SPOKANE, Wash. — The NCAA penalized Eastern Washington's football program Wednesday for numerous violations under former coach Paul Wulff, now the coach at Washington State.

Among the violations announced were allowing ineligible athletes to practice, having too many assistant coaches and failure to properly monitor the team.

Eastern Washington was put on three years' probation and is banned from postseason play next season. It also was penalized two scholarships and had limits placed on recruiting and coaching.

In addition, Wulff cannot have any contact with the Washington State football team during the first three days of practice this season.

Late Wednesday night, Wulff told reporters that the violations were secondary infractions that did not provide a competitive advantage, and those kinds of violations occur when a program is too cash-strapped to afford full-time compliance officers.

"There are so many rules, things slip through the cracks," Wulff said in a conference call, adding he took full responsibility for the violations.

Some of the penalties were self-imposed and accepted by the committee.

Eastern Washington, a Football Championship Subdivision team in the Big Sky Conference reported the violations to the NCAA in February 2007.

"We accept the NCAA's findings and want to show, through our actions, that we embrace a culture of compliance," acting president John Mason said, adding the school has implemented new monitoring systems since the violations occurred.

"We are, however, disappointed with the decision to levy a postseason ban and will be assessing our appeal options."

Paul Dee, chair of the NCAA committee on infractions, said it's unavoidable that current players suffer when a program is punished for past violations.

"The people who live with the penalties on institutions are those who are present when the penalties are applied," Dee said.

Wulff was coach at Eastern Washington from 2000-07, making the playoffs in 2004, 2005 and 2007. He just completed his first season at WSU.

Wulff said Washington State has "excellent compliance support" and "I am confident situations such as these will never happen again."

Jim Sterk, Washington State athletic director, said his school was aware of the investigation when it hired Wulff a year ago.

"We feel now, as we did then, that this was an institutional issue with Eastern Washington University, which is supported with today's NCAA release regarding the situation," Sterk said.

"During Paul's hiring process he was straightforward about these allegations," said Sterk. "We take these issues very seriously and believe Paul is a man of tremendous integrity and the situation derived more from a lack of institutional control at Eastern Washington."