If it feels like North Carolina's NCAA case has been dragging on for years, it's because it has. The last vestiges of the Tar Heels' case won't come to a conclusion until at least April of 2016 due to new violations disclosed by the school in August of 2015. Considering this all started in 2010, that's a long time. So long, in fact, that former football assistant John Blake's three-year show-cause penalty has already expired, and he was just hired as the defensive line coach at Lamar.

The academic scandal has embroiled many of the athletics programs at North Carolina, not just football. The punishment for the football team was handed down all the way back in 2012, but the storm has continued for both men's and women's basketball and men's soccer.

NCAA investigations are rarely swift affairs. Their cratering (and subsequent rollback) of Penn State following the Jerry Sandusky scandal is an outlier. There's a real chance this scandal could have a lifespan of six years from the first news to the final resolution. We haven't even gotten to that point and punishments stemming from this investigation have already started to wear off.

H/T: Joe Giglio