Robbi Pickeral at ACC Now is reporting that UNC athletic director Dick Baddour has confirmed some members of the football team have been cleared in the ongoing investigation into academic misconduct. In addition, Baddour said Carolina will announce who will not make the trip prior to the team’s departure for Atlanta at 9:30 Friday morning:
He said the school has been able to clear some football players of wrong-doing, although he would not say how many, again because the investigation is ongoing. He also said that when the school announces who won’t make the Friday trip to Atlanta, it won’t mention the names of the players who have been exonerated.
“We would only mention names of people who were not on the roster,” Baddour said. “We would not mention names of people who had been in review on one side or the other, or cleared. We would only be talking about people who were not going to participate.”
Translation: We know you’re going to have the Kenan Football Center, team hotel, and Georgia Dome staked out on Friday to see who didn’t make the trip, so we’re going to go ahead and tell you who won’t be coming.
From the standpoint of progress of the investigation, this is good news. This means things have been moving forward to the point that UNC feels like it can exonerate some players (assuming also the NCAA has signed off on this). Robert Quinn, for one, said publicly yesterday that he had nothing to do with the academic investigation.
“‘If we have guys in question, they won’t travel,’ Baddour said in a telephone interview. ‘And if that question is eliminated, then we would try to get them down there Saturday,’” notes the piece. Pickeral also writes:
He (Baddour) cautioned that when the school does announce who is – and is not – traveling to this weekend’s game, people should understand that the list “may be fluid. There may be some alterations after we say that, but we’ve got to work towards that. We’re just hoping that we can hold on and be in a position. We want to be able to give the most up-to-date and accurate information, and it’s worth waiting a little longer to do that.”
Translation: We’re still working on it and we may hold some guys out this weekend who are cleared later.
Given the fact that UNC has said they will not allow anybody who is under question to make the trip, is it safe to assume that if a player is on the travel squad, he is all good? On the other hand, just because a player is not on the travel squad does not mean a player is done for. Baddour has said players could be cleared up until game time; I can’t help but have this “Waterboy” vision of Dick Baddour in the Kathy Bates role, driving a fanboat through downtown Atlanta to get a player to the stadium.
