Freshman DB Artis Chambers, who played limited duty on special teams, was declared ineligible for the rest of the sesaon. I’m not exactly sure what the deal is. All we know is that Michigan claims it is a Big Ten eligibility rule and not an NCAA rule (whatever that means). As I understand it, the Big Ten has tighter academic eligibility requirements than the NCAA, so it is probably tied to that.
Bill Martin took the blame and advised that “We’ve had a misinterpretation of the Big Ten freshman-eligibility rules,” Martin said, referring to Chambers’ status as a second-semester enrollee last January. “We found this out Thursday afternoon.”
As far as sanction, here’s what was posted in the Free Press:
“We’ll have to wait and see what the Big Ten says,” Martin said. “I can’t rule anything out (sanction-wise). I would think we’ll get resolution sometime this week.” Chambers will remain in school. The rules “are a little arcane, and we simply misapplied an older version of the rules,” Martin said.
We’ll see what Michigan is going to do. I wouldn’t put this anywhere near par with the J. Joy Miller scandal of 1909 but there are some similarities. I’m guessing this will result in an apology to Penn State and a slap on the wrist.
One Comment
Lew
I have no idea what’s going to happen with this, but I’m kinda worried. I just get the impression that they’re pretty strict about the eligibility rules and the penalty is usually a forfeit. Given it’s not an NCAA violation, it wouldn’t seem out of the question for the Big 10 to let us keep the win but say it doesn’t count in the Big 10 standings (i.e., it doesn’t count toward the Rose Bowl). Yes, I’m being paranoid and getting ahead of myself, but that would be the third strike against the athletic department this year – how the heck can you be going off an “older version” of the rules?
(The other two strikes? Putting App St. on the schedule in the first place given it costs us in the Big 10 tiebreak – win or lose, and getting Dave Shand fired from WTKA of course.)