Kirk Ferentz blasts NCAA's decision to uphold Noah Shannon suspension

Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz announced on Monday that the NCAA has denied the appeal of Noah Shannon‘s year-long suspension for gambling. It’s a decision that Ferentz isn’t happy with.

Ferentz made his opinion on the matter known during his press conference on Monday.

“I’m not quite sure what went into the decision, but what I can tell you is that Noah is a tremendous young man. He came back for his sixth year. A highly respected leader in our locker room and certainly with our coaching staff. Our goal is to keep him with the program, keep him close, have him remain as a part of the team,” Ferentz said.

“We are really disappointed with the whole thing. He’s been honest throughout this whole process, very transparent. About as honest as you can be. I want to emphasize he did not break any laws. … He is guilty of an NCAA violation. Very up front about that. Basically I don’t agree or understand, quite frankly, the decision, especially when it comes to the severity of the punishment.”

Shannon was a starter for Iowa each of the past two seasons. He had 44 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss and 2.0 sacks as he cemented himself as a key part of the defense.

However, he found himself in the middle of a gambling investigation into the program, which resulted in the suspension. Ferentz feels that the suspension length is too long for what Shannon did.

“To me, it’s really disappointing, especially considering our current environment right now, which believe me, the last couple months I’m a lot more in tune to that than previously,” Ferentz said. “Probably the most disappointing thing, the panel that heard the appeal had an opportunity to do something, make a decision that to me would reflect reason and also reflect the changing environment. They failed to do so. We’ll move on. Just disappointed on that front, certainly.”

Kirk Ferentz also added that the move could impact his Shannon’s NFL future. He expects Shannon to still get an opportunity in the NFL, but being away from football for a year certainly doesn’t help him.

“I think they do their evaluations. The good news is he has a lot of good film, played a lot of good football for us. As I just said, he’s a tremendous young man. He made a mistake, like a lot of guys do. This is an interesting study on so many levels, but I’ve talked about that enough. I was hoping the panel, the committee, whoever it is, it’s all faceless and nameless — whoever it was might be dig a little deeper and take a little bigger picture [look] on this whole thing. It’s unfortunate,” Ferentz said.

“There’s no law broken here. It’s a mistake I’m guessing a lot of athletes have made. He happened to, for whatever reason, turn up in this investigation. It’s unfortunate. I think it is a missed opportunity by the NCAA.”

Ferentz was also asked if he believes the NCAA tried to make an example out of Shannon, rather than giving him a more fair punishment.

“I can’t speak for that. I’ve learned a lot in the last three months. I’m telling you now that the season started, the NFL season started, I can’t get in the car without hearing whoever the [gambling] companies are,” Ferentz said. “Of course, if you have a gambling problem, call 1-800… It’s a different world we live in right now. We seem to be a little slow to react to it. ‘We’ being the governing body.”