OKLAHOMA CITY -- Oklahoma must erase its wins from the 2005
season and will lose two scholarships for the 2008-09 and 2009-10
school years, the NCAA said Wednesday.
The penalties stem from a case involving two players, including
the Sooners' starting quarterback, who were kicked off the team
last August for being paid for work they had not performed at a
Norman car dealership. The NCAA said Oklahoma was guilty of a
"failure to monitor" the employment of the players.
Oklahoma President David Boren said the university will appeal
the NCAA's "failure to monitor" finding and the ruling that
Oklahoma must erase the wins from the 2005 season. Oklahoma has 15
days to notify the NCAA in writing of any such appeal.
The Sooners went 8-4 and beat Oregon in the Holiday Bowl to end
the 2005 season. Records from that season involving quarterback
Rhett Bomar and offensive lineman J.D. Quinn must be erased, the
NCAA said, and coach Bob Stoops' career record will be amended to
reflect the erased wins, dropping it from 86-19 in eight seasons to
78-19.
Oklahoma also will have two years of probation added to an
earlier penalty, extending the Sooners' probation to May 23, 2010.
Those sanctions are in addition to those already self-imposed by
Oklahoma, which has banned athletes from working at the car
dealership until at least the 2008-09 academic year and moved to
prevent the athletes' supervisor at the dealership, Brad McRae,
from being involved with the university's athletics program until
at least August 2011.
Oklahoma also will reduce the number of football coaches who are
allowed to recruit off campus this fall. The Sooners also dismissed
Bomar, Quinn and walk-on Jermaine Hardison from the team.
When reached on his cell phone, Quinn said he did not pay any attention to the infractions committee's ruling on Oklahoma, calling it "dumb" and referring to it with an expletive.
"I have no idea," Quinn said. "I don't care."
Paul Dee, the athletic director at Miami and the interim
chairman of the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions, said
Oklahoma will be allowed to keep the money it received for playing
in the 2005 Holiday Bowl, because the NCAA does not regulate bowl
games.
"Although this case centered on a few violations involving
three student-athletes, the committee finds this case to be
significant and serious for several reasons," the NCAA report
said, noting the length of time of the violations and the fact that
Oklahoma had appeared before the committee in April 2006 regarding
violations in its men's basketball program.
On Aug. 3 -- the day before the Sooners began preseason practice
-- Stoops dismissed Bomar and Quinn from the team after the
university determined they had been paid for work not performed at
Big Red Sports and Imports.
That led to an NCAA investigation, which found that Bomar, Quinn
and Hardison had been paid for time they did not work at the car
dealership and that Hardison received payment for time he spent
participating in a scrimmage and spring game.
The players and McRae engaged "in a deliberate scheme to
deceive both the employer's payroll system and the university's
employment monitoring system in an attempt to violate NCAA rules of
which they were real aware," the report stated.
The committee found that Oklahoma "demonstrated a failure to
monitor" the employment of several athletes, including some
football players who worked during the academic year. The NCAA said
that failure led to the university not detecting NCAA rules
violations.
During the investigation, the university disputed that
allegation, arguing that the NCAA should applaud, not penalize, its
efforts to root out violations and noted that NCAA president Myles
Brand told one news outlet that the university "acted with
integrity in taking swift and decisive action" in the case.
Dee said Wednesday that Oklahoma should be praised for quickly
dismissing the players from the team, calling that action "very
influential on the committee."
Still, the committee said that Oklahoma should have undertaken
more extensive efforts to monitor the players' employment, because
the dealership apparently was the largest employer of Oklahoma
athletes.
Boren disagreed, saying in a statement that "any mistakes made
by the athletic department compliance staff while monitoring would
not have prevented the intentional wrongdoing by the student
athletes and the employer involved."
Stoops said he "strongly supported" Boren's decision to
appeal.
"Our current team is focused on the upcoming season," Stoops
said. "The university is dealing with a matter that relates to the
2005 season. This group of players and those that will join our
program later have no reason to be concerned about our goals or the
direction of our program. Those things remain unchanged."
Both Bomar and Quinn lost a season of eligibility. Bomar has
been ordered by the NCAA to pay back more than $7,400 in extra
benefits to charity, while Quinn was told to pay back more than
$8,100. Both players transferred to Division I-AA schools -- Bomar
to Sam Houston State and Quinn to Montana -- where they can resume
their careers this season.
Through Sam Houston State athletic department spokesman Paul
Ridings, Bomar declined comment Wednesday.
Oklahoma officials also appeared before the Committee on
Infractions in April 2006 following an investigation into hundreds
of improper recruiting phone calls by former basketball coach
Kelvin Sampson's staff.
Oklahoma escaped major sanctions in that case, as the
infractions committee also found the university guilty of a
"failure to monitor," a less severe ruling than "lack of
institutional control," which had been recommended by the NCAA's
enforcement staff.
The committee mostly accepted the university's self-imposed
sanctions, which included reductions in scholarships, recruiting
calls and trips and visits to the school by prospective recruits.