LSU's Les Miles responds to NCAA penalties after financial aid agreement gaffe

LSU coach Les Miles said he was perplexed at the SEC sanctions that were leveled against the Tigers last week, which resulted in a two-year ban on signing early enrollees to financial aid agreements (FAA) and losing 10 percent of its evaluation days.

"We look at the NCAA and we try to do exactly what is supposed to be done," Miles said on Saturday. "We're imperfect. That being said, I don't know how it could have been done any differently. We signed a guy who committed to us to come to us. Then he decided, really in his home, that he was thinking about not taking the English course that was going to allow him to come early to LSU. At that point in time, we went back to our compliance officers and they said cease and desist on recruiting him any more. We couldn't even call, and/or recruit the guy."

The NCAA must sign off on any penalty recommendations issued by the conference. According to NOLA.com, LSU will not appeal the penalties.

Miles' unhappiness with the way everything went down is understandable. The rule allows early enrollees to sign FAA’s and gives the school unlimited contact with that player. However, the retroactive penalties that result if the player does not ultimately sign with that program appear unfair.

In this particular instance, the player in question is Mississippi offensive lineman Matt Womack. Womack signed an FAA with LSU last August but decommitted and signed a letter of intent with Alabama. Therefore, LSU was penalized for having contact with Womack outside of the regulated access periods.

But how is the LSU’s fault?

The university appeared to have every intention of signing Womack. However, Womack is an 18-year-old and indecisiveness comes with the territory. LSU is the first known school to be penalized by this rule that appears poorly written and probably needs to be revisited — again. The rule actually was rewritten in April to prevent players from signing multiple FAA’s and gaining unlimited contact from those schools.

As it stands, LSU is now a cautionary tale for other schools hoping to use FAAs to gain an early advantage in recruiting.

"He went to another school, which is punishment enough. . . I didn't quite know how to handle it any differently than we did," Miles said. "The parallel is that they put a speed limit sign up so you went that speed limit and then they took the speed limit sign down and put up a lesser one, then they give you a ticket for going by (the limit) before. Again, I'm compliant, I believe in the NCAA, we do the right things."

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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter! Follow @YahooDrSaturday

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