Fresno St. asking for UH to get WAC-ed

By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Fresno State is asking the Western Athletic Conference to sanction the University of Hawai'i for disobeying a WAC rule by not certifying the academic eligibility of any of its players for the inaugural ConAgra Foods Hawai'i Bowl.

The WAC rule requires a football player to earn six credits during the fall semester to be eligible to play in a postseason bowl. WAC members Boise State and Fresno State certified their players for their Dec. 31 games; Hawai'i did not, claiming there was not enough time between the end of its fall semester Dec. 20 and the Dec. 25 Hawai'i Bowl. UH officials claim it takes at least a week to receive final grades.

"We were not trying to violate that rule," said Stephen Martin, UH's faculty representative. "Physically, we were unable to do it. ... We may get reprimanded. If we do, I guess we'll have to plead our case at that time."

UH athletic director Herman Frazier said: "We have done nothing wrong."

Despite suggestions from the league, UH officials did not file a waiver — the WAC Council, comprising of the league's 10 athletic directors, would have ruled on the appeal — and only notified the league Dec. 23, two days before the bowl game.

"Everybody was subject to the rule," WAC commissioner Karl Benson said. "Hawai'i did not get a waiver. The rule was not suspended for Hawai'i."

Frazier said UH did not ask for a waiver to the rule because it was long known the school would not be able to comply. "It came to: if you can't have it, you can't have it," Frazier said.

The matter is expected to be addressed at the WAC meetings in April. As for possible sanctions against UH, Benson said: "That's all speculative. It's way too soon to even question what type of action will be taken."

But Fresno State athletic director Scott Johnson told the Fresno Bee that violators should be punished.

Johnson told the newspaper that his school complied with the rule, even withholding seven players from the Silicon Valley Football Classic, and if other schools "didn't, we're going to be very concerned about that and ask for sanctions. Even though we won our game, this heavily impacted us. We followed the letter of the rule, and we were under the impression everyone else was following it, too."

Johnson did not return messages left on his cell phone yesterday. But FSU head coach Pat Hill told The Advertiser: "If they have a rule, everybody has to abide by it. (The rule) was applicable to three teams in the conference. We followed it. I don't know why everybody else didn't."

Boise State spokesman Todd Miles said his school certified all of its football players. "We did, 100 percent did," Miles said.

UH officials have known for several months they would have difficulty certifying their players for a Christmas game. Last summer, Martin asked WAC officials to consider using the Southeastern Conference rule, in which teams playing in bowls on Dec. 27 or earlier would be exempt from end-of-semester certification. Martin said that suggestion was rejected.

"If we're in the (Hawai'i) Bowl next year, I guarantee we'll have the same problem," Martin said.

At the WAC Council meeting last August, Frazier recalled, "this entire situation was heavily debated. Heavily debated."

Frazier said UH's two academic representatives told the Council: "This can't be done. (With UH's schedule) it just doesn't work for us."

Martin said UH could have tried to certify its players using "unofficial reports." But, he said: "I'm not going down that route. ... What if we de-certified a kid, then we found out we made a mistake?"

Frazier said UH reviewed the academic status of two players who might have been on the bubble. "No way we would have used an ineligible player," Frazier said.