SMU Sanctions Likely to Have Ripple Effect in College Football

When news of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.’s sanctions against SMU reached South Bend, Ind., Wednesday morning, Notre Dame Athletic Director Gene Corrigan reacted pragmatically. His first concern was what to do about his 1988 football schedule.

With SMU being told that it could play no games in 1987 and only seven games--all on the road--in 1988, Corrigan was wondering what to do about the game Notre Dame was scheduled to play in Dallas in ’88.

Corrigan would be glad to have SMU play at Notre Dame, but it’s more likely that the game will be dropped altogether. He needs to know. But, as he pointed out, “Because there is no athletic director or football coach at SMU right now, I don’t know who to talk to down there.”

The sanctions against SMU are likely to be felt throughout college football, in a lot of areas. As USC Athletic Director Mike McGee put it Wednesday afternoon: “The ramifications of this will be very far-reaching. I think it’s too soon to piece your way through all of the implications.”

Scheduling is one of the most obvious. Said Chuck Neinas, head of the College Football Assn.: “It’s going to be a mess.”

Oklahoma and New Mexico, which had nonconference games scheduled against SMU, are left with open dates next season. The same applies to every other Southwest Conference school.

Said Corrigan: “It’s a difficult position for the Irish, because football schedules are made years in advance. However, schools on SMU’s 1987 schedule have bigger headaches. It’s shocking that the NCAA did it for 1987.”

Members of the Southwest Conference have so many headaches that they have called a special meeting for March 7 in Dallas.

They will have financial questions to deal with, since this could cost everyone. They just might consider realignment. Certainly one of the problems to be dealt with at that time will be what to do with a 1988 round-robin schedule that is going to be missing one robin for a game. The Southwest is a nine-team conference, but the NCAA limited SMU to seven games in 1988.

An oversight? David Berst, director of the NCAA’s enforcement division, said that it was deliberate. The infractions committee intended to cause a problem that the SWC would have to solve as a conference.

Meanwhile, in Fayetteville, Ark., University of Arkansas Athletic Director Frank Broyles said that he would ask the Southwest Conference to appeal to the NCAA to allow SMU eight games in 1988.

In Austin, University of Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds issued this statement: “We at the University of Texas were for stiffer penalties to help stop violations of NCAA rules. At the same time, I feel a little bit saddened. I have a great concern for SMU and their program, and for the Southwest Conference.”

Although the NCAA stopped short of issuing the maximum “death penalty,” which would have totally eliminated the program for two years, football coaches and athletic directors agreed that the penalties were devastating and that it will take a lot more than two years for the program to work its way back--if, indeed, it ever does.

As Oklahoma Coach Barry Switzer put it: “They talk about the death penalty being a two-year proposition, but it’s more like a decade or more. It could put them in a doormat-status for 10 years. And who can recruit to a doormat?”

McGee, himself a former football coach, said: “I think it will take five years, at least, before they begin to recover, and during those years they will not be competitive in their conference. . . . You can’t do it with walk-ons in this day and time. To return to the level of success they’ve had, I’d say it will take closer to 10 years.”

SMU signed no players on national letter-of-intent day earlier this month and will have only 15 scholarships to work with next season. The 52 players currently on scholarship have been told that they can transfer without losing any eligibility. Most of them probably will transfer.

The Austin American-Statesman reached Texas football Coach David McWilliams on the road and asked him if he thought the Mustangs were dead already because of the penalties imposed, and he said: “For them to catch up, they’re going to need more than 15 scholarships. If you don’t have a way to catch up, they certainly are.”

Texas Christian Coach Jim Wacker, whose team was on probation last season after turning itself in and dropping seven players for taking cash payments from boosters, said: “I think anytime you have penalties that severe there is an element of surprise. But because the mandate was so strong, you can’t second-guess their decision. At this point, you feel sorry for the players who weren’t recruited illegally and have had the football program pulled out from under them.”

Most coaches and athletic directors expressed concern for the players, but there is also a growing opinion that the NCAA Presidents’ Commission that adopted the tougher standards for enforcing rules was on the right track, that this type of example was needed.

McGee said: “I think it was a very strong set of sanctions. . . . I really feel badly for the athletes and the supporters who were not involved, but sooner or later this kind of dramatic sanction, in my view, was needed.

“Cheating is not a universal problem. Not everybody is cheating. But there has been too much of this going on. This now, once and forever, changes the equation. No longer can anyone, by any stretch of the imagination, rationalize violating the rules and say it’s worth the risk. It’s irrevocable.

“And I think that’s a positive thing. As sobering as the news is today, I think it’s positive. We (at USC) are on probation right now. We have the threat of the double penalty until April of this year. Then we have another year of probation as a result of the 1985 infractions. . . . So, yes, it gets our attention, but I think it gets everybody’s attention.

“I hope it gets the attention of the alumni and supporters. At SMU, they’ve created a terrible situation for the student-athlete. Clearly, this communicates in a clear and loud voice a message to any possible alumni involved in recruiting.”

Father Robert Sunderland, athletic director at the University of San Francisco, where the basketball program was temporarily suspended after scandal and probation, took a hard line.

“I can’t believe SMU could not control its alumni,” he said. “But when its been so blatant for so long, something has to be done.

“Certainly there is a message in this to other schools, but messages can be ignored. It’s a matter of perspective. What you have to say is, ‘We are going to do it right no matter if we win or lose.’ ”

In Madison, Wis., Frank Remington, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin and the chairman of the NCAA Infractions Committee, said that his committee did not believe that the death penalty itself was being judged. He added that although the penalties stopped short of the maximum, that was not an indication that the maximum penalties would not be imposed in the future.

University of Houston Athletic Director Rudy Davalos said that he was shocked by the penalties.

“I think the penalty imposed will be just devastating to the football program,” he said. “This is the realism coming into effect. . . . Certainly, I think it will get everybody’s attention, but just like the death penalty in crime--there will always be murder. Some things will never cease to happen.”

“I don’t look for this to have an earth-shattering effect on college athletics.”

Jackie Sherrill, football coach and athletic director at Texas A&M;, issued this statement: “It is very difficult for anyone in a third-party situation to make comments without full knowledge of what went on during the proceedings and discussions with SMU officials. It is, obviously a severe blow to SMU, however I feel that SMU will play the cards that have been dealt and will return its program to competitive status.”

Early Wednesday, Texas A&M; had already replaced next season’s SMU game with one against Louisiana Tech.