Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The NCAA Answers to no one: Momah's appeal denied

The NCAA denied Ifeanyi Momah's appeal for a sixth year of eligibility. BC and Momah were not given an explanation for the denial. A written explanation will be mailed in two to three weeks. There is no one for the media to question as the decision was not made by a standard committee out of NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis. The applications for sixth years are made by a panel of peers from other NCAA schools. This is final. There is no further appealing. Ifeanyi can make a stink out of it publicly but he won't see the field. BC could cry of selective enforcement, but that won't get Momah on the field.


Because there is no current explanation everyone involved is left to assume that the panel considered Momah's 2009 redshirt as selective. He did practice that fall and did experiment with a new position. Should BC have been more careful and called it an injury redshirt? Perhaps. We will know for sure...in two to three weeks.


As the NCAA hands out sixth years to guys who took booster money, yet denies a clean kid who has his degree, the whole purpose of the governing body comes into question. They are not punishing BC for shoddy paperwork. They are punishing one of the good apples. BC even asked that Momah be given a sixth year to play anywhere to help the case. It didn't matter.


Momah has enough raw talent and size that he will get a look from NFL teams. It is just too bad that a good college football player was jerked around by the organization that should be holding him up as a shining example.

16 comments:

mod10aeagle said...

The arbitrariness of it all is sickening. I hope Momah gets his shot at pro ball or is able to move on to something else that's fulfilling. He was the victim of too many bad breaks during his college career, including this one at the hands of the NCAA itself.

On a totally different subject, seeing Brady Heslip nail threes for Baylor on ESPN highlights is just killing me.

Danny Boy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Danny Boy said...

What were the details of Jimmy Graham or Greg Paulus switching to football after using up their basketball eligibility? Can Momah play a year for Donahue and give him another, much needed athlete?

mod34b said...

From all accounts, the NCAA handled this correctly and fairly. Momah and BC could not prove, as you note, that the 2009 season was missed due to injury. So they lose, but we're given a chance to make the case.

The NCAA was fair and BC was not screwed. Let's not stir an empty pot.

Your cheap shot about the former Miami player has nothing to do with Momah.

ModA36 said...

Seems to me that 5 years of college is plenty, injuries or not. Good luck to this young man whether he plays in the NFL or follows other professional pursuits.

Walter said...

It's premature for you, Mod34b, to say they handled this fairly or not. We don't even know what the basis of their decision was. And if there's one thing the NCAA is not routinely accused of being, it's being fair. I will never forget how they handled the Ohio State Sugar Bowl monstrosity.

Jeff said...

mod34, you're way off base. It's not fair if you hold Momah to the letter of the law, but then make exceptions for kids from higher-profile schools. This is especially true since some of the kids that did get 6th years had weaker cases for it than Momah. It's totally political, and anybody who says otherwise is naive.

This sickens me, and I feel horribly for Momah. He was just starting to really shine as a football player. I hope he does get a shot somewhere, at the next level!

mod34b said...

Jeff -- Check out BCI's piece -- CLICK HERE JEFF!, and then let me know if you still think I am "way off base".

The NCAA applied the standards for 6th year eligibility fairly to Momah. The reason Momah is not getting a 6th year is that BC could not prove its case that Momah 2009 season's sit-out was due to injury. As BCI notes, Spaz opened his big mouth and made clear that Momah was sititng out 2009 to retrain Momah to switch from WR to DE.

So if your mad, blame SPAZ

eagleboston said...

Tough deal. I really wish he were not on kick-off coverage in the Northwestern game, but you could argue it is football and he could have been hurt on any play.

By the way, these dual captchas that are hard to read are going to make it difficult to do in-game comments in the fall.

mod34b said...

I was at the game when Momah got hurt. And there is a big point that no one is discussing.

I was sitting on the "adult" side (opposite students) at about the 40 yard line. Momah was blocked on the kickoff at the other 40 yard line, but close to the sidelines on my side of the stadium.

Momah was about 20 yards away from me when he was injured.

I was watching Momah closely too, because his brother was sitting right in front of me and there was lots of Momah excitiement in my section.

As I recall, a second Northwestern player slammed Momah while Momah was already down and was drilling him in the leg pretty good. It looked awful. At the time, it looked to me to be a cheap shot.

In other words, although I am not certain, this looksed like a low-brow hit job on BC's stud receiver by Northwestern -- similar to, but not nearly as bad as, the Kiwi-Butler (UVA) deal a few years back.

Did any one else see this too? Am i right? wrong?

Anybody know who the NW player was?

mod34b said...

I should also add that Momah was no where near the ball carrier and the fact that he was being blasted by two players so far from the action also raised questions

Knucklehead said...

I was at the game and called the cheapshot out on this blog the next day.

He got takendown and was twisted into the turf by the Northwestern scumbag. Did not catch the number.

On a side note there have been alot of knee injuries at Alumni since they went to field turf. The new turf this year suppossedly leads to less injuries.

EL MIZ said...

mod34b; i was watching from far end zone behind northwestern student section and say the same

EL MIZ said...

*saw the same thing.

mod34b said...

This must not have been something people watching the game on TV saw because it occured (far) away from the ball. Also seems to be no game-day thread comments about it.

But I did see these two game-day (but after the game) comments on EO:

rcommavegarage wrote:
if people didn't see how momah got hurt, it was because for some inexplicable reason we have what looks to be our #1 receiver and the best linebacker on the country in kickoff coverage. momah got hurt because he got double teamed on a kick off in the 4th quarter and the nw players were giving him the business.

BCShater wrote: I thought the same thing on Momah's injury. Two NW players double-teamed him and wouldn't let him get up. What else went on there is anybody's guess.

The NW coach Fitzdirty is young and very aggressive. Momah was killing NW. I wonder if Fitzdirty sent his players out to knock Momah around (because our dumb coach kept him on the KO team!). Not to seriously hurt Momah, but to shake Momah up??

Jeff said...

mod34, my point wasn't that the NCAA didn't apply the letter of the law to Momah. They did, and yes we should be mad at Spaz for this. I agree with you on those points.

It just pisses me off that other schools have tried to pull the same kind of thing that we did, only they were successful. Look at Case Keenum in Houston. They claim now that his redshirt freshman year was due to injury, but there was no news to indicate that at the time. At least I haven't been able to find anything. It seems like revisionist history to me, but the NCAA bought it.

We don't know what paperwork was or wasn't filed to the NCAA at the time of the redshirt seasons. I guess we'll never know the full story.