Yahoo! Sports with another scoop:

Ex-Vols aide funded airfare payment for Seastrunk

An assistant coach during Lane Kiffin’s tenure at the University of Tennessee wired $1,500 to a talent scout in July 2009, funding the airfare for an unofficial recruiting trip by then five-star prospect Lache Seastrunk and his mother, Yahoo! Sports has learned.

In an apparent NCAA violation, then-Volunteers secondary coach Willie Mack Garza sent the money to one-time scout Will Lyles, who had paid for plane tickets for Seastrunk and his mother Evelyn. Garza, who joined Kiffin’s staff at USC in 2010, stepped down from his position with the Trojans in September citing “some personal issues unrelated to USC that I need to address.” His resignation came shortly after Lyles informed NCAA investigators in August of the transaction. Lyles said NCAA investigators were conducting a wide-ranging look into Tennessee recruiting practices.

Houston-based Lyles was a talent scout and mentor to several area players, including Seastrunk of Temple, Texas, in the central part of the state. Lyles said he told the NCAA he organized and paid for Seastrunk and his mother to travel to Knoxville June 20-21, 2009 for an unofficial visit. Lyles said he was reimbursed via MoneyGram by Garza on July 5. Lyles said he provided the NCAA receipts for the plane tickets and a hand-written MoneyGram receipt.

Yahoo! Sports, with Lyles’ cooperation, requested and received an independent receipt of the transaction directly from MoneyGram International. Under transaction history request, the receipt lists “Willie Garza” as the “sender” and “Will Lyles” as the “receiver” of $1,500. An additional $76 processing fee was charged to Garza.

The rest here.

This weekend saw the announcement that Pitt and Syracuse would be leaving the Big East for the ACC. As Lee Corso says, “Not so fast my friend.”

Big East commissioner John Marinatto told Pete Thamel of the New York Times that the conference will hold Pitt and Syracuse to the 27-month period before either school can leave to join the ACC.

Unless the schools can convince the conference to change its stance, they will not be able to begin participating in the ACC until June 2014.

An interesting post where Silver tries to estimate the popularity of each school in each division to figure out how and if realignment of the major conferences make sense. His conclusion:

Of course, the question that an analysis cannot address is whether through expansion a conference can become more than the sum of its parts — or if it instead risks becoming less.

The only two conferences that can feel completely secure right now are the Big Ten and the S.E.C..

They’re the two that have taken the most conservative attitude toward expansion over the past decade or two, waiting for programs of the caliber of Penn State, Nebraska and Texas A&M to become interested before increasing their ranks. They’ve been rewarded with extreme loyalty among their fan bases. In a sport where rooting interests are so highly localized, that goes a long way toward explaining their success.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s Coastal Carolina football coach David Bennett at a press conference. An instant classic:

A thought provoking article by Taylor Branch in The Atlantic. The opener:

“I’m not hiding,” Sonny Vaccaro told a closed hearing at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., in 2001. “We want to put our materials on the bodies of your athletes, and the best way to do that is buy your school. Or buy your coach.”

Vaccaro’s audience, the members of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, bristled. These were eminent reformers—among them the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, two former heads of the U.S. Olympic Committee, and several university presidents and chancellors. The Knight Foundation, a nonprofit that takes an interest in college athletics as part of its concern with civic life, had tasked them with saving college sports from runaway commercialism as embodied by the likes of Vaccaro, who, since signing his pioneering shoe contract with Michael Jordan in 1984, had built sponsorship empires successively at Nike, Adidas, and Reebok. Not all the members could hide their scorn for the “sneaker pimp” of schoolyard hustle, who boasted of writing checks for millions to everybody in higher education.

“Why,” asked Bryce Jordan, the president emeritus of Penn State, “should a university be an advertising medium for your industry?”

Vaccaro did not blink. “They shouldn’t, sir,” he replied. “You sold your souls, and you’re going to continue selling them. You can be very moral and righteous in asking me that question, sir,” Vaccaro added with irrepressible good cheer, “but there’s not one of you in this room that’s going to turn down any of our money. You’re going to take it. I can only offer it.”

William Friday, a former president of North Carolina’s university system, still winces at the memory. “Boy, the silence that fell in that room,” he recalled recently. “I never will forget it.” Friday, who founded and co-chaired two of the three Knight Foundation sports initiatives over the past 20 years, called Vaccaro “the worst of all” the witnesses ever to come before the panel.

But what Vaccaro said in 2001 was true then, and it’s true now: corporations offer money so they can profit from the glory of college athletes, and the universities grab it. In 2010, despite the faltering economy, a single college athletic league, the football-crazed Southeastern Conference (SEC), became the first to crack the billion-dollar barrier in athletic receipts. The Big Ten pursued closely at $905 million. That money comes from a combination of ticket sales, concession sales, merchandise, licensing fees, and other sources—but the great bulk of it comes from television contracts.

ducators are in thrall to their athletic departments because of these television riches and because they respect the political furies that can burst from a locker room. “There’s fear,” Friday told me when I visited him on the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill last fall. As we spoke, two giant construction cranes towered nearby over the university’s Kenan Stadium, working on the latest $77 million renovation. (The University of Michigan spent almost four times that much to expand its Big House.) Friday insisted that for the networks, paying huge sums to universities was a bargain. “We do every little thing for them,” he said. “We furnish the theater, the actors, the lights, the music, and the audience for a drama measured neatly in time slots. They bring the camera and turn it on.” Friday, a weathered idealist at 91, laments the control universities have ceded in pursuit of this money. If television wants to broadcast football from here on a Thursday night, he said, “we shut down the university at 3 o’clock to accommodate the crowds.” He longed for a campus identity more centered in an academic mission.

The rest here.

The end, however, goes off the rails and plays the “slavery” card:

Without logic or practicality or fairness to support amateurism, the NCAA’s final retreat is to sentiment. The Knight Commission endorsed its heartfelt cry that to pay college athletes would be “an unacceptable surrender to despair.” Many of the people I spoke with while reporting this article felt the same way. “I don’t want to pay college players,” said Wade Smith, a tough criminal lawyer and former star running back at North Carolina. “I just don’t want to do it. We’d lose something precious.”

“Scholarship athletes are already paid,” declared the Knight Commission members, “in the most meaningful way poss-ible: with a free education.” This evasion by prominent educators severed my last reluctant, emotional tie with imposed amateurism. I found it worse than self-serving. It echoes masters who once claimed that heavenly salvation would outweigh earthly injustice to slaves. In the era when our college sports first arose, colonial powers were turning the whole world upside down to define their own interests as all-inclusive and benevolent. Just so, the NCAA calls it heinous exploitation to pay college athletes a fair portion of what they earn.

Yeah. A free education and a monthly stipend are exactly like slavery. And this last sentence is a weak cop-out. When Branch offers an actual plan on how he thinks college players should be paid, then we can discuss it. There are plenty of ways to return the NCAA to its amateur status that don’t involve turning college athletics into a literal minor league for pro sports.

An open letter from WVU athletic director, Oliver Luck:

Mountaineer fans:

During the opening game of the 2011 WVU football season, one of the ESPN cameras showed a young man wearing a blue t-shirt with “West F##### Virginia” on the chest. Based on the TV rating of the game, this picture was seen by at least a few million people around the country. I think you would agree with me that this is not the image of our University and our state that we want to promote.

I would like to ask you to help me convince people who are wearing these t-shirts to reconsider their choice of attire. I recognize that the First Amendment protects free speech, and as a lawyer, I am more than familiar with the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the landmark 1971 case, Cohen vs. California, which is the law of the land regarding public institutions (like WVU) and protected speech. But as my dad used to tell me, ‘just because it is legal does not mean it is right.’ And I certainly believe that people wearing these offending t-shirts at Mountaineer games, or anywhere else, for that matter, are damaging the reputation of our state and its flagship institution of higher learning.

I would like to request that if you see someone wearing one of these t-shirts that you politely ask him or her to change or to cover it up. Even wearing it inside-out would be an improvement. As you know, we have a big home football game against LSU coming up next Saturday and we would like to present a more favorable image to the millions of football fans from around the country who will be watching the game. Be polite, be courteous, be friendly-but do speak up.Thank you for your support of the Mountaineers!

For those that don’t get the burning couch reference, click here.

Boise State joins the list of problem football programs:

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The NCAA placed Boise State on probation for three years and imposed other sanctions Tuesday for major violations by the football program and other sports.

The sanctions included a public reprimand, a one-year postseason ban for women’s tennis and recruiting restrictions and scholarship reductions. Some of the penalties had previously been self-imposed by the university.

Boise State’s football program will be able to offer three fewer scholarships each year, from 85 to 82, through the 2013-14 season. The football team will also be allowed fewer contact practices during spring training for three years.

Gregory Sankey, associate commissioner of the Southeastern Conference and a member of the NCAA Committee on Infractions, said the committee opted to go beyond the penalties that Boise State imposed on itself because the violations took place over multiple years.

Boise State President Bob Kustra said Boise State’s rapid growth over the last decade, from an upstart Division II program into a perennial Top 25 team, likely outstripped the school’s capacity to keep tabs on compliance with NCAA rules. Kustra, who fired former athletic director Gene Bleymaier in August, said he’d hoped the self-imposed sanctions would have been enough to avoid probation.

“Having new leadership in the office of athletic director that understands the critical role compliance can play in the life of the program” will help prevent future violations, Kustra told The Associated Press in an interview. “You’re always going to be disappointed in penalties. It is what it is. Now, our job is to move forward.”

Unfortunately, the NCAA is letting them keep the blue field. The rest here.

A disappointing game for the Irish on Saturday. I actually went to be early, sure that they were going to crush the Michigan Wolverines. I couldn’t believe how Michigan pulled it off.

You can listen to Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly’s post-game presser here. He doesn’t turn purple, but I don’t see a lot of hope for the future from his comments. If yelling and cursing at your players doesn’t motivate them, I’m not sure telling them how bad they are will add to their confidence or inspire them.

And looking at ND’s schedule, if the team keeps playing like they are, a 4 — 8 season isn’t out of the question.

A friend just e-mailed and wrote that Colin Cowherd of ESPN Radio brought up this post of mine where I called on Notre Dame to fire Brian Kelly.

My friend writes, “Although he did not mention you by name, Colin Cowherd was going off about National Review Online and firing Kelly. Said you guys should (paraphrasing) stick to your knitting.”

Well, first off, it was my opinion, not that of National Review or National Review Online.

Second, I’ve been calling on Kelly to be fired since last year.

And last, to address this knitting comment, I assume he means this as an insult suggesting I don’t know enough about college football to validate my view. Well, unlike Cowherd, I played college football and as far as I’m concerned, he can go use his knitting needles in the same manner that Coach Kelly suggested to his players on Saturday.

Believe me — I know there’s yelling in football. I know Coach Kelly wasn’t hired as the team chaplain. I understand that Kelly was trying to motivate his players and get them to stop making stupid mistakes. So, hey, if this is the way the Notre Dame faithful want their team coached, then by all means, keep him. And enjoy the season!

You can listen here as I discuss the Kelly outburst from Saturday, as well as last year’s student death, with the WGN 720 Sports Nite crew.

I’m no fan of Notre Dame’s head coach Brian Kelly. I thought he should have been fired last year over the death of the team’s videographer, and after last night’s loss against the unranked University of South Florida, I think the trustees of the university should fire him this morning. Not because of the loss, but because of the way he treated his players. This is really uncalled for:

And this wasn’t an isolated incident — he was like this the entire game.

Ironically, Skip Holtz — son of former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz — was skippering the USF squad. I wonder how long until the ND faithful call for a return of the House of Holtz?

This is hilarious. Moss is denying he ever talked to Yahoo! Sports about taking cash and gifts from booster Nevin Shapiro:

“I never did a story,’’ Moss said from his parents’ home in Pompano Beach. “I never admitted to receiving $1,000 from anyone. I’ve never taken no phone call from anyone. I have not talked to anyone directly. I don’t know how this story got out about me, but it was a shame that I wake up and see all this negative publicity about me.

“I don’t know where they got those quotes from. …I never met him.’’

Oh really? Tyrone, over to you:

Gerry Ahern, managing editor for Yahoo! Sports colleges and investigations, told The Herald by phone Sunday that Moss’ phone interview was taped. Then, Yahoo! Sports investigative reporter Charles Robinson played the two parts of Moss’ interview that are in the main story that ran last Tuesday.

“We stand behind the story,’’ Ahern said. “Moss’ quotes were part of a taped on-the-record interview.’’

In the tape that was played for The Herald, Moss was asked, “That $1,000, did he [Shapiro] hit you with that the first time he met you?’’

Responded Moss: “Yeah, it was me and some other players with my incoming [class]. I’m not going to say the names, but you can probably figure them out yourself. When I was getting there my freshman year, it was me and a couple more players. … It was me and a few more of the guys in my incoming class that he kind of showed love to.’’

The second part of the tape that was played for The Herald on Sunday dealt with Axcess Sports agency. “Nevin basically was the front man,’’ Moss said on the tape. “Nevin got to be close one-on-one with a player. And when it was time to actually come out into the draft, it was like ‘You’re rolling with me and that agent.’ And the thing is, it was almost like he had given so much to where it was like you gotta ride with him with most players. That’s how that was.’

Problems in Bayou country:

Four LSU football players hired a defense attorney and put off a meeting with police about a bar fight that started when a patron honked at a crowd blocking his exit from a parking lot, Baton Rouge police said Sunday.

Quarterback Jordan Jefferson, offensive lineman Chris Davenport, defensive lineman Josh Johns and receiver Jarvis Landry had been asked to give their side of the story at police headquarters Monday, but attorney Nathan Fisher asked for a delay, Sgt. Donald Stone said.

Fisher requested “a 24 hour postponement so that he can meet with the players and get a better understanding of the incident,” he wrote in a news release. He said police would speak with Fisher on Monday to arrange the interviews.

Earlier, he said that the fight began when a driver honked his horn at a crowd blocking his way out of the bar’s parking lot. The driver was one of four people injured in the fight outside Shady’s Bar, according to a news release from Stone.

The football players weren’t asked to turn themselves in, Stone said in a telephone interview.

“They were asked to come in so they can be interviewed and tell their side of the story,” he said. The investigation will continue after that, and police may talk to other players, he said.

Stone said police interviewed four people who were treated and released — three for minor injuries and a fourth for a more serious injury that could bring a felony charge of second-degree battery. Some witnesses also have talked to police, he said.

The Veep is wheels down in China, and the next thing you know the Georgetown Hoyas — in country for a goodwill tour — are brawling with a Chinese semi-pro team during an exhibition game. Okay, so the one didn’t (necessarily) cause the other, but it’s a strange coincidence, no? 

This (admittedly partisan) account suggests things reached a boiling point after three quarters of comically lopsided foul calls against the Americans. It brings to mind the men’s World Cup last year and the rankly biased officiating.

Gird your loins! Business Insider:

Miami Booster Claims UFL Commissioner Provided Benefits To Student-Athletes

That would be UFL Commisioner Michael Huyghue, who is tied to Nancy Pelosi through her husband Paul’s ownership of the Sacramento Mountain Lions.

An excerpt from the Business Insider piece:

When the United Football League (UFL) was just beginning at the tail end of 2007, Michael Huyghue was asked to become the new league’s Commissioner.  Huyghue’s résumé spoke for itself.  He was Senior Vice President of Football Operations for the Jacksonville Jaguars prior to becoming the President and CEO of a successful Jacksonville, Florida based sports agency titled, Axcess Sports & Entertainment.   Upon receiving the offer from the UFL, Huyghue voluntarily relinquished his NFL Contract Advisor certification and focused all of his efforts on building the UFL product.

At one point in time, Huyghue represented NFL stars that included Jon Beason, Vince Wilfork, Kyle Brady and Adam “Pacman” Jones.  It was well known that Huyghue and Axcess Sports & Entertainment recruited players from the University of Miami with the end goal of representing them in the NFL Draft and beyond.  What was not overtly alleged until earlier today, is that Michael Huyghue and Nevin Shapiro, on behalf of Axcess Sports & Entertainment, paid University of Miami student-athletes during the recruiting process.

Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports performed a masterful investigation regarding the benefits given to University of Miami student-athletes by former University of Miami booster Nevin Shapiro.  Michael Huyghue’s name appears a total of 14 times throughout Robinson’s article concerning that investigation.  The following is quoted from Robinson’s article.  It contains all 14 instances of Huyghue’s name.

Also among the revelations were damning details of [Nevin] Shapiro’s co-ownership of a sports agency – Axcess Sports & Entertainment – for nearly his entire tenure as a Hurricanes booster.   The same agency that signed two first-round picks from Miami, Vince Wilfork and Jon Beason, and recruited dozens of others while Shapiro was allegedly providing cash and benefits to players. In interviews with federal prosecutors, Shapiro said many of those same players were also being funneled cash and benefits by his partner at Axcess, then-NFL agent and current UFL commissioner Michael Huyghue.

Shapiro bought plane tickets for two of [Willis] McGahee’s female acquaintances to attend the 2002 Heisman Trophy ceremony and flew D.J. Williams’ mother from California to Miami to spend time with her son and meet with Shapiro’s partner at Axcess Sports, Michael Huyghue.

According to Shapiro, the system for recruiting players to sign with Axcess Sports was actually compartmentalized between himself and Huyghue. The booster would use his close relationship with players to make an introduction to Huyghue, and then he would retreat from agency talk from that point forward and leave it to Huyghue to grow his own relationship and sign the player.

And here’s how Street & Smith’s described the Huyghue/Pelosi/Pelosi partnership back in 2009:

Paul Pelosi, who has made money in real estate and stocks though his firm Financial Leasing Services Inc., was unavailable for comment. His wife is not an investor, Huyghue said, but her standing has been felt to some degree: Huyghue received a VIP ticket to the inauguration, and he said that 20 minutes after the ceremony, President Barack Obama walked up to Huyghue to congratulate him on the UFL.

Huyghue declined to comment on other members of Paul Pelosi’s ownership group.

The UFL is under financial pressure right now and there’s some uncertainty if there will be a 2011 season at all. But, hey. Since President Obama is a fan, maybe they’re up for some stimulus money.

Major kudos to Yahoo! Sports on this story. Here’s the latest — an interactive webpage that documents the allegations against each and every player or coach they’ve identified as a potential NCAA violation over the year-long investigation. Click on any name on the right margin to read the summary for that individual. For example, here’s NFL star Jonathan Vilma:

Jonathan Vilma was one of dozens of Hurricanes players named by Nevin Shapiro in recorded interviews with federal agents. During those interviews, the booster admitted supplying countless benefits to an array of Miami players from 2002 to 2010. Shapiro alleges he provided multiple extra benefits to Vilma during the player’s career with the Hurricanes. Among the benefits he claimed to have provided:

• Food, drinks and entertainment in Shapiro’s $2.7 million Miami Beach home.

• Entertainment on Shapiro’s $1.6 million yacht and personal watercraft.

• $2,250 in bounties. Shapiro said the bounties were: $1,000 for a hit and personal foul penalty by Vilma on Florida State quarterback Chris Rix during Miami’s 28-27 win on Oct. 12, 2002; $250 for a sack in a 38-33 win over Florida on Sept. 6, 2003; and $1,000 for a hit on Rix in a 16-14 win over Florida State on Jan. 1, 2004.

• Cash gifts.

• Drinks and VIP access in nightclubs.

• Meals at Miami-area eateries on multiple occasions.

Then Yahoo! goes on to document their evidence. I hate to say it, but I don’t think the proverbial NCAA “death penalty” is out of the question here.

Whoa. CBS Miami reports:

Former University of Miami booster, and federal convict, Nevin Shapiro said his evidence will spark the NCAA’s most severe punishment that could bring about the end of football at the University of Miami.

In an exclusive interview with CBS4’s Jim Berry, Shapiro said the information the NCAA has in its possession is “going to be so detailed and to the truth that it will be impossible for any former players or current players to go around it.”

Shapiro said for the first time that not only was it players who sought favor with him, but also Hurricanes football staff was involved. According to Shapiro’s attorney, Maria Elena Perez, the information first came out under questioning by federal officials and bankruptcy trustee attorneys.

Shapiro is at the heart of an NCAA investigation and his involvement with the school dates back to 2001-2002. Shapiro’s attorney has claimed that he provided UM players with the use of a yacht and various other favors.

In the interview with Berry, Shapiro was tight-lipped waiting for more information to come out, possibly as soon as Tuesday evening. But, he did reveal who he thinks is at fault and some of the things he was able to do with the program.

“The university, because of the desire to put money first, I was given carte blanche to do things I shouldn’t have been able to do,” Shapiro told CBS4. “I led the team out of the tunnel twice in the Orange Bowl.”

In CBS4’s video archives, Shapiro is seen in front of the tunnel as the Canes entered the field before a game. He is also shown getting excited after a kickoff return was taken back for a touchdown and jumping onto the field.

Shapiro said that he was “hurt” by his treatment by the very players he once thought of as friends. But, “there’s no jealousy or envy of the money they make, their position in life, none.”

The rest here.

Yahoo! Sports reports (emphasis mine):

A former University of Miami booster, incarcerated for his role in a $930 million Ponzi scheme, has told Yahoo! Sports he provided thousands of impermissible benefits to at least 72 athletes from 2002 through 2010.

In 100 hours of jailhouse interviews during Yahoo! Sports’ 11-month investigation, former Hurricanes booster Nevin Shapiro described a sustained, eight-year run of rampant NCAA rule-breaking, some of it with the knowledge or direct participation of at least seven coaches from the Miami football and basketball programs. At a cost that Shapiro estimates in the millions of dollars, he said his benefits to athletes included but were not limited to: cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his multimillion-dollar homes and yacht, paid trips to high-end restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bounties for on-field play (including bounties for injuring opposing players), travel and on one occasion, an abortion.

Also among the revelations were damning details of Shapiro’s co-ownership of a sports agency – Axcess Sports & Entertainment – for nearly his entire tenure as a Hurricanes booster. The same agency that signed two first-round picks from Miami, Vince Wilfork and Jon Beason, and recruited dozens of others while Shapiro was allegedly providing cash and benefits to players. In interviews with federal prosecutors, Shapiro said many of those same players were also being funneled cash and benefits by his partner at Axcess, then-NFL agent and current UFL commissioner Michael Huyghue. Shapiro said he also made payments on behalf of Axcess, including a $50,000 lump sum to Wilfork, as a recruiting tool for the agency.

Sorry, Canes fans — this one isn’t going away.

Sports Illustrated has a list of the things athletes did at North Carolina to break NCAA rules. And I’m not sure, but I think they broke all of them:

If you’re an NCAA rules junkie, reading the Notice of Allegations handed down on North Carolina’s football program Tuesday must be like unwrapping the latest iPhone.

It’s got everything.

Academic fraud? There’s an app for that. Extra benefits? More different types from more different people than you could possibly fit on one screen. Agents? Oh, so many agents — both real and wannabes. And then there’s John Blake, the assistant coach who was secretly working for a sports agent while employed by the university. He might get his own page in the next NCAA manual.

For all the tawdry scandals that have tarnished college football over the past 12 months — from USC to Tennessee, from Cam Newton to Jim Tressel — one can easily argue that the nine major violations levied against Butch Davis’ program Tuesday contain more filth and more blatant disregard for the rule book than any of them.

And yet, one gets the sense that after nearly a year of buildup, North Carolina’s case may wind up causing less indignation than any of them. Fans don’t generally get worked up over perennial 8-5 programs. It would probably take the death penalty for fans outside Tobacco Road to truly take notice, and at least two notable omissions from Tuesday’s report assure that’s not going to happen.

Unlike disgraced Ohio State coach Tressel, currently unemployed and unhireable for failing to disclose knowledge of violations by his players, Davis’ name does not appear anywhere in the NCAA’s 42-page report. He remains gainfully employed for now. And unlike USC (or Boise State, for that matter), North Carolina escaped the dreaded Lack of Institutional Control charge that usually elicits the Committee on Infractions’ harshest penalties, settling instead for the just-below-that Failure to Monitor.

The rest here.

The probable answer is that big-time football schools will need to hire independent auditors to monitor everything that is going on. And, more importantly, the highly paid head coaches will interact even less with the kids to protect themselves, like Butch Davis was able to do. It’ll be the “don’t ask, don’t tell” version of college sports.

And now the other side of the story:

A review by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles brought some good news to Ohio State as part of the NCAA investigation into possible impermissible benefits received by football players.

According to the Associated Press, the 65-page report showed no evidence that Buckeyes players and family members received below-market deals for purchases at two Columbus dealerships. Such an arrangement would constitute an NCAA violation.

According to The Columbus Dispatch, sales of 25 automobiles to Ohio State players and relatives by Jack Maxton Chevrolet and Auto Direct were examined. The dealerships made a profit on all but one of the sales, the report said.

“Today’s report from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles supports the sworn statements two Columbus auto dealers provided us that the manner in which they conducted sales with Ohio State student athletes adhered to university and NCAA rules,” Ohio State director of compliance Doug Archie said in a statement.