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NCAA accepts Louisiana-Lafayette's self-imposed sanctions

graham watson

The NCAA has accepted Louisiana-Lafayette’s self-imposed sanctions as a result of an investigation into academic fraud arranged by a former assistant coach.

In October, ULL announced the following self-imposed restrictions:

  • terminating Saunders;

  • a two-year probation period;

  • reducing initial football grants-in-aid (scholarships) by three in 2016-17 and three more in 2017-18;

  • reducing total grants-in-aid by five in 2015-16, by three in 2016-17 and by three in 2017-18;

  • reducing off-campus recruiting by 40 days in 2015-16 and ’16-17;

  • reducing official visits by recruits to 44 in 2014-15 and 38 in 2015-16; and

  • withholding unnamed players from competition.

The NCAA also fined the school $5,000, placed the program under additional recruiting restrictions and vacated the results of certain games from 2012-14.

The penalties are a result of former Louisiana-Lafayette assistant coach David Saunders allegedly directing “five or six” student athletes to a specific ACT testing center at Wayne County High in Mississippi on three separate occasions in February 2011. There, then-Wayne County High ACT supervisor Ginny Crager, either completed the tests or fixed wrong answers to improve tests scores.

Saunders also is accused of providing $6,500 for living and educational expenses to a prospective student-athlete while he was at a two-year college in the spring and summer of 2012. The unnamed player went on to play at ULL.

Saunders refused to cooperate with the investigation and has been hit with an eight-year show-cause order., which means can't accept a job with an NCAA-member program without an appeal by himself and his potential employer to the NCAA.

In August, Saunders worked as an assistant coach at Pearl River Community College in Mississippi.

ULL coach Mark Hudspeth, who has been with the program since 2011, had no knowledge of the wrongdoing.

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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter!

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