I have no idea whether this penalty is appropriate given past NCAA precedent, but the description of the Football-specific violations in the Report of Infractions sounds almost comically benign:
During the summers of 2005 through 2009, assistant football coaches and football staff members arranged summer housing and transportation in Boise, Idaho, for 63 then prospective student-athletes with then current student-athletes in order for the young men to participate in summer workouts.
. . .
The primary reason these prospective student-athletes arrived early was to participate in voluntary summer workout program for football student-athletes using the institution's facilities. In addition, returning football student-athletes also conduct player-run-practices (PRPs) where the student-athletes participate in voluntary drills without the supervision of the football coaches or institutional staff members.
. . .
While some of the prospects during this time period may have had pre-existing relationships with the football student-athletes with whom they resided, others required the assistance of football coaching staff members to facilitate their summer housing arrangements. Football coaches and staff members would connect prospects with football student-athletes who were willing to host prospects at their residences. For example, a prospect would contact the position coach who recruited him and indicate his intention to attend summer workouts in Boise. The coach would ask the student-athletes in his position area (i.e., quarterbacks, running backs, offensive lineman, defensive lineman, etc.) if anyone had a room for the prospect. The coach would then notify the prospect that he could contact the student-athlete regarding summer housing, or vice versa, and provide either the prospect or student-athlete with contact information so the student-athlete and prospect could make the necessary arrangements. In this way, student-athletes would host prospects in their same position areas. The coaches who facilitated the housing arrangements knew who was residing with whom during the summer, but there was no formal list maintained by the coaching staff. Further, coaches informed prospects to bring money for living expenses. However, neither the coaches nor any athletics department staff member monitored what the prospects paid for lodging, transportation and living expenses during the summer.
When a prospect arrived in Boise, he generally was met by the student-athlete host and provided transportation from the airport to the residence where he would stay. Often times, the student-athlete would also provide the prospect with transportation to workout sessions at the institution. Some prospects reported that they paid their hosts some amount of money for rent; others indicated that they resided cost-free for the time period that they were in Boise during the summer.
. . .
Under NCAA legislation, each such prospect would have been required to find alternative housing in the locale of the institution, which could include an apartment that would require signing a lease and providing a deposit, a hotel or potentially residing in a day-to-day extended-stay motel. All of these options would have resulted in a significantly higher cost to the prospect. It would have been permissible for a prospect to contact a student-athlete on his own initiative and made arrangements to stay with the student-athlete. The concern here is that the coaches' arrangement of housing with student-athletes enabled prospective student-athletes to save time, effort and perhaps money. Regardless of the valuation, these violations are significant because the provision of the impermissible housing opportunities allowed prospective student-athletes to participate in voluntary workouts; become acclimated to the campus; and engage in practices conducted by football student-athletes, all without having to incur the burden associated with finding independent housing options.
Basically, current players let incoming freshmen crash on their couch and gave them rides to pre-season workouts. Hot damn.
