ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico's football program asked the NCAA to reconsider the number of scholarship cuts it handed down for three cases of academic fraud.

The NCAA in August put the program on three years of probation and cut five scholarships as punishment for academic violations involving two former assistant coaches.

With the filing of the appeal, the NCAA's ruling is suspended. The program can operate under its self-imposed sanctions, which were announced in January. The Lobos voluntarily reduced their scholarship offers from 25 to 24 and their overall scholarships from 85 to 83, according to Friday editions of the Albuquerque Journal.

The self-imposed penalties also included two years of probation.

The NCAA concluded that the former Lobos assistants in 2004 improperly helped three recruits to obtain fraudulent academic credits through correspondence courses they never completed at Fresno Pacific University, a fully accredited college in California that offers online degrees.