SEC Projections: What Can the Conference Do About Cam Newton?

Filed under: Auburn, Mississippi State, SEC

At the 2004 Southeastern Conference spring meetings, by the unanimous vote of school presidents and athletic directors, the SEC passed a new policy that was intended to remove the conference from the infractions investigation business. That 2004 policy, reviewed in its entirety by FanHouse, created a definite procedure for the report of infractions that could eventually lead to NCAA notification in the event the conference found that the notification was warranted.

The SEC's move was important because, as the 2004 report states, "Over the past several years the NCAA infractions process has involved SEC members more frequently than institutions from any other conference." The report went on to note, "The damage that has been done to the reputation of the Conference and its academic institutions is real."

What's more, the report noted, "The intensity of athletic competition that exists within the SEC must not spill over into the compliance area. When it comes to dealing with agents, boosters, recruiting, academic fraud and other problems, the fortunes of all SEC member institutions are bound together. Without a cooperative effort, an untreated problem on one campus today may well appear on another campus tomorrow."

As a result, the conference unanimously adopted a new policy for dealing with reports of NCAA infractions. The process that the SEC's member institutions were to follow was straightforward. First, the chief executive officer of a university or athletic director at an SEC institution had to determine whether the alleged information was credible. Second, if a university did find reports of an infraction to be credible, then that institution would forward that information on to the league office. By requiring a top-echelon employee to vouch for the credibility of the accusation, the intent was to ensure that only credible accusations made their way to the conference office. Third, the league office would then notify the accused institution of the allegation and permit that institution 30 days to review the charges and conduct its own investigation. The accused university then had to forward the results of its investigation back to the league office.

 

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Source: http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2010/11/18/sec-projections-what-can-the-conference-do-about-cam-newton/

Michael Owen Mikhail Youzhny Miroslav Klose Nemanja Vidic Nery Castillo