NCAA adjusts wagering reinstatement guidelines for student-athletes, ending Noah Shannon's Hawkeye career

Several Iowa athletes received disappointing news on Wednesday, including defensive lineman Noah Shannon.

After delaying the decision two weeks, the NCAA Division I Council Coordination Committee met on Wednesday and adjusted current student-athlete reinstatement guidelines for those who bet on other teams at their own schools.

“Student-athletes who wager on teams at their school — excluding their own team — will start at requiring one season of ineligibility and a loss of one year of eligibility,” according to the adjusted NCAA guidelines.

This means an athlete must sit out one season, and that season counts against their eligibility.

Shannon’s Hawkeye career is over, as he is in his sixth and final year of eligibility.

These adjusted guidelines apply to student-athletes currently serving suspensions for cases that were reported on or after May 2.

Previously, a student-athlete who bet on an athletics team at their own school would receive a permanent loss of eligibility.

Shannon hasn’t played a snap for Iowa this season after the NCAA suspended him indefinitely for sports gambling on Aug. 23. The sixth-year allegedly bet on one Iowa basketball game and was of the legal gambling age in Iowa when doing so.

Iowa appealed the decision but announced on Sept. 12 that Shannon’s suspension would be upheld. Then, on Oct. 10, Shannon was cleared to practice after the NCAA said it would reexamine its protocols for sports wagering violations for athletes who did not place bets on their own team.

When Shannon was cleared to practice, there was a glimmer of hope he might see the field sometime this season. On Tuesday, football head coach Kirk Ferentz didn’t seem as confident as before.

“None of us are getting our hopes up too high based on the way things go with the NCAA,” Ferentz said.

On Wednesday night, Ferentz voiced his displeasure with the decision on a weekly radio show with Iowa’s play-by-play announcer Gary Dolphin and later in a statement from Iowa Athletics.

“I’ve long thought the NCAA is a very big, cumbersome organization that really has a hard time reacting to anything in real time and keeping up with what’s going on, and that’s really evident in our sport,” Ferentz said on the radio. “Our sport has changed so much in the last 10 years, I would say. And as it pertains to this topic, I’ve learned a lot since May 1st. I never really paid attention to gambling — the industry, the legality of it, the access — all those things. Now that I’m tuned in, it’s in your face all the time: every TV broadcast, the whole nine yards. And these commercials… ‘If you think you have a gambling problem, call 1-800…’, all that stuff.”

“Our world has changed so much, and I don’t think they’re taking that into account, personally. He didn’t commit a crime, didn’t bet on an Iowa football game,” he continued. “So, punishment, yes. And he’s been very straightforward with his remarks, as far as I know. Very cooperative with everybody that spoke with him, so I don’t know what else you can do. So it seems like a very dramatic penalty for something that, I’ll predict in two years, it’ll be looked at as not that big a deal. Well, let me rephrase that one. I’m saying two years, maybe five with this organization.”

“I am heartbroken for Noah and his family that the NCAA has come to this conclusion,” Ferentz said in the statement to UI Athletics. “Noah did not break any laws. He did not commit any crimes. And yet he is being severely over-punished by a membership committee that refuses to see perspective or use common sense. I have said many times that I think it is peculiar that the state of Iowa is uniquely the focus of this investigation. Noah is being sidelined because the NCAA is ruling on an investigation that they did not instigate, using an uneven system of justice to severely punish an excellent young man. It is just wrong.”

Fifth-year Iowa men’s wrestlers Abe Assad and Nelson Brands confirmed to the Des Moines Register’s Eli McKown on Oct. 25 that they are involved in the sports gambling investigation.

The pair, who did not wrestle in the season-opener against Cal Baptist, are the only Hawkeye wrestlers who have publicly said they are involved. Sixth-year Tony Cassioppi and fifth-year Cobe Siebrecht were also absent from the starting lineup and are suspected to be involved in the investigation. All four of those Hawkeye wrestlers were NCAA Tournament qualifiers last season.

Iowa men’s wrestling associate head coach Terry Brands, Nelson’s father, sent a text message to the Des Moines Register’s Chad Leistikow on Wednesday after hearing the news.

“Hawkeye nation and our brothers from Iowa State are battling for logic to prevail in an unprecedented, standalone struggle,” Terry Brands wrote. “Only athletes from 2 institutions in Iowa have been targeted. No other D1 institution in this country has been targeted. This is an NCAA membership committee that has a chance to modernize our NCAA and they continue not to account for a rapidly changing culture.

“The penalty for athletes who did not break any laws, did not bet on themselves, did not bet on their sport somehow is the same as for those who compromised the integrity of college athletics,” he continued. “Cass, Nelson, Cobe and Abe have been steadfast through this all and will remain so. We have appeals left with two of these awesome individuals and will never rest on working for an overhaul of an outdated NCAA and its leadership.”

Nelson Brands reacted to the adjusted wagering guidelines on X, formerly known as Twitter.