LITTLE ROCK -- Houston Nutt acknowledged losing sleep wondering whether the NCAA would impose bowl and television bans on his Arkansas football team for violations regarding a booster's overpayments to student-athletes.

He heard the question often enough from recruits, including some that decided to go elsewhere in February, that he considered filing a complaint with the Southeastern Conference office about negative recruiting practices.

On Thursday, Arkansas avoided such bans when the NCAA placed Arkansas' athletic program on three years' probation and took away two more football scholarships on top of the eight the school had already penalized itself.

"I was nervous,'' Nutt said. "All you guys were asking about it and I was thinking there might be something major in there to worry about. I'm just glad it's finally over with and we can go forward.''

The NCAA also made Arkansas give up six of its 56 permitted paid football recruiting visits in the next school year as punishment for three major violations -- overpayments to student-athletes at Ted Harrod's Truck Service Inc., supplemental pay by boosters to a school-disciplined athletic trainer and failure to properly use a booster monitoring program.

The school was pleased with the NCAA's findings and said it does not plan to appeal the additional loss of football scholarships.

"I think on balance, the reason we would not even consider appealing this decision is we feel like these are penalties that are fair and that we can live with and are not going to have long-term damage to the Razorback program,'' said Arkansas Chancellor John A. White.

The case started Dec. 30, 1999, two days before the 2000 Cotton Bowl and it took a little more than three years of investigation by the university, NCAA Enforcement Staff and the Infractions Committee.

Infractions Committee chair Thomas Yeager said they found no instances of players being paid for not working and it did not find a lack of institutional control or violations committed by coaches or staff.

It was things the committee did not find at Arkansas that eased athletic director Frank Broyles' mind.

"I based my sleeping at night on the fact that bowls and NCAA Tournament restrictions are primarily and probably 100 percent given to schools whose coaches and people employed with the institution are involved,'' said Broyles, who coached Arkansas for 19 seasons and has been athletic director for 30 years. "We can say, in this case, no one at the institution was involved in these violations.''

Nutt said Arkansas lost several recruits who had committed to the Razorbacks because of negative recruiting regarding the NCAA investigation. Nutt said he lost three defensive linemen, including two from junior college, because of negative recruiting.

"The main thing a young man wants to hear when he comes here is that he can be on TV, go to bowl games and compete for a Southeastern Conference championship,'' Nutt said.

In February, Nutt said he was going to talk to the SEC commissioner's office about filing a formal complaint. On Thursday, Arkansas sports information director Kevin Trainor said Nutt had not filed anything.

Nutt said he chose to move on with those who signed with Arkansas and not worry about those who did not.

"We haven't complained one time or whined,'' Nutt said. "We played with the cards we've been dealt.''