30 biggest college football scandals of all time
By Ethan Lee
North Carolina academic scandal
Academic fraud, impermissible benefits to players, a seven-year-long saga of drawn-out publicity that ultimately ended up covering two different sports. If there was a rule that could be broken, it seemed like North Carolina found a way to do it. The NCAA was busy dealing with the North Carolina Tar Heels for the better part of a decade.
And according to SB Nation, it all started because a football player tweeted a Rick Ross lyric in 2010.
The NCAA interviewed the player and North Carolina ended up doing some digging in an investigation of its own. That digging done by the Tar Heels resulted in the discovery of academic infractions. The results of that investigation were sent on to the NCAA so that the organization to be reviewed, according to SB Nation.
Per The News & Observer, the NCAA, while investigating the possibility of agents providing impermissible benefits, discovered that a former tutor provided “improper help on papers for football players.”
In 2011, North Carolina was hit with a Notice of Allegations by the NCAA, and things seemed bleak for the program. The NCAA detailed an incredibly long list of alleged violations that had all occurred in one athletic department.
Head football coach Butch Davis ended up getting canned. North Carolina ended up getting a one-year bowl ban and some other sanctions in 2012. The Tar Heels were placed on probation through 2015.
That was, about, the end of the football part of the scandal. But the whole scandal continued on for several more years, as SB Nation and The News & Observer both note. The whole fiasco ended in 2017 with the Tar Heels ultimately getting off relatively easy.