FSU Hires Outside Council For Appeal

Florida State will appeal part of an NCAA punishment that would strip the school of victories in 10 sports, including as many as 14 in football.

The university president called the penalty "excessive and inappropriate."

Football coach Bobby Bowden has 382 career wins -- one fewer than Penn State's Joe Paterno, the major college leader.

"The coaches had no involvement," Florida State president T.K. Wetherell ((pictured, thanks Mike Ewen/Tallahassee Deomcrat)) said Tuesday. "To hold them responsible in this case is simply wrong."

Bowden has not commented on the NCAA sanctions and was not immediately available after Wetherell's news conference. Wetherell said the university has hired a former administrative law judge, Bill Williams, to represent Florida State in its appeal. Wetherell sent a letter Tuesday to NCAA president Myles Brand to advise him of the appeal.

"The penalty requiring the university to vacate wins is excessive and inappropriate," said Wetherell, adding that part of the sanctions was unwarranted. "Our case is compelling, it is so compelling you simply can't go in any other direction."

A former Seminoles football player, Wetherell said it's unfair to more than 500 athletes and 52 coaches who were not involved in the cheating.

The school accepted the loss of scholarships in 10 sports and a four-year probation the NCAA announced March 6. That's in addition to stripping the school of victories in which any of the 61 athletes involved in the academic cheating may have participated.

The cheating occurred mainly through online testing for a single music history course in the fall of 2006 and the spring and summer semesters of 2007. It included staffers helping students on the test and in one case asking one athlete to take it for another.

Florida State lost to Kentucky in the 2007 Music City Bowl without two dozen players, including several starters, who had taken the class. Many of the same athletes were held out of the first three games last fall as well as part of their punishment.

Steve Ellis, Senior Writer for the Tallahassee Democrat, continues:

The school has 30 days to appeal, according to Wetherell. If the appeals committees rules against FSU, the school will have 90 days to identify those losses in 10 sports over the 2006 fall, 2007 spring and 2007 fall seasons.

“The coaches had no involvement,” Weatherell said. “If you look at the organizational charts that were placed there were no line, dotted or connect, between the coaches an the academic side. That’s by design. To suggest they then be penalized is simply wrong and unfair.”

Here's WCTV's coverage with Lee Gordon ((busy boy these days...))