NCAA attorney: Avoiding show-cause order a must for Michigan, Rodriguez

With a charge of failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance central to each accusation, Buckner said Michigan must do everything it can “to make sure that there’s no show-cause order against Rodriguez.”

Show-cause orders are sanctions against individuals found to have committed NCAA violations and can include a variety of punitive measures like reduced recruiting and coaching activities.

“Michigan would have to make sure that Coach Rodriguez follows the show-cause order,” Buckner said. “If he’s found to have committed the failure to monitor, issued a show-cause order, and then he goes to West Virginia … and if he’s found to have failed to monitor in that case, than a show-cause order can be enhanced significantly.”

Show-cause orders have been issued in several recent high-profile infractions cases.

Former USC football assistant Todd McNair was fired last month after he received a one-year show-cause penalty for his role in the Reggie Bush case. And former Indiana basketball coach Kelvin Sampson was given a five-year show-cause penalty for his part in a recruiting scandal.

Sampson, now an assistant coach with the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, was effectively banished from the NCAA, at least until recruiting restrictions are lifted against him in 2013.

Buckner said Michigan must “provide as much evidence as (it) can to defend Coach Rodriguez so that (it) can eliminate that failure to monitor allegation.”

“Whether or not you can actually do that” remains to be seen, he said.

How the NCAA defines a show-cause order.

• A show-cause order is one that requires a member institution to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Committee on Infractions (or the Infractions Appeals Committee per Bylaw 19.2) why it should not be subject to a penalty (or additional penalty) for not taking appropriate disciplinary or corrective action against an institutional staff member or representative of the institution’s athletics interests identified by the committee as having been involved in a violation of NCAA regulations that has been found by the committee.