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NCAA prohibits GSU highlights on Herald website
Herald required to take down 'Two Minute Drill'
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Video highlights of the Georgia Southern-South Carolina State game were removed from statesboroherald.com Monday morning after an email from a representative with the NCAA stated press credentials for the Eagles matchup on Saturday with William & Mary could be denied if the highlights were not taken down.

Vince Johnson, director of video operations for Statesboro Publishing, posted the "Two Minute Drill" highlights show of Saturday's game about 9:30 p.m. that evening on statesboroherald.com. Johnson produced the Two Minute Drill for all five home games previously this season and two away games, as well. He also produced the Two Minute Drill for the 2009 season.

According to an email from J.D. Hamilton, assistant director of statistics for the NCAA in Indianapolis, "For the 2010 Fall Championship season, the NCAA prohibits any video highlights of any NCAA championship to be posted on any websites except for www.NCAA.com.

"If you do not remove these highlights immediately, and do not obey these rules of NCAA Digital Rights, these actions could prevent your agency the granting of credentials to a NCAA Championship, including this Saturday’s game between Georgia Southern and William & Mary."

The NCAA rule for the playoffs, however, does not apply to television stations replaying video highlights and television stations in Savannah and elsewhere played game highlights on their broadcasts all Saturday evening.

"In this multimedia world we now live in, it makes no sense to allow one medium - television - to run video highlights and deny the same thing to another - Web/Internet," said James Healy, executive editor and supervising producer for the Statesboro Herald. "We believe we should be given the same access and privileges that other media companies receive."

Georgia Southern plays Williams & Mary in the second round of the FCS Playoffs at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in Williamsburg, Va.

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