Boise State Makes Headlines for the Wrong Reasons - Violations

Boise State likes to make a lot of noise around the end of the NCAA Football season. They usually finish with a sterling record and demand to be put in serious contention for the BCS Championship. There are fans on both sides of the issue who make strong arguments. Detractors say that Boise State doesn't play tough enough competition to be considered one of the top teams in the country. Supporters say that no top-tier teams will play Boise because they're scared, and look what happened when they played Oklahoma in a bowl game. Regardless of whether or not Boise deserves a chance at the Championship it is clear that they are operating like the big time college with the recent reports of recruiting violations.

The NCAA found 22 violations in Boise State recruiting across various sports. A major violation occurred in women's tennis and several minor violations were reported across football and three other sports.

To fight the sanctions that will undoubtedly be handed down by the NCAA Boise State self-imposed their own punishment and is hoping that it will appease the investigating committee. The restrictions take away three pre-season football practices before Boise's opening game in 2011 and 2012 and force the school to give three fewer scholarships over the next two years.

On June 10th the NCAA Committee on Infractions with hold a meeting to determine whether or not these sanctions are acceptable. They could determine that the university has not punished itself enough and impose harsher penalties.

The school is saying that they took the proper steps to deal with the infractions once they learned that they were happening. The head tennis coach was fired along with the assistant. They plan to fight the charge that they "lack institutional control" and receive leniency on a lesser infraction.