I think the NCAA is enamored by the fact that a lot of Shapiro's statements came under a Federal investigation where he admitted guilt to save his *** or reduce his sentence. So there has to be legitimicacy to what was happening at UM. This is the only reason I think they are trying to fine tooth comb everything that Shapiro swore as truth under oath. Federal govt has sentenced Shapiro, he cut his deal. Case Closed. Attorneys representing the victims of the Ponzi scheme have recouped as much money as possible from UM, current players and former players. Case Closed. By just looking at these other two aspects you would think that they would have enough info to render a decision, but they probably don't have much besides handing down minimal sanctions.
During the whole Sandusky trial, the NCAA did not chime in. During the Freeh investigation, they didn't chime in until after the the final report was released. Since PSU accepted the facts of the investigation to be true, only then did the NCAA render their decision and hand down sanctions. NCAA knows they don't have the subpeona of the Federal government or the courts, but a lot of times they let these investigations do the work for them. Same thing happenend at Ohio State. A lot of the violations were disclosed under federal subpeonas. Not the case here. With UM though, the federal and court investigations didn't really directly elaborate on how small or rampant the Shapiro/UM problem was. This is why they are taking their sweet time. Yes there was smoke, yes there was a fire, but the scene of the crimes has been contaminated or has washed away. They can try to strong arm UM to try and get people to come forward, but I agree, UM is playing this right, they know that the only thing the NCAA may have is what they were able to get under their NCAA authority and the only thing they have left is time.
