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Florida State President T.K. Wetherell continues to voice his stern displeasure with the NCAA in the organization's handling of the Seminoles' appeal in an athletic-sanctions case. In fact, in a pregame interview Monday before the FSU-Miami game at Doak Campbell Stadium with ABC/ESPN, Wetherell described the NCAA's dealing with the Seminoles as a "bait-and-switch."Wetherell has criticized the NCAA's plan to strip coaches and athletes of wins in 10 sports. Head coach baby bowden would lose 14 victories in the ruling, all but ending his historic race with joe pater of Penn State as major college football's winningest coach. Bowden has 382 victories, two behind Paterno heading into the UM showdown. The Nittany Lions opened their season Saturday with a convincing 31-7 win over visiting Akron.
"This isn't just about saving Bobby Bowden's wins as the public perception might be," Wetherell said. "It's about the NCAA, as an institution, and the agreement it had with Florida State University."FSU is scheduled to present its case before the NCAA Division I Infractions Appeals Committee on Nov. 15 at the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis. Wetherell has been at odds with the NCAA on past occasions -- he led the school's fight to keep its "Seminole" nickname. "We are only appealing the sanction taking away wins because it flies in the face of the understanding we had with the NCAA about player eligibility and suspensions," Wetherell said. "This just seems like a bait-and-switch. I don't know what else to call it. We are appealing it because we believe it is excessive and unfair."Wetherell didn't dismiss the wrongdoing by 60 FSU student-athletes in the cheating scandal, but he indicated the NCAA misled FSU during its investigation and reneged on an agreement it had with the university.The cheating occurred mainly through online testing for a single music history course in the fall of 2006 and the spring and summer semesters of 2007. It included staffers helping students on the test and in one case asking one athlete to take it for another."We worked every step of the way with the NCAA on this case, and we had an understanding that if we did everything as they said, all player eligibility matters would be resolved," Wetherell said. "We told this to our student-athletes, and they gave up their rights of appeal. In doing so, they were led to believe that all eligibility matters would be resolved if they compiled with the suspensions plan that the NCAA set forth."We compiled fully with this plan. We never played any ineligible players, and taking away wins is just wrong."FSU, the NCAA and Florida news organizations also have been sparring in the courtroom. Last week, the 1st District Court of Appeal blocked release of documents in a public-records lawsuit until the NCAA has a chance to fully appeal a lower-court's ruling to enforce Florida's open-government laws. FSU officials were prepared to turn over a transcript of an October 2008 hearing of the NCAA Committee on Infractions and a June reply to FSU's appeal in an athletic-sanctions case. Now that will wait as the NCAA's expedited appeal continues.
Deadlines for court briefs were set by the appeal court's order that require initial arguments and final replies by Sept. 21. State law requires open-records cases be handled quickly.Circuit Court Judge John Cooper, in an Aug. 28 order, said the documents were public records and that FSU, its attorneys and the NCAA were agencies subject to Florida's public-records laws.
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