I’m quite certain that Larry Fedora is absolutely thrilled over this development.
On Aug. 1, North Carolina football players will report to campus. A day later, the Tar Heels will kick off their sixth summer camp under Fedora. Exactly two weeks after that? Fedora will be forced to leave his football squad as part of the UNC contingent that will be in attendance at the university’s hearing in front of the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions.
The two-day hearing will take place Aug. 16-17 in Nashville, Tenn.
The news comes exactly two months after, for the third time in as many years, UNC responded to a Notice of Allegations connected to a decade-long academic scandal.
In June of 2014, the NCAA informed UNC “that it would reopen its original 2011 examination of the past academic irregularities.” The first NOA was sent to the university in 2015, with UNC accused of lack of institutional control as to student-athletes in multiple sports, including football, receiving preferential access to the controversial African and Afro-American Studies (AFAM) courses dating all the way back to 2002. In April of 2016, UNC received an amended NOA that replaced “lack of institutional control” with “failure to monitor.”
A decision from the NCAA on what if any punitive measures the football program will face is expected to come two months or so after the conclusion of the hearing. Such a timeline would, of course, put the resolution right in the middle of the football season.
It should be noted that Fedora is not facing any type of misconduct connected to the academic scandal.