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Oregon Ducks Committed NCAA Violations, But Punishment Unknown

It's Take out the Trash Day in Eugene. And the Oregon Ducks are happy to put out the compost.

At first glance, this might seem like bad news. However, the more you think about it, the more it feels like Oregon is rushing out to meet the real story, i.e. the official Notice of Allegations from the NCAA. The fact that the Ducks don't seem too concerned about this has to be a good sign. Oregon has yet to receive the Notice, so the Ducks have to feel this will either (a) help their case or (b) clear up the air about the Ducks being in serious danger of punishment

Punishment for using extra scouting services is not well-charted, so I'm not sure what the precedent for punishment would be. I'd imagine Oregon would suffer some blowback with a reduction in hours they can spend on the recruiting trail, or number of in-home visits/recruiting calls they can make, maybe even a loss of a scholarship or two.

There's only one charge that could be a serious issue to Oregon fans, and that's the "failure to monitor" football recruiting services by the compliance department. This could just be Oregon being extra cautious or the compliance department falling on its sword, but if the NCAA upholds the failure to monitor charge, then there could be more serious repercussions then a few docks on the recruiting trail. However, it's better than "lack of institutional control".

However, if you're an Oregon fan and you're unhappy with the violations your school committed, you have to be fairly happy with the way the Ducks handled the process. They've been upfront, they've conceded documents to the NCAA, they haven't been defiant, and now they've acknowledged that they made mistakes. When it comes to battling the NCAA, it's like dealing with any unit of law enforcement: Get all haughty and defensive and they will mess you up, but roll over for them and they're more likely to let things slide.

The Ducks might still get punished, but it won't be for the way they treated this investigation. A lot of it might depend on what wasn't reported, and whether there are further violations coming.