Miami’s Dyron Dye told police that an NCAA investigator “coerced” information from him in 2011. (Icon SMI)

By Zac Ellis

The ongoing saga involving the NCAA’s case against Miami has taken another bizarre twist: Dyron Dye, a Miami football player, told Coral Gables police that an NCAA official attempted to influence him into implicating the Hurricanes’ athletic department as part of the governing body’s investigation into the school, the Miami Herald reports.

Defensive end Dye and his attorney filed an incident report Friday in which Dye alleged that former NCAA investigator Rich Johanningmeier “coerced” him into providing answers that would aid the NCAA’s case against the Hurricanes. The report stated that the incident occurred in the second of two interviews between Dye and Johanningmeier in August 2011.

According to the police report, obtained by the Herald through an open records request, Dye’s attorney Darren Heitner said that “prior to the start of the second interview, Mr. Johanningmeier coerced Mr. Dye into providing favorable answers for his investigation.”

Dye could not recall specifics of the conversation but did report that he felt “intimidated” and said his football eligibility felt “threatened” by Johanningmeier.

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Sebastian the Ibis, perpetually flummoxed by the state of the NCAA’s Miami investigation. (Geoff Burke/Getty Images)

By Zac Ellis

Miami football coach Al Golden, basketball coach Jim Larranaga and Hurricanes’ administrators are set to appear before the NCAA Committee on Infractions on June 13-15 in Indianapolis to further discuss allegations surrounding former booster Nevin Shapiro. A response from the school, as well as implicated coaches no longer with the program, is due out on Monday.

As the school prepares to defend itself from the allegations, one ex-Miami assistant says the accusations are nothing compared to what happens in the SEC, according to the Miami Herald:

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Brock Berlin and Frank Gore were key players in the Florida-Miami rivalry that may be discontinued. (Bill Frakes/SI)

By Zac Ellis

Florida and Miami might have one of the more exciting in-state rivalries in college football, but that Sunshine State matchup might be coming to an end.

Miami athletic director Blake James told reporters at this week’s ACC spring meetings that no discussion has taken place with Florida regarding a continuation of the series, ESPN.com’s Andrea Adelson reports. James pointed to scheduling concerns as a potential obstacle in future meetings.

“I haven’t spoken with Jeremy or the University of Florida about future games and I don’t know how it would fit into their schedule or fit into ours right now. There hasn’t been any conversation and there isn’t anything on the schedule for the future.”

The two schools are slated to meet this season on Sept. 7 for the first time since 2008, and SI.com’s Stewart Mandel ranked the game as one of the season’s non-conference games to watch. The matchup  will wrap up just the second home-and-home series between the programs since 1987, when the schools snapped a streak of annual meetings dating back to 1938.

Florida already plays an annual non-conference matchup with Florida State, and the SEC’s proposal to move to a nine-game conference schedule could further complicate the future of the Hurricanes-Gators series.

Al Golden takes the first crystal ball trophy of the season. It is a golf ball. (Courtesy of the Chick-fil-A Bowl)

By Holly Anderson

The ACC continues to hold sway over the SEC in golf, which makes sense, culturally: Despite a close threat from Steve Spurrier and Sterling Sharpe, Al Golden and Gino Torretta won the 2013 Chick-fil-A Bowl Challenge golf tournament by a one-stroke margin. This snaps a two-year winning streak by Paul Johnson and Jon Barry, and extends the ACC’s winning streak in the tourney to four years. The SEC’s last victories came courtesy of Spurrier and Sharpe in 2008 and 2009. If you like golf words, here are some golf words about the golf that happened. We’ll just be over here marveling at the fury of Golden’s hair.

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? Probably not, but if you tickle us, do we not slap you with secondary violations? Totally.” — A real thing Mark Emmert said (AP)

By Holly Anderson

Heat death is based on the concept of entropy, which holds that disordered states are more stable than ordered states. We experience entropy in real world examples like a glass window being easier to break than to reassemble or create anew. On the scale of the universe, complex systems like stars, planets and galaxies are the glass window, and the Australian physicists have found that supermassive black holes are breaking them faster than we could have imagined. — Popular Science, October 2009

Even by the grimmest estimates, the heat death of the universe is still uncountable centuries from occurring. Rest easy, however, in the equally grim assurance that when that dark, cold day winks out, Miami and the NCAA will still be swapping barbs:

The NCAA’s enforcement staff responded to Miami’s claims and harsh criticisms of the NCAA by lashing back, claiming that UM is “grasping at straws” in an attempt to disqualify members of the enforcement team and that it is “offended” by Miami’s insinuations in regards to the case. — Bruce Feldman, April 2013

Of all the parties we never thought we’d have to remind that It’s Not Called Feelingsball.

“To the post office, men! We’ll file for a dismissal of this infractions case with our last breaths!” (AP)

This hour on our regularly-scheduled Miami investigation update, per the Associated Press:

“The NCAA is alleging that some Miami officials essentially looked the other way when presented with evidence of booster Nevin Shapiro’s wrongdoing” as the basis of its Lack of Institutional Control charge against the Hurricanes establishment. The AP also adds that Miami may file a request for an outright dismissal of the case. CBS’ Dennis Dodd says this is, in fact, a thing that is happening, and that it will happen today. John Infante translates.

Also, this may pose a problem:

No. Miami must file its response, Then enforcement can withdraw the case. MT @bwolf4: Is there a such thing as a motion to dismiss w/ NCAA?—
John Infante (@John_Infante) March 29, 2013

Be that as it may: Given the public statements we’ve seen out of Miami thus far, we are overly excited about this letter, because there are few things we love more than institutionalized backbiting immortalized in print.

Sebastian has about had it with this story. Sebastian is not alone in this. (AP)

Let us sum up the latest slaps exchanged in the Miami-NCAA spat as succinctly as possible:

Miami Herald, Wednesday: “Um, no mention of Ameen Najjar’s work with Nevin Shapiro’s attorney being continued by Najjar’s replacement on the case?”

NCAA report author, Thursday: “LOL kinda there was though? Also, footnotes, brah.”

We’re paraphrasing.

Sebastian the Ibis, upon receiving his morning Miami Herald. (Jeremy McKnight/Icon SMI)

The Miami Herald brings tidings of inappropriate NCAA conduct during the the improper benefits investigation into Miami athletics. No, again. No, again again.

The NCAA investigator who took over the University of Miami case last May attempted, as her fired predecessor did, to use Nevin Shapiro’s attorney to help build a case against Miami – a detail curiously omitted from the NCAA-commissioned report detailing the NCAA’s improper handling of the case [...] Meanwhile, UM also will allege that NCAA investigators lied to interview subjects by claiming that other people interviewed made comments they never made, in order to trick the subjects into revealing incriminating information they otherwise might not have …

All right, this is where we’re finally mad. This is it, and it’s that first revelation that did it. We knew the NCAA was hysterically, uproariously inept in its handling of this matter, but now it just seems like it wasn’t even trying to be sneaky about it. Take some pride in your work, people. It’s called craftsmanship. Luther Campbell is gonna have Mark Emmert’s job by the time this runs its course, and we’re not saying that would be a bad thing.

Nevin Shapiro should be strongly considered for Mark Emmert’s job, because at least then this would be fun to write about. (AP)

Of all the stories that popped up after we signed off work last night, none are so enchanting as the revelation by Tim Reynolds that the NCAA’s director of enforcement wrote a letter in support of Nevin Shapiro to the judge presiding over Shapiro’s sentencing hearing.

“Throughout the course of our interactions, it is my belief that Mr. Shapiro possesses a unique depth of knowledge and experience concerning representatives athletics interest (‘Boosters’), agents and the provision of extra-benefits to student-athletes,” Najjar wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

Well, that’s accurate.

Following Tim Brewster’s abrupt departure from Mississippi State to join Jimbo Fisher’s staff in Tallahassee, Bulldog bloggers at For Whom The Cowbell Tolls are taking a look back at Brewster’s effusive social media antics:

Just got back from a beautiful Christmas Eve service. So blessed and thankful! Merry Christmas to all!—
Tim Brewster (@TimBrewster) December 25, 2012

How we viewed before: Man! That Tim Brewster is not only the best coach around, he’s a down home family man! I knew I liked the cut of his cloth. He’s the kind of example and man we need associated with our program.

How we view now: I kind of imagine him typing this with a huge grin on his face — like one so big it hurts. Then his wife asks him what he’s typing, and he yells the sentences back to her. I only remember him by his tweets, and since he used a lot of exclamation points, I assume he yells a lot, like Dave Chappelle in the Sam Jackson beer commercial.

It’s comforting to know that there’ll be somebody capable of filling that James Coley-shaped Twitter void in Tallahassee, no?