Quote Originally Posted by mvemjsunpx View Post
There wasn't ever anything directly tied to Hauck and I have no reason to believe he was involved in NCAA sanctions. My concern with Hauck was more of an "Us against the World" mentality he pushed in his team that seemed to go a bit too far (like, beyond just football)—in other words, a team culture issue.

The NCAA sanctions mostly stemmed from the so-called "Tasergate" incident when Trumaine Johnson & Gerald Kemp were arrested during a house party a day-or-so after the Griz beat NAU in Flagstaff in 2011. They received free bail money from an extended relative that went outside allowed NCAA rules and also received free legal representation from a Griz-booster law firm (the lawyer was also a relative of an athletic-department employee). Pflugrad & AD Jim O'Day knew about these issues but didn't really do anything about them & appeared to just hope they would go away (Johnson & Kemp continued to play that season). The NCAA then came in and found the usual host of unreported minor violations, in addition to the aforementioned major ones. Also, in a bit of an aside, they apparently found a female assistant AD was banging an athlete (athletes?). As a result, every game after the NAU win from 2011 was vacated in addition to the harmful scholarship penalties. IMO, the Griz probably would've gotten away with a slap on the wrist if Pflugrad & O'Day had been less passive & more proactive.
Hauck didn't have any ncaa issues while at UM.

Pflugrad, after being fired along with the AD by the UM president, got thrown a bit under the bus by the president and compliance director, in the ncaa investigation.

The athletic dept, including the coach and I believe the AD and compliance officer, knew that a Missoula mom of a player, who had been asked in the middle of the night by a friend of hers in CA who was the grandfather of a player, to bail him and his friend Trumaine Johnson out of jail over the taser incident. She put up about $225, the 10%, to a bail bondsman the night (3 or 4am). The grandfather repaid her a week later, I believe when he saw her at the next game, as he had said he would that night when he asked. This was not reported by UM. The ncaa said the "loan" should have been paid back a few days quicker. The mom was deemed to be a booster.

The other "big" violation was the legal work for the players by the local law firm. I can't recall if the athletic dept even knew what the legal fee arrangements were. The law firm had explanations for the arrangement. The ncaa deemed the value for the services to be $1,000, or maybe $2,000. A month or two later, the players pled solo to a single misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct and paid a tiny fine.

These 2 things involved a "failure to monitor" violation. Don't know why it's the coach's job to do this, especially when the compliance officer was also in the loop.

The matter involving the female employee of the athletic dept. was not a big violation and the ncaa didn't indicate it involved anything sexual. She had cooked some meals for the player at her house and either washed his clothes or allowed him to do that at her house. The player was from out of state and his dad had died the year, and he was supposedly struggling a bit with that.

Other minor violations involved some families having players over for dinner too many times for home-cooked meals. None of these families were big boosters or even known to the athletic dept. One family knew some players from church.

UM lost 4 scholarships for 3 years over this, plus some other stuff.

The ncaa investigation didn't involve anything with regard to the sexual assault stuff. The sexual assault stuff got a lot of press, but at the end of the day, the only thing that stood was a guilty plea by 1 player. No players who retained attorneys to fight the school proceedings were even thrown out of school or otherwise sanctioned. The second kid charged, the qb, was determined to be not guilty in a trial, was never thrown out of school, and never lost his scholarship. Couldn't play the year of his trial.