(Photo Courtesy: USA Today Sports)
As the NCAA investigation into allegations of improprieties within the Miami Hurricanes football program drags on, the case continues to take bizarre turns. In the strangest development yet, defensive end Dyron Dye has filed a complaint with the local authorities charging that the Association's investigators coerced him into giving them damaging information on his team, accoring to a report from The Miami Herald.
Dye's alleging that NCAA enforcement official Rich Johanningmeier strong-armed him into implicating ex-assistant coach Aubrey Hill in supposed misdeeds. According to Dye's attorney, Darren Heitner, Johanningmeier threatened Dye's eligibility if he declined to give answers that indicated that Hill had broken NCAA rules.
Accusations don't necessarily add up actual guilt. The idea that the Coral Gables Police Department would actually take these allegations seriously seems like a stretch, too. However, given the battering that the NCAA has taken in the public sphere over its handling of the Miami case, this latest episode certainly won't help its credibility.
I get that the NCAA doesn't want to back down here for fear of looking like a bunch of chumps. At some point, however, it might be time for Mark Emmert and Co. to bow out of the Miami investigation. In fact, If we haven't passed that point, we're damn close. There just isn't much left to gain for the NCAA by playing this out.
