Florida State vacates dozens of wins, including 12 for football, in academic cheating scandal

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Florida State vacates 12 football wins in scandal

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida State announced Sunday it will vacate 12 football victories and a 2007 men’s track national championship in an academic cheating scandal, along with dozens more victories and placings across 10 men’s and women’s sports.

The NCAA stripped the school of wins in which 61 athletes implicated in the scandal contributed. The college sports governing body upheld the decision last month after Florida State appealed the sanctions as “excessive.”

The men’s basketball team lost all 22 wins from 2006-07, and women’s basketball lost 16 victories that year, including two in the NCAA tournament.

Bobby Bowden, who retired after this season as the second all-time winningest coach in major college football behind Penn State’s Joe Paterno, has now won a few less. Bowden finished with 389 before subtracting the five wins from the 2006-07 season, including the Emerald Bowl, and seven regular-season victories in 2007-08.

Florida State was allowed to keep placings in sports like track, cross country, golf and swimming if they still had enough points to win after subtracting contributions from the implicated athletes.

The school said it would return all vacated trophies to the appropriate agencies this year.

Among the other victories vacated:

— Softball: 32 from 2006-07, including two from the ACC tournament.

— Baseball: 4 from 2006-07, including one NCAA tournament win.

— Women’s basketball: 6 from 2007-08.

— Men’s indoor track and field: dropped from 2nd to 4th place at NCAA championship.