The Florida State football team will vacate an undetermined number of wins, serve four years' probation, and face a reduction in scholarships and other penalties due to what the NCAA described Friday as "major violations" from an academic cheating scandal.
Nine other programs were also penalized -- baseball, men's track and field, women's track and field, men's swimming, women's swimming, men's basketball, women's basketball, softball and men's golf -- and face the same sanctions. Overall, the scandal involved 61 athletes.
Football coach Bobby Bowden would have entered the coming season with 382 career victories, trailing Penn State coach Joe Paterno by one win on the all-time list. The sanctions will force him to forfeit all wins during which ineligible students competed in 2006 and 2007.
It is not immediately clear how many wins Florida State will have to vacate. Dennis Thomas, the vice chair of the Committee on Infractions and acting chair for the FSU case, said only one ineligible player would have had to participate in a game for the entire team record has to be vacated.
"The committee adjudicates the facts and reviews the facts as they are presented. It has no thought whatsoever given to a student athlete's prominence or a head coach's record, about to break record," Thomas said during a conference call to announce the penalties. "We give no thought to that whatsoever."
The football team will be limited to 83 total scholarships in 2008-09; 82 in 2009-10; and 84 in 2010-11; the maximum usually allowed by the NCAA is 85. Florida State self-imposed the loss of the two scholarships for 2008-09, and will self-impose the loss of three scholarships for 2009-10. The NCAA added an additional loss of scholarship from the maximum in 2010-11.
"I must say that Florida State did a great job in cooperating with the enforcement staff in accumulating all of the information that was required," Thomas said. "Yes, Florida State did self-report. They did an outstanding job. We have to give Florida State University credit for that."
The NCAA determined that a former learning specialist, academic advisor and tutor gave "improper assistance" to Florida State athletes who were taking online courses. According to the NCAA, the former learning specialist typed portions of papers for at least three athletes and also provided answers to an online psychology course quiz by instructing another athlete to complete the quiz on behalf of the athlete enrolled in the course.
The committee stated this case was "extremely serious" because of the large number of student-athletes involved and the fact that academic fraud is considered by the committee to be among the most egregious of NCAA rules violations.
Florida State's probation extends through March 5, 2013.
