This story is going to result in every college coach being unable to sleep for the next 25 years. When I started college coaching, I remember the other coaches obsessing over the entries. It got me pretty paranoid about things and I was always waking up at night wondering if we screwed up.
I do remember asking one day, "But if we screwed them up, they'd let us change them, right?" Then being told some story about how a coach in the 80s didn't enter the relays once assuming that was a given and they weren't allowed to run.
Well, the ultimate horror occurred this past week at the Mountain West coach. Air Force didn't enter their entire distance squad - men and women. I can only imagine the entry deadline was different than in years past.
In the end, they ended up letting the athletes compete as they would have - no sense in punishing the athletes - but their points didn't count in the team score. Air Force lost the team title on the men's side as a result.