SI weighs in on what UNC-CH might expect from the NCAA

On the heels of Heather Dinich’s lambasting of Butch Davis, the national press continues to say things that should be very scary for UNC-CH football fans.  Yesterday, Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated posted this piece covering the NCAA’s hammering of USC (termed “some of the harshest penalties handed down by the NCAA in decades”) and the subsequent appeal denial.  If it is not enough that this Sports Illustrated article analyzes the USC, Ohio State, and UNC-CH infraction cases as all very comparable, Staples let this fly:

At some point in the not-too-distant future, the NCAA enforcement staff will wrap its investigation into North Carolina’s football program. The Tar Heels face an extra-benefits case in which multiple players received cash and goods from an outside source (in this case, an agent or multiple agents) based on their notoriety. In this case, the associate head coach was a former employee of one of the suspected agents, and the NCAA will presume he knew and did nothing about it. It’s entirely probable the NCAA will accuse former UNC assistant John Blake of acting as an agent runner.

Ouch!  I have to point out that Staples does not even contemplate the “tutor prong” in this piece, and I seriously doubt that whole thing will slip the NCAA’s mind.