Georgia Tech athletics director Dave Braine appealed two of the penalties handed down by the NCAA Division I committee on infractions but the Yellow Jackets may have to kick off the 2006 football season with six fewer players.

That's because the appeal, filed on Dec. 2, often takes several months to be heard so the results likely will not be known until well past the Feb. 1 national signing day.

The penalties were handed down because 17 student athletes in four sports, including 11 football players, were improperly certified as eligible to compete between the 1998-99 and 2004-05 academic years.

The committee accepted Tech's self-imposed reduction of six football scholarships in 2005 and 2006 and scholarship reductions in men's and women's track and women's swimming but they extended the cuts in football scholarships for another year. That means coach Chan Gailey can sign only 15 to 17 players for the next three years instead of the expected 19 players.

If the appeals committee overturns the penalty, Gailey could add incoming players up to the 19-signee limit but he would have to recruit players who weren't signed by other schools on Feb. 1.

The NCAA also vacated the performance of the football team in all games in which the ineligible players competed and points contributed by ineligible athletes in men's and women's track and field and women's swimming, fined the Institute $5,000 for allowing ineligible athletes to compete in postseason championships and bowls and issued a public reprimand and censure.

Braine said the violations were not intentional.

"Yes, mistakes were made," he said, "but they were inadvertent and confined to a small number of cases when you consider that we reviewed more than 800 transcripts."

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