NCAA strips Oregon football of scholarships, but no bowl ban

The NCAA stripped Oregon of a football scholarship in each of the next two seasons and placed the program on probation for three years, opting against stiffer penalties such as a bowl ban despite issuing a show-cause order against ex-coach Chip Kelly, who apologized to the school, its fans and its players.

The NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions released a report on Wednesday that said Kelly failed to monitor the program for its improper involvement with Willie Lyles and his Houston-based recruiting service.

Kelly was hit with an 18-month show-cause order, a sanction that likely will have limited impact now that he’s coaching the Philadelphia Eagles.

The program he left behind faces three years of scholarship reductions, starting last year and extending through 2014-15. It also faces reductions in paid visits and evaluation days, but avoided some of the harsher penalties handed down to other programs in recent years.

Also: Brigham Young lined up a spot in the Poinsettia Bowl for 2015 — if the Cougars are eligible for the postseason — and agreed to a three-game regular-season series with Southern California starting in 2019.

BYU also announced it had agreed to a new contract with coach Bronco Mendenhall that runs through the 2016 season.

Air Force basketball coach Dave Pilipovich agreed to a five-year contract.

Pilipovich, 49, took over the Falcons as interim coach in February 2012 when Jeff Reynolds was relieved and became the permanent head coach that March.

He was 2-6 at the end of the 2011-12 season and directed the team to an 18-14 mark last season.

The newly reconstituted Big East Conference hired former WNBA president Val Ackerman, a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, as its commissioner.

Ackerman, 53, was the founding president of the WNBA and also was the first female president of USA Basketball, with both the men’s and women’s teams winning gold medals at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. She was most recently a consultant for the NCAA, and is an adjunct professor at Columbia.