Georgia Southern football hit with sanctions over academic cheating scandal

Georgia Southern football has only been a member of the FBS for two seasons, but the Eagles are already in hot water with the NCAA over a cheating scandal that would make North Carolina proud.

Despite being newcomers to the top level of college football, it seems that Georgia Southern wasted no time in joining in the morally dubious decision-making of its peers. The NCAA announced sanctions Thursday that include two years’ probation and loss of two scholarships for the upcoming season.

All told, the punishment, while certainly not insignificant, falls far short of anything that could be considered excessive, considering the academic fraud that took place.

According to the NCAA, a former assistant compliance director provided one student-athlete with all her coursework for a class the player was enrolled in, then instructed the player to lie and cover up for her when the professor caught on.

In a separate incident, a former assistant director of student-athlete services wrote and submitted 10 extra-credit assignments for two players, using their usernames and passwords without their knowledge.

To add insult to injury, the cheating didn’t even work, according to the NCAA’s report.

It’s not exactly on the level of North Carolina, to be sure, but it’s still surprising that a team this new to the FBS would already be running into trouble. Unfortunately, the head coach at the time of these incidents, Willie Fritz, has already flown the coop to take over the program at Tulane. All of these violations happened under his watch, but he will not pay for any of them.

In addition to the probation and loss of scholarships, Georgia Southern will also vacate any wins in which the players involved played, reduce their number of official visits for recruits by 10 percent and be fined $5,000, a punishment self-imposed by the school.

Vacating wins, normally an afterthought in most NCAA sanctions, carries some weight here. Georgia Southern was actually pretty good in its first two FBS seasons, racking up a 18-7 record, winning the Sun Belt conference in 2014 and earning its first bowl victory in 2015.

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The university hasn’t announced which wins it will vacate, but for a young program that seemed to be on the rise, losing any victories is not a good look. Georgia Southern isn’t like USC: It can’t just shrug off sanctions like this and return to contention right away. Incidents like this could cripple their recruiting efforts. (The Eagles’ class of 2017 is a little weak at the moment, according to 247sports.com)

When small programs such as Georgia Southern are caught engaging in academic fraud like this, it’s worth considering how much control the NCAA really has over the situation. As college football grows richer and millions of dollars are on the line, even for the non-powerhouses, then the temptation to bend and break the rules becomes all the stronger.

That’s not to say that all college football programs are engaging in some sort of illegal behavior, nor am I arguing that the NCAA is incapable of enforcing the rules. But in essence, the association is trying to have its cake and eat it too. It wants the millions that TV contracts and ticket and apparel sales provide, but it wants everyone within the system to behave as though those millions don’t exist or aren’t up for grabs.

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That just isn’t going to work. Georgia Southern is only a small school and a small example of the lengths programs will go to to protect and build their brand.