Eighteen Division 1 schools are currently being investigated for academic misconduct issues.
If you've been wondering why things seem to be dragging out over the NCAA's investigation into the Syracuse Orange, perhaps it's the fact that they're currently juggling twenty different academic fraud investigations.
The cases are at various stages, from preliminary inquiry to awaiting a hearing with the Division I Committee on Infractions, and they involve a variety of missteps, including allegations that players received impermissible assistance from professors, academic advisers, or people outside of an athletic department. Eighteen of the cases are in Division I, one is in Division II, and one is in Division III. The official declined to name any of the colleges.
Syracuse isn't named in the report but we obviously know that SU is on the list. While the NCAA has no timetable for announcing punishments, the usual time period between meeting with the school and determining sanctions has passed.
News that the NCAA is being so vigorous in their investigations should surprise no one. With an ever-changing landscape that makes their organization increasingly irrelevant, the NCAA has two options. It can determine that it's no longer relevant and start phasing itself out, or, it can prove how invaluable it is and increase it's efforts to enforce the only topic where it still has any teeth, academic fraud.
When there's as much money on the table as the kind of money the NCAA is used to seeing, you're always going to see organizations pick option No. 2.
As for Syracuse specifically, I'm sure you seen reports elsewhere claiming to know exactly what the punishments are going to be. The fact that those numbers and figures have morphed since then is exactly why we haven't touched them (and neither has anyone at Syracuse.com or the D.O.). It's all hearsay until someone says "this is what's happening" instead of "this is what we think is happening."
