Urban Meyer got a $30,000 fine for criticizing officials after last week's Florida-Georgia game. Mike Slive issued a terse statement about which clause of the ethics code Meyer violated, and the coach responded with an apologetic form letter saying he's sorry and accepts the fine.
This is the first case of someone getting punishment under the SEC's new policy which allows the conference to fine or suspend on first offense of criticizing officials instead of having to go through a pair of reprimand letters first. The key word there is "fine or suspend," which some folks seemed to have missed given some of the comments I've seen throughout the week. First time offenders were never going to get held out of a game by Slive, who decided to go the symbolic fine route instead.
In fact, I'd be surprised if anyone gets a suspension until the third strike, in which case the reprimand letters simply will have been replaced by pocket change shakedowns for the conference's millionaire coaches. If you're wondering why the announcement took so long to come out, it's because Slive was out of the office traveling most of the week.