Interesting article that gives one a few things to consider...

The Charleston Gazette Wrote:WVU actions stir up conspiracy theory
By Dave Hickman
The Charleston Gazette
December 20, 2010

MORGANTOWN - I've never considered myself much of a conspiracy theorist.

Perhaps it's because the role models for such an avocation these days range from the sublime to the ridiculous. I mean, really, do you want to be compared to Oliver Stone on one end (sublime) or Glenn Beck on the other (ridiculous)?

Didn't think so.

Still, I've been sitting on one little theory for more than a month now and I figure what better time to get it off my chest? It's been scoffed at on some level by virtually everyone I've confided in, including those who would have some knowledge.

But, of course, as is the case in any good conspiracy theory, the more it is ridiculed, the more one has to wonder if it really does have some legs to it.

This one has to do with the NCAA's investigation into West Virginia's football program and how it relates to the job status of one Bill Stewart, the school's football coach. And no, we're not talking about the school using the leverage of NCAA rules violations to force Stewart into giving up the final two years of his contract and leaving more than $2 million on the table by signing a modified contract.

That's a no-brainer. It happened. Period.

"We had all the leverage,'' one school administrator told me.

No, what I've been toying with for a month now is the manner in which West Virginia elected to respond to the five major and one secondary rules violations alleged by the NCAA. On Nov. 18, the day before the deadline to submit its written and detailed response to the NCAA, the school announced that it was taking another route, that of summary disposition.

There would be no report filed. WVU would essentially fall on its sword and take what the NCAA dished out. And given that the NCAA had just completed its case against Michigan and Rich Rodriguez - the charges against the two schools being eerily similar - the logic was that there was no reason to go through the whole process again.

(By the way, that the NCAA agreed to such a tactic seems a bit strange, given that in its original letter to school president James Clements, the organization said that the summary disposition process would not be available to the school because of previous recent major violations in the men's soccer program. That the NCAA later agreed to the process seems to me to indicate that this whole process is pretty cut and dried and the sanctions have all but been determined).

It's not the summary disposition process itself that raised any alarms with me, though. No, it was the effect of that decision, which was to abdicate WVU from any responsibility of, at that point, submitting its written response to the charges.

It took me all of about 10 minutes after finding out about the summary disposition process to develop my theory, which was that West Virginia, at all costs, wanted to avoid submitting that report.

Why? Because in it the school would have to take a stand on Stewart, either backing him or hanging him out to dry. And at that point, WVU could not afford to do that.

Consider:

Imagine if, in the report, the school defended Stewart and said his mistakes - specifically the charge that he "failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance within the football program'' - were honest ones born of simply continuing a process begun by Rodriguez, which seems a logical line of defense. Should the school then decide to fire Stewart (not because of the violations but because of on-field failures), how awkward would it later be arguing that he was not owed his $850,000-per-year contract buyout because he committed NCAA rules violations? The school would already be on record as saying that was purely accidental.

Or what about the flip side? What if the school, in an effort to cover its own tail, said in its report that Stewart was guilty of the charges and committed them knowingly, or at least was negligent in not paying closer attention? That would be great for the university in wiggling out of the buyout if it got rid of Stewart, but how would that have played with the football team back on Nov. 19? All of a sudden, a team that was still playing for a BCS bowl berth and the Big East championship would know that the school was hanging its coach out.

No, submitting that report was a lose-lose proposition and the school couldn't afford that.

True, there are some extenuating circumstances that cast some level of doubt on my little pet theory. One is that, as we now know, Stewart on Nov. 14 - five days before the report was due - had already been pushed out of his job. It was a done deal to a large extent, the only variable being whether he stayed for one more season or none.

Still, the university wanted to keep that quiet and did for a month. And, too, there was still the not-so-small matter of trying to keep the team together for that stretch run. Allowing that report to be made public would have served no one.

And, too, West Virginia officials were not prepared to release that report at the same time they submitted it to the NCAA. They were prepared to say that the report was not a matter of public record until the NCAA's then-scheduled hearings in February. But they also had to own the very real fear that they would be overruled on that in a Freedom of Information filing. They couldn't take the chance.

So the best way to handle it was to not submit a report at all. And remember, this is a report that several administrators at the time said publicly was coming along fine. They even talked about how thoroughly it was being compiled. And then when it came time to file this thoroughly compiled and detailed document, they didn't.

Does it really matter now? Well, I'm not sure. I would love to have seen how the school addressed the issues and the violations alleged by the NCAA. You would have, too. Now we won't likely know until spring, when the matter is settled and the NCAA releases its own report.

I would love to have seen how it all affected the coaching situation, too. At the least it likely would have prompted some questions that might have sped up the revelation process in that coaching change.

The bottom line, I guess, is that while the school was well within its rights to address the NCAA issue the way it did, the way it all played out just adds yet another layer of secrecy to the whole affair. And if the school did go the summary disposition route, at least in part to avoid making a report public, that seems equal parts smart and just a bit unsavory.

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickman1@aol.com.

It makes for interesting soap opera right before the bowl game...