The process is the same as the one the school went through last April after an investigation discovered hundreds of improper phone calls to recruits by former men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson’s staff.

The NCAA accepted self-imposed scholarship reductions and recruiting restrictions as adequate punishment in that case.

The football program did not re-award or re-allocate the scholarships vacated by Bomar and Quinn this past season. It also will reduce the number of football coaches who can recruit off campus by one during the fall 2007 evaluation period.

But OU believes the NCAA’s charge of failure to adequately monitor players would create an impossible standard for it and other schools to live up to.

“If a new standard is set here that requires the design of an employment monitoring system that will stop student-athletes, who are aided by employer management, from performing intentional and willful acts that they know are wrong, the University fails and will continue to fail as such an employment monitoring system cannot be designed or operated,” OU’s response stated.

“However, if the (infractions committee) determines that the standard for institutions should be an effective, reasonable and functioning system that monitors student-athlete employment, then the failure to monitor allegation should not be found.”

John Shinn

366-3536

jshinn@normantranscript.com