I guess guys likes Deas miss those days when information from the Alabama AD leaked like a dam made of screen doors.
So what if the Tuscaloosa News doesn't know whether a decision from the NCAA is going to be fair or not? It doesn't matter because the NCAA has a different "fairness doctrine" than any other organization in the country and I don't see the Tuscaloosa News intervening on Alabama's behalf.
A suggestion for Mr. Deas...go back to court and whine to them about your lack of information. Most of us fans are tired of hearing all the details of these investigations aired out months before a verdict by talking heads on the radios and those who want to move fish wrappers. It does nothing but further harm the University and its programs.
There is a difference in any-and-all information flowing like a raging river and a news-blackout of pertinent and relevant information.
I guarantee you the concept of 'fairness' of any sanctions will be a front-and-center part of the discussion in the Alabama fan base if any scholarship reductions are included and/or the probation term extended. Would you argue differently? And, as Deas so correctly points out, the ONLY way to judge the comparable fairness of any such sanctions is to know the answers to some of the questions he posed in his blog.
One question I had not considered, but now am very curious to know more about is the one of if there were prior instances where the textbook distribution process had alerts and alarms that merited prior attention. Specifically, if one looks at the amount of monies involved in this program you see a spike of over $48M one year and a further spike of around $52M the next year (or roughly $150M in extra monies spent from the baseline) and it took a clerk in the Supe Store to find something amiss? I, as one fan, would really like to know the athletic department's explanation for this. Seems too did the NCAA, for as Dea's points out UA had to supply that information to them.
Now, if the answer given results in the NCAA hading out harsh penalties, it will be impossible to judge the 'fairness' of those penalties without knowing the details of the process.
Never should UA or the athletic department refuse to withhold information that does not involve privacy matters of students (athletes and otherwise) or personnel or provide a competitive advantage (trade secrets and processes) to others. The answers to the questions posed by Deas do not meet those exceptions.
But, maybe the people at UA KNOW they screwed-the-pooch and bad mojo is coming from the NCAA. And knowing that the collective UA fanbase will blame the NCAA for any harsh sanctions when the fans are kept in the dark about the true and complete facts in the case (you cannot argue that has not be our modus operandi in the past) the leadership at UA has made the calculated risk to obscure things as dark and long as possible. Not saying this IS the case, but it would not surprise me.
I stand by my long assertion. IF UA receives the loss of a single scholarship or has any probation period extended due to the inclusion of Failure to Monitor, Mal Moore must be fired before the end of the day those sanctions are announced. We cannot continue to excuse incompetent leadership and incompetent hiring at the very top of that very public department of UA. We have been told repeatedly that 'Compliance is Job 1' at UA. If this very easily scam was allowed to exists over some 'internal oversight' then we have been lied to by Moore. And that would not be his first step over the line of the law. I shudder to think what the NCAA would (rightly and properly) do to us if we have a third go around with them with Moore being involved. Frankly, I have no confidence he could structure and lead an organization in full compliance and there would be NOTHING (yes, even the Death Penalty) the NCAA could do to us that would be unjustified.