NCAA hammer comes down hard on Southern Miss former coach
The NCAA announced Friday that it has placed a 10-year show-cause penalty on Donnie Tyndall for his role in the Southern Miss case.
By
Gary Parrish
•
2 min read
The NCAA has placed a 10-year show-cause penalty on former Southern Miss coach Donnie Tyndall for his role in USM's infractions case, a source told CBS Sports early Friday.
The NCAA subsequently confirmed the report.
Southern Miss was accused of several major violations -- including arranging fraudulent academic credit and impermissible financial aid after a lengthy investigation into the program Tyndall ran from 2012 to 2014. He led the Golden Eagles to a 56-17 record in those two seasons, then spent one season at Tennessee before being fired last March once UT athletic director Dave Hart realized Tyndall would be charged with Level I violations.
The bulk of the case against Tyndall specifically is tied to the testimony of former assistant Adam Howard, a source told CBS Sports. Howard worked for Tyndall at both Southern Miss and Tennessee. He was forced to resign from Tennessee in November 2014 after sources told CBS Sports he was caught lying to the NCAA when questioned about Southern Miss.
Simply put, Tyndall's biggest point of contention is that the NCAA relied on the word of a former employee who only tied Tyndall to violations after cutting a deal with the NCAA.
"There are 4,000 pages of transcripts and documentation, 40 people were interviewed, and not one bit of evidence directly links me to the violations, and not one person involved linked me to the violations except Adam Howard," Tyndall told CBS Sports in a phone conversation on Friday afternoon. "And Adam Howard said this after he initially lied. And then he lied again. And then we had to fire him at Tennessee. And then he cut a deal in March for full immunity if he would talk on me. So then he talked on me.
"My family is devastated," Tyndall added. "We plan to appeal."
In addition to punishing Tyndall, the NCAA placed Southern Miss on three years probation Friday. USM also received a two-year postseason ban that's already been served, and some scholarship and recruiting reductions. The NCAA's full report is linked here.
The only other coach to ever get a 10-year show-cause penalty is Dave Bliss.
Bliss, of course, was the coach at Baylor when one of his players, Carlton Dotson, murdered teammate Patrick Dennehy in 2003. It was later uncovered that Bliss paid multiple players, lied to the NCAA, and told players to make up a story about Dennehy being a drug dealer as a way to explain how part of Dennehy's tuition was paid. The NCAA said Bliss had a "blatant and sweeping disregard" for its rules. Scott Drew ultimately replaced him in Waco.
