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Nick Saban took over as coach before the 2007 season and suspended five players for four games when the university uncovered the violations.

Saban, who replaced Mike Shula after the 2006 season, suspended five players — Antoine Caldwell, Glen Coffee, Marquis Johnson, Chris Rogers and Marlon Davis — for four games when the university uncovered the violations in 2007. The Tide was 5-2 at that point, and its only wins in the next six games came against Tennessee and Colorado in the Independence Bowl.

“I am happy for the players,” Saban said at a golf event in Birmingham. “This is not going to affect their future or the players we are recruiting.”

The university has said that the athletes involved who still have eligibility remaining have had to pay restitution.

“Although the committee commends the institution for self-discovering, investigating and reporting the textbook violations, it remains troubled, nonetheless, by the scope of the violations in this instance and by the institution’s recent history of infractions cases,” the NCAA said.

Forcing Alabama to vacate the wins instead of forfeiting means the opponents who lost those games won’t be allowed to change their own records to reflect a victory.

The NCAA said about 125 athletes received benefits totaling less than $100 each. The university was cited for not adequately monitoring the process or having a system for detecting the violations on a timely basis.

The university could not produce records before the 2005 fall semester, so it’s unclear if similar violations occurred earlier.

Dee praised Alabama’s handling of the matter once the wrongdoing was uncovered.

“I think that the University of Alabama in this particular case had a problem that was just magnified by the number of athletes that were involved and the system that they had in place had what I might consider a gap in it,” he said. “And the student-athletes took advantage of it.”

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