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Heather Dinich, ESPN Senior Writer 8y

UCLA's Dan Guerrero voted wrong way on satellite camps

College Football, UCLA Bruins

IRVING, Texas -- UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero voted the wrong way about satellite camps on behalf of the Pac-12, according to league commissioner Larry Scott, who said 11 of the 12 schools in the conference were in favor of keeping satellite camps, but Guerrero voted to ban them.

"I think he's clear he did not vote the way he was supposed to vote," Scott said. "We had 11 schools in our conference that wanted this looked at as we studied more comprehensively football recruiting issues -- there's a variety of them -- but in the meantime we'd prefer the status quo, which for us allows coaches to attend other camps in other markets."

Scott would not directly confirm that UCLA was the only school in the league not in favor of camps, but said, "Draw your own conclusions."

Scott said the only group that can do anything about it is the NCAA's Division I Board of Directors, but that he is not sure if anything can or will happen because the NCAA is under a new form of governance that's only two years old.

"I don't know that it's going to come to a vote at the board, but certainly they will be aware of, let's call it, confusion coming out of our conference," Scott said.

Guerrero attempted to explain his actions in a letter that was sent to the other members of the Pac-12 and obtained by ESPN.

With two satellite-camp related items proposals, one submitted by the ACC and another by the SEC, Guerrero said he voted for the one that was most inline with what was preferred by the Pac-12.

"When my read of the situation was that 2015‐59 was going to pass," Guerrero wrote, referring to the ACC-sponsored satellite camp proposal, "regardless of a Pac‐12 vote against, I voted in favor of this proposition as it was the more consistent of the two with current Pac‐12 legislation."

ESPN has reported that in order for the satellite ban to be overturned, 66.7 percent of the majority of 128 FBS programs need to request that the ruling be rescinded within a 60-day override period. Because the original vote received only 66.6 percent approval, well below the required 85 percent, the programs that disagree with the ruling can still get the ban relinquished.

The original vote to ban the camps was done by conference representatives, whereas a reversal would require individual votes from programs.

Scott said it is a Pac-12 rule that if there is a clear position from the league, then the representative has what's called a directed vote.

"They're really not supposed to use their judgment," Scott said. "It was a directed vote. We will discuss it when we're all together in Phoenix. This hasn't happened before to my knowledge."

Scott said "things have worked fine" with the satellite camps in the Pac-12.

"We have not been hosting official school camps outside our territory, but our coaches have been allowed to participate in other peoples' camps, and it's not been out of control. It's worked fine," he said.

Washington State coach Mike Leach expressed his concern over the situation.

"One thing that needs to be understood in our conference is that our conference lined up 11 schools in favor of satellite camps, one abstained, yet our conference voted against satellite camps contrary to the will of 11 schools in our conference," Leach said. "We took straw polls among ourselves as head coaches and went to our ADs in our conference. That's what makes it so disturbing, because we always came out supportive of satellite camps and the ADs came out in favor, and yet we vote against satellite camps."

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said he was unaware of the Pac-12's incident and declined to comment specifically on it, but said the NCAA Council's decision was "entirely appropriate."

Information from ESPN's Kyle Bonagura and Tom VanHaaren contributed to this report.

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