UA Gets Probation, Avoids Postseason Ban

The National Collegiate Athletic Association announced it has placed the University of Arkansas on three years probation, reduced the number of paid visits for recruits and added to the UA’s self-imposed scholarship reduction in football. But it included no postseason bans.

Thomas Yeager, chairman of the NCAA Committee on Infractions, announced the findings in a press conference April 17.

The fact that Arkansas will not miss out on participating in a postseason bowl game — provided the Razorbacks get invited — was big. Bowl games, even the smaller ones, are a major source of revenue for athletic departments. Last season in football, the Southeastern Conference distributed $17.2 million back to the member institutions divided into 13 shares — one for each of its schools and one for the league — through its revenue sharing agreement. That figure does not include the initial allotment teams are paid by their individual bowls.

Arkansas played in the Music City Bowl last season. That bowl’s payout was $750,000. The Cotton Bowl’s payout is $3 million, while the big four — Sugar, Rose, Orange and Fiesta pay between $11 million-$13 million.

“This was not a postseason probation case,” Yeager said. “It is fairly apparent that it did not fall into that category that justified a bowl ban in football or taken out of the postseason in basketball.”

Arkansas had self-imposed eight scholarship reductions in football over a four-year period and one scholarship reduction in basketball for the 2003-2004 season, disassociated itself with booster Ted Herrod Sr. of Dallas and forfeited $225,000 in future pledges from Herrod to the UA.