Georgia Tech no longer ’09 ACC Champs
Georgia Tech was looking ahead to the upcoming 2011 football season, when out of nowhere, the NCAA announced that they will soon to release their findings from an investigation. Surprising most everyone at the school, who say they did not even know about the allegations, this is another case to add to the list of recent findings by the NCAA. Rumors had previously surfaced that some of the football players had received some “free clothing and other items”.
The NCAA released their report soon after the story surfaced. The report stated that an unnamed former player received impermissible benefits from the “friend of an employee of a sports agency based in Atlanta, Georgia.” The unnamed former player was said to have received approximately $312 of clothing. There was also a separate incident in which a former player had been working at an Atlanta based sports agency while providing a current Georgia Tech football player with impermissible benefits as well.
In all, the NCAA found Georgia Tech guilty of three major violations, with sanctions that will no doubt affect the team as it looks forward, as well as taking a piece out of the past. The Yellow Jackets are looking at four years probation, starting July 14, 2011 and ending July 14, 2015. The team will have to pay a $100,000 fine, among other penalties levied.
The worst of the punishment came when the NCAA announced that Georgia Tech was to vacate all contests won by the football team during the 2009 season after November 24, 2009, meaning the Yellow Jackets would be forced to vacate their 2009 ACC title… a title the NCAA now feels was acquired with the services of at least two players who have been deemed ineligible for the last part of the 2009 season. The school has acknowledged the investigation and the punishment and is looking to put it behind and move forward.
This sort of thing seems to keep popping up, and it has come at a bad time for a team trying to bounce back from a subpar year in 2010. All the Yellow Jackets can do at this point is comply with the NCAA and try to put the matter behind them as they try to earn another ACC title to replace the trophy from ’09.
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