Spin City

Florida State has released its first of many press releases regarding the Notice of Allegations submitted to the school by the NCAA three months ago. Florida State is claiming there are no new allegations in the report. But before disappointment sets in, and you try to make peace with the fact that Coach Bowden has once again pulled the wool over the eyes of the NCAA, consider this -The Notice of Allegations is, in fact, the first time the NCAA makes allegations. Therefore by definition everything in the Notice of Allegations is new.

Also there are already a couple of new allegations, as far as I can tell - there are over 226 pages of documents between the NCAA's Notice and Florida State's response so it will take a little time to completely review. The initial reports filed by Florida State indicated that there was “one rogue tutor” and that all employees and witnesses are cooperating. However in the response to the Notice of Allegations it indicates that three academic advisors that assisted in the cheating, and that an advisor directed a tutor to give assistance (i.e. help cheat) to a handful of athletes. That advisor is not cooperating with the investigators. Just to clarify things Florida State is responsible for the cooperation of all employees and former employees involved in the scandal. Failure to cooperate with the investigation at this point is considered in and of itself a violation.

More to come....