NCAA talk dominates ACC media day

PINEHURST, N.C. – Fifteen minutes before North Carolina coach Butch Davis’ arrival Monday at ACC Media Days, more reporters hovered around his table than those of North Carolina State coach Tom O’Brien and Maryland coach Randy Edsall.

O’Brien and Edsall, by the way, were present and answering questions at the time.

It’s a good guess that O’Brien and Edsall didn’t mind, considering the horde waiting for Davis sure wasn’t there to chat about UNC being picked third in the Coastal Division.

A major story line at ACC Media Days was how quickly the league, thanks in large part to the Tar Heels, is becoming “SEC Lite” in terms of NCAA infractions. Three major cases stealing headlines lately involve ACC football programs, tarnishing a league reputation that – while hardly spotless – never had been considered to tread the same murky waters as its neighboring conference to the south.

“Any time one of our schools has an NCAA problem, whatever it is, I’m disappointed and concerned,” ACC commissioner John Swofford said. “When you have exceptions that are problems, exceptions to what the league developed over the years as the norm in terms of how things should be done, and one family member periodically falls out of line, that’s one of the beauties of being in a league, because there’s a certain level of collective expectations.”

But don’t those expectations begin to deteriorate a bit when one-quarter of your football programs are involved in major NCAA scandals?

• Earlier this month, the NCAA placed Georgia Tech on four years’ probation, fined it $100,000 and vacated the final three games of the 2009 season, which included an ACC championship game win. The ruling stemmed from Georgia Tech athletic director Dan Radakovich alerting then-first-year coach Paul Johnson that wide receiver Demaryius Thomas and safety Morgan Burnett would be interviewed by the NCAA, which is a violation. Radakovich’s action was the biggest issue and in a way took attention off the allegation that Georgia Tech did not declare Thomas ineligible after he accepted $312 worth of clothing from former Georgia Tech QB Calvin Booker, who was working for an agent. The NCAA believed Thomas and Burnett prepared answers for the questions they would face, thanks to Radakovich alerting Johnson.

• The NCAA sent North Carolina a notice last month alleging numerous major violations surrounding improper benefits and academic misconduct. Fourteen players missed at least one game last season and seven of them sat out the season in what has been a yearlong nightmare for UNC.

•Florida State is two years into a four-year probation for an academic scandal. The NCAA vacated FSU victories – which cost former coach Bobby Bowden a chance to overtake Joe Paterno on the career wins list – as well as handing down a reduction in scholarships.

Once Davis arrived at his table Monday, the pack of media had ballooned to more than 50. Meanwhile, roughly 12 feet away, sat Georgia Tech’s Johnson, growing more irritable with each question concerning his program’s recent run-in with the NCAA.

The way each coach handled the initial peppering could not have been more different. Davis said he takes full responsibility for UNC’s mess.

“Anything I can do to ensure those things don’t occur again – whether it is education, whether it’s rules, regulations and policies, anything we can do to make sure it doesn’t happen again – that’s part of my responsibility,” he said. “I regret greatly that these things have transpired and these things have happened.

“I don’t take them lightly. This is a very serious issue. It’s caused a tremendous amount of embarrassment and a tremendous amount of hard times for Carolina alums and fans, but we’re going to get through this.”

As for Johnson taking responsibility, eh, not so much.

“We just need to move on,” he said. “You can beat it to death. It is what it is. Everybody is going to have an opinion and certainly I’ve got mine, but no one asked me.”

Actually, though, his opinion was asked quite often Monday. And he didn’t appreciate it.

There was:

“We’re going to put it behind us and move forward.”

And:

“I’ve never been involved in this process before and I hope I’m never involved in another. And, really, honestly, I wasn’t involved in this one. Hardly. This one had nothing to do with the coaching staff. It was more the administrators.”

But what about the player allegations?

“Did they ever prove it [impermissible benefits]? You’d have to look at the report.”

Lessons learned?

“I take away from this that I’m going to move on. How about you?”

And when asked if it taught him anything about how to deal with players or agents, Johnson responded, “Evidently not.”

Finally, a rattled Johnson barked “next question,” and a Georgia Tech official mercifully stepped in to declare it was time for a different topic.

Johnson stiff-arming all questions of accountability likely won’t sit well with Swofford, in his 15th year as the ACC’s commissioner. Swofford spent much of his address Sunday hammering on the need for ACC programs to graduate players and avoid dates with the NCAA Committee on Infractions.

“When you have something as public and emotional, as competitive and human, like we have in intercollegiate athletics, [there are] going to be problems,” Swofford said. “We’re not going to eliminate all the problems. We’re human beings and human beings are going to make bad choices. But we need to do everything we can do systemically to minimize the opportunity to make those bad choices.

“When those bad choices are made, the risk of doing so needs to be that, ‘Hey, I’m not taking that risk. It’s not worth it.’ I’m not sure we’ve done that.”

Recently in the ACC, that last sentence hits closer to home than ever.

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