Florida State strongly reiterated its reasons why the NCAA-imposed penalty of vacating wins in football and nine other sports as a result of an academic misconduct scandal should be overturned by the Infractions Appeals Committee or at least "tailored'' so as not to affect the records of innocent student-athletes and coaches.

Bill Williams, a Tallahassee attorney retained to handle FSU's appeal, wrote in 21-page rebuttal to the Committee on Infractions' predicted and stern response to the issues he had raised that a reversal is a must to honor the NCAA's "high and worthy ideals'' of "fairness of procedures'' and the "equitable resolution of infractions cases.''

If the penalty isn't reversed, football coach Bobby Bowden will lose all seven wins from the 2007 season and likely some of the seven wins from 2006; he currently trails Penn State's Joe Paterno by one in the ballyhooed race for the all-time lead in major college history. The 2007 men's outdoor track and field championship and postseason appearances in other sports, including women's basketball, also could be in jeopardy.

Neither FSU nor NCAA investigators found evidence linking any coaches to the scandal, which involved three former employees of the Athletics Academic Support Services office and 61 student-athletes. That's why Williams argued that the school could vacate wins, but the individual records of coaches and student-athletes not involved could remain.

"Retribution against innocents is not an inherent or necessary consequence of a vacation penalty,'' he said. "It serves no useful function and offends universally held notions of fundamental fairness. If the vacation penalty is sustained, it should not needlessly be used as a sword to punish student-athletes and coaches. Student-athletes and coaches who have fulfilled their responsibilities should be protected -- not punished.''

The final word, however, is still months away.

The NCAA enforecement staff has until July 13 to weigh in, something it likely will do given a point FSU raised in the document it released Wednesday regarding a brokered deal to entice student-athletes to be more forthcoming and lose just 30 percent of his or her season.

FSU wouldn't have consented to the deal had it known that "the agreement was not a global resolution of all eligibility issues,'' Williams wrote. That agreement forced the student-athletes to waive their "due process rights to challenge the finding of misconduct and establish their innocence.'' Some student-athletes were accompanied by an attorney to interviews with school investigators.

If the enforcement staff does respond, FSU would have 10 days to craft an answer. FSU ultimately will have a hearing before Infractions Appeals Committee, probably in mid November. That five-member body typically takes about two months to decide a case, although this one could be complicated by the appeal of one of the central figures, Brenda Monk.

The former learning specialist has admitted to mistakes, but nothing that rises to the level of fraud and if she wins or has any of the three findings against her reversed, it could affect FSU's case. In its response to FSU's appeal that the school released last month in the wake of media in the state suing the school and the NCAA under public records laws, the Committee on Infractions referred to Monk's behavior as "reprehensible,'' in part justifying the vacating penalty. (Monk also intends to sue FSU for defamation.)

"In this case, the vacation penalty is not even particularly severe -- it is a penalty that flows naturally from the university's use of ineligible student-athletes in competition and it is a penalty often imposed in cases that have far fewer aggravating factors than those that exist here,'' the Committee on Infractions wrote in its response.

As it did in its appeal, FSU hammered the Committee on Infractions for failing to discuss and specify what weight, if any, it gave the school for its cooperation with the investigation and its self-imposed corrective measures. FSU invited the NCAA enforcement staff to help it investigate, an arrangement school president T.K. Wetherell called unprecedented and a "partnership.''

Initially, the Committee on Infractions said of FSU's cooperation that the school "met its obligation'' under NCAA rules. It later called FSU's investigation and corrective actions "commendable,'' but said that "in the final analysis, the committee did not believe they were so extraordinary as to warrant relief'' from the vacating of wins.

"If the Committee in fact weighed those factors, it did so in a black box that denies the University and this (Appeals) Committee a meaningful opportunity to review the appropriateness of its logic and its decision,'' Williams wrote.

The Committee on Infractions has insisted that it doesn't need to specifically discuss its analysis, only that it "consider'' a school's actions in choosing from the available penalties. (The Committee on Infractions did consider a postseason ban, for example.) Williams, however, had plenty of precedent to counter that argument, including cases involving Oklahoma and one that was announced on Tuesday involving Alabama State. In that case, which involved academic fraud and ineligible competition among other violations, the school appealed a five-year probationary period and had it reduced to three years.

Why?

"While the Committee on Infractions' decision mentioned that it "considered the institution's self-imposed penalties and corrective actions,' it did not directly address the substance or effect of those self-imposed penalties,'' the Infractions Appeals Committee wrote, citing the school had imposed a two-year probation on itself.

Williams said FSU, like Alabama State, was given the "short shrift'' by the Committee on Infractions, which failed to explain itself and explain how it balanced components of the case.

"It requires this (Appeals) Committee and affected institutions to accept, without scrutiny and on faith alone, the Committee on Infractions' generic assertions that it took all relevant considerations into account,'' he wrote. "This can not be.''

Although Williams conceded that a school's cooperation and corrective actions after the fact can't provide it blanket immunity, the failure to discuss the specifics of any consideration those engendered "is a clear and fatal error in the process'' and "compels reversal.''

A few other interesting elements:

+ In regard to student-athletes using a study guide for the music class that Monk maintained, FSU now insists that came from confusion about whether the course were open- or closed-book. Williams said the evidence shows that in February 2007, more than a month before school officials learned of possible improprieties, "Dr. Monk reviewed the class syllabus and discovered the class had changed to a closed-book format. She promptly presented the issue at a staff meeting and was "adamant'' that examination procedures must be "changed.'' The notebook that contained past examination questions and answers became unavailable to students during testing. Dr. Monk conceded that she "should have known in the fall of 2006,'' but "did not.' These circumstances do not excuse the misconduct, but they refute the suggestion of knowing and deliberate misconduct.''

+ In response to the Committee on Infractions stance that was "disingenuous'' to suggest that some student-athletes believed the assistance they received was allowed, Williams said the "judgment is too aggressive.'' Yes, some read the quiz instructions (closed book, no assistance allowed), others didn't it some of their statements indicate they trusted the staffers.