With dissatisfaction.With determination. And without regret.
That's how Idaho football coach Robb Akey responded Wednesday, one day after the Vandals were officially stripped of eight scholarships for the 2008 season for poor performance in the the NCAA's annual Academic Progress Rate (APR) report.
His dissatisfaction is with the NCAA, which Akey believes is talking out of both sides of its mouth when it comes to football.
"That's what irritates me the most about the NCAA," Akey said.
Run a clean program, but don't get rid of the bad seeds or it will cost you scholarships. That is how Akey views the decree from NCAA president Myles Brand.
Most of the players who were involved in rule-breaking or academic issues were brought into the program by coach Nick Holt, who left in 2006 after two seasons.
Akey said the NCAA should take such things into account before administering penalties.
"Go visit that campus. It will be very evident whether the coach is the problem, the school is the problem or things are being done to address the situation," Akey said.
Then there is the money gap.
There were 37 football programs punished by the NCAA on Tuesday. Seventeen of them are from Division I-A. Just two of them - Washington State and Kansas - are from one of the six powerful BCS conferences. The WAC had four football teams punished.
"Can you fix this with money? Absolutely, it can have a significant impact," WAC commissioner Karl Benson said. "It's not out of a lack of intent or interest or desire. Some of it is tied to resources."
In hindsight, the league should have used part of its windfall from the 2007 Fiesta Bowl and 2008 Sugar Bowl to fund additional academic-related services at its schools. Perhaps it will do so in the future.
Akey's determination is to continue the long, arduous task of building a winning program on the field with character individuals and strong academics. He believes the job can be accomplished with time and discipline.
"As impatient as I am, you don't build anything this solid just overnight," Akey said.
And he has no regrets about his decision to remove several players from the program last year, which led to the APR penalties.
"We've got the start of a foundation, a clean foundation we can build from," Akey said, something that would not have been the case if he kept players who violated university policy and state law on his roster.
"If I kept that element in this program, the guys here would not be saying this is a program you want to be a part of."
In fact, Akey said he would not allow the threat of reduced scholarships to keep him from acting similarly in the future.
"I've got to coach it with the right deal in regards to discipline. I'm not going to let it hold me hostage," he said. "We're still going to make the decisions we need to make."
Those decisions mean the Vandals can play with no more than 77 scholarship players this fall, eight fewer than the NCAA limit. The Vandals have 72 players on scholarship, a number that could get as high as 75 before the fall, depending on the progress of walk-ons, the school said.
The Vandals are only allowed to bring in 22 new players - initial counters in NCAA parlance - for the 2008 season. They will use that entire allotment, which is three fewer than teams are normally allowed.
"The biggest initial impact is that there are three kids that aren't going to play for us that could have," Akey said. "When we're at the point of trying to build our numbers, trying to build our talent base, three players is a significant number."
Idaho has 16 seniors on scholarship, so even with a full recruiting class of 25 next year, the Vandals will not be at the NCAA limit of 85 scholarships next season.
"It's going to put us another year further away from getting to 85," Akey said.
As a practical matter, it means less depth. It means that incoming freshmen will have to play quickly, without the benefit of a redshirt season. It means that the margin of error for the Vandals, who went 1-11 last season, remains small.
"It's that many less guys when you have a starter go down due to injury. It's one less guy. Maybe your starters or frontline guys have to play a little more because you don't have that young freshman on scholarship who can play," Akey said.
"That's the impact that it will have on this club."
