MORGANTOWN - It is tempting to say that West Virginia dodged a bullet with the now-completed NCAA investigation into its football program.

That's not really the case, though.

The truth is there was never much of a bullet there to begin with.

Yes, the school got off almost scot-free Friday when the NCAA issued its final report. In that sense it probably dodged something, but what else did anyone expect? Michigan and Rich Rodriguez had already gone through the process with charges that mirrored those at WVU and received a slap on the wrist.

There's a reason WVU chose to simply go along with the NCAA, agree to the basics of the charges and then debate the minutiae. They'd already seen it done and liked the outcome.

And let's face it, these weren't exactly earth-shaking charges. This wasn't Jim Tressel or Chip Kelly. The only accusations of substance against West Virginia were that graduate assistants and other staffers who weren't supposed to be coaching were, in fact, doing just that. They would oversee winter and summer workouts, watch videotape with players, maybe critique a 7-on-7 drill during the summer.

That was the sum and total of the accusations, along with the requisite accompanying charge that by allowing it Rodriguez, Bill Stewart and the university itself were guilty of allowing those things to happen.

Shoot, and even in that last realm the school came out a winner. The original charge against the two coaches was, as the NCAA puts it, "failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance.'' That was really the only charge the school fought, and it won when the NCAA's final report downgraded the charge simply to a "failure to monitor.''

But even that was predictable because the NCAA had done the same with Rodriguez at Michigan when the final findings in that case were released last year.

In the end, West Virginia basically didn't disagree with the NCAA on anything aside from the "failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance'' charge. And even that didn't seem to be much of a sticking point, or at least it doesn't seem so by reading the report.

The NCAA report actually goes to some lengths to distinguish the two charges. It never mentions that in the original allegations Rodriguez and Stewart were both accused of failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance. (The school itself was never charged with that, rather the failure to monitor.) But it does attempt to explain the difference.

The report cites a dispute between the school and the NCAA over which bylaw should have been cited regarding that charge. The failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance charge requires that it be proven that a coach not only did that, but also failed to monitor the activities.

"Not only did the staff not allege a failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance on behalf of [Rodriguez], the summary disposition report contained no facts that would support such a finding,'' the report reads. "The narrative spoke only to [Rodriguez's] failure to monitor and did not address any failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance. Therefore, the proper citation for this finding [is the failure to monitor]."

Ditto Stewart's case, although in that one the report goes to great lengths to explain that Stewart merely continued - and in some ways expanded on - the acts condoned by Rodriguez.

"[Stewart] mistakenly believed it was permissible for his graduate assistants to monitor and conduct summer skill development activities,'' the report said. "He was an assistant coach under [Rodriguez] and, after [Rodriguez] departed the institution, the activities ... continued.''

(By the way, neither Rodriguez nor Stewart are mentioned by name in the report, nor are any other individuals. Those two are referred to as "former head coach 1'' and "former head coach 2.'' How ridiculous is that?)

Oh, and there is also absolutely no mention of a sixth, secondary violation stipulated in the original charges. That would be West Virginia exceeding weekly time limits for practice and such by 75 minutes during an off week leading up to the team's 2006 game at Louisville.

I found that odd for only one reason, and it relates to the charges against Rodriguez at Michigan. In the Michigan case, Rodriguez was accused of exceeding time limits on a regular basis. As it turns out, the final report in that case cited just 65 hours, which sounds like a lot but pales in comparison to what had been alleged.

That was really the most significant difference between the two cases, and Michigan's self-imposed penalty for that was to reduce practice time by twice that much, or 130 hours. It stands to reason WVU might have been able to do the same and cut 21/2 hours of practice time, twice the alleged overage.

What's interesting is that among the self-imposed sanctions West Virginia endured was to cut those off-season hours by 46.25 hours in the winter, spring and summer of 2010. Did the school actually penalize itself too much?

Probably, and not just in that area. I doubt the NCAA would have looked upon the case differently had the number of recruiters on the road not been reduced for a week last fall and during the spring recruiting period this year. Some of the other changes that were made regarding limiting the activities of grad assistants and recruiting personnel might not have been necessary, either.

I'm sure it all served, however, to illustrate to the NCAA that the school had already been hard enough on itself and thus the NCAA didn't need to pile on. In the end, the strategy worked because the penalties West Virginia incurred aren't likely to hurt the football program one bit.

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.