school's two year self-imposed post-season ban and player suspensions would suffice, and the biggest remaining punishment would be scholarship reduction and forcing the school to cut ties with anyone who didn't cooperate with the investigation.
Again, this is all coming from unnamed sources, but it seems we've come a long, long way from talking about the death penalty.
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