ACC fines Louisville and Virginia Tech $25K for getting 'WakeyLeaks' info
Louisville and Virginia Tech have received monetary slaps on the wrist from the ACC for being the recipients of inside information from a fired Wake Forest radio announcer.
The conference said Saturday that each school would be fined $25,000 for their roles in what’s been dubbed “WakeyLeaks.” Former Wake Forest radio analyst Tommy Elrod provided Louisville, Virginia Tech and Army with proprietary game-plan information before games in 2014 and 2016.
“I am deeply disturbed something like this would occur, and regardless of the degree of involvement, the protection of the competitive integrity of our games is fundamental to any athletic contest,” ACC Commissioner John Swofford said in a statement. “Sportsmanship and ethical values are at the core of competitive integrity and in these instances, those were missing. The expectation, regardless of the sport, is that any athletics department staff members would immediately communicate with their supervisor if they are approached by someone from another institution with proprietary information.”
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The ACC statement noted the fines are “the highest allowed by the league’s bylaws” and go into a postgraduate scholarship fund. We’re thinking the fines would be a bit more of a deterrent if they were levied against people utilizing inside information rather than the schools themselves.
If you were wondering how they rate to other college football fines, SEC schools are fined $50,000 when their fans rush the field. A fine of $250,000 is levied if an SEC school has its fans rush the field three times or more and there is no statute of limitations regarding the three incidents. So an SEC team could be fined 10 times what the ACC just fined Virginia Tech and Louisville if its fans rush the field following home wins three times in eight years.
Louisville softened its woe-is-us stance regarding WakeyLeaks on Friday and said it had suspended offensive coordinator Lonnie Galloway for the Citrus Bowl. Galloway talked with Elrod before the teams played each other on Nov. 12. Wake Forest said it discovered that Louisville had inside information the day before the game.
Virginia Tech said a former assistant coach had received info from Elrod before the Hokies played Wake Forest in 2014 but that it didn’t believe the information was shared with other assistants.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
