UM Head Coach Rich Rodriguez, Athletic Director David Brandon and University President Mary Sue Coleman concluded 
hearings today in Seattle in which the NCAA violations committee looked over the Universities self imposed sanctions over violations with it’s football team.
The hearing began around 8:30 AM local time and concluded around 4 PM local time only breaking an hour for lunch.
Here is a quote taken from the AP article that is posted on SI.com…
“We had a very fair and thorough hearing and we feel good about the fact we were given that opportunity,” Brandon said. “And the process will continue and under the rules based on the process as it’s been laid out we’re going to be very quiet. We’re going to go back, we’re going to prepare for a great season, we’re going to get focused on football and let the NCAA do their work.”
David Brandon also discussed the preparation for these hearings…
“When you have never done something before you never know what it’s going to be like. We were very well prepared, our representatives, our internal counsel, our legal counsel we brought in, our specialists, everybody did a great job preparing us for what took place in there,” Brandon said. “We went in there with a lot of confidence and a clear understanding of what our objectives were and as I said we got a very fair and open hearing.”
These hearing are the result of five major NCAA violations over practice time and team workouts. These allegations were first reported by a news article published by the Detroit Free Press which ultimately led to an investigation by the NCAA and UM officials.
According to this AP article, the school admitted to four violations this past May but is challenging the allegation that Head Coach Rich Rodriguez failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance.
When it admitted guilt in May, the school imposed it’s own punishments. It reprimanded Rodriguez and six other people and announced self-imposed sanctions, including two years of probation. Michigan also said it would cut back practice and training time by 130 hours over two years, double the amount of time it exceeded NCAA rules.
It also trimmed the number of assistants – the so-called quality-control staff – from five to three and banned them from practices, games or coaching meetings for the rest of 2010.
Michigan hopes the NCAA agrees the school punished itself enough and agrees with its defense of its embattled coach. Rodriguez is 8-16 in two disappointing seasons.
