Kosar Lets Slip Possible Miami Scholarship Restrictions
Former Miami football star and current trustee Bernie Kosar made an interesting comment at a celebration for Miami’s 1983 National Championship:
“To go the last two years and self-impose the bowl bans, and then not having 10 scholarships last year … when you’re that thin with your number of scholarships and you have that many gifted players in our community, it’s really hard to get out to everyone that you’d really like to have,” Kosar said.
The school immediately denied the claim though.
If Kosar is correct, that would be another big piece of the puzzle in justifying no additional penalties from the NCAA, at least on the football side. 10 scholarships, even for a year, would be a significant if not crippling penalty. But signs point it not happening.
Miami signed a big recruiting class in 2012 and had to count a number of early enrollees back as initial counters in 2011–12. It seems like Miami enrolled close to the maximum of 25 initial counters in Fall 2012. Fan math on scholarships should never be taken as gospel, but it seems Miami signed close to the maximum this year based on the overall 85 counters.
The size of the recruiting classes alone means the penalties were more likely to be around five overall scholarships, if Miami imposed them at all. And it is even less likely there was any self-imposed reduction on initial counters.
The article finishes by focusing on a request made by the NCAA in the Notice of Allegations:
According to documents reviewed by The Associated Press, the NCAA — as part of the response to the institutional-control charge — asked Miami to provide a detailed breakdown of the number of scholarships awarded in the last four years, how many it is currently using, and how many it plans to use in the next academic year.
Such a request has been considered a strong sign that the NCAA is trying to limit the number of scholarships Miami will have available as one of the still-unannounced sanctions that could be coming against the Hurricanes.
While the assumption that the NCAA would look to impose scholarship restrictions as the centerpiece of any additional penalties on Miami is probably correct, the scholarship breakdown the NCAA requested is not evidence that it will happen. That request is standard boilerplate in every Notice of Allegations for every major infractions case.