If a panel formed by North Carolina would have its way, freshmen athletes granted special academic consideration would have to sit out their first year. The panel, formed in the wake of an academic fraud scandal that led to the resignation of UNC's chancellor, made the "redshirt freshman" recommendation on top of others, covering academic support and athletic expenses.

In an effort to lend academic credence to the panel, former UNC chancellor Holden Thorp appointed Hunter R. Rawlings III as its chair. Rawlings, concurrently the president of the Association of American Universities, emphasized that reforms are urgently needed at the collegiate level.

"Our panel believes we're at a tipping point in intercollegiate athletics ... There's so much revenue pouring into intercollegiate athletics and the budgets for universities' academics programs have been so tight in the past few years that it's out of balance," Rawlings said in a statement.

Other reforms that UNC seeks to push are the limiting of weekly training and competition hours, limits on operations expenses for particular sports, transparency regarding athletics budgets, and giving more power to admissions offices in determining which student-athletes are accepted.

The panel also pushed for an education program for coaches that covers topics from coaching ethics to schools' academic programs.

The former Cornell and Iowa president headed the panel that included Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, Amy Perko of the Knight Commission, Robert Malekoff of Guilford College, and former North Carolina Supreme Court associate justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson.