Indianapolis, IN -- (Sports Network) - The NCAA Division I Infractions Appeals Committee overturned the 2009 postseason ban against the Eastern Washington football team, the NCAA announced on Tuesday.

The decision allows Eastern Washington to regain eligibility for the NCAA Division I football championships, which begin in November.

Eastern Washington was originally banned from the playoffs as part of the penalties imposed by the NCAA in February for rules violations from 2003-2007 in the football program.

The violations included impermissible participation by ineligible student- athletes, the use of too many countable coaches, failure to monitor the program by former coach Paul Wulff, the lack of institutional control and failure to monitor by the university.

Wulff is now the head coach at Washington State.

Eastern Washington self-reported the violations to the NCAA in February, 2007 and self-imposed several penalties that have already been implemented. But the infractions committee levied additional penalties, including the 2009 postseason ban and put the Eagles on three years of probation.

The violations, in and of themselves, were considered secondary violations, but the volume of the violations led the committee to rule that this was a major infractions case.

Eastern Washington agreed with the NCAA findings and other penalties, but appealed the postseason ban as excessive.

In its written appeal, the university asserted that the postseason ban penalty should be set aside.

For a penalty to be set aside, NCAA bylaws require that the penalty must be excessive such that it constitutes an abuse of discretion.

In determining the penalties, the Infractions Appeals Committee noted that the Committee on Infractions based the postseason ban "substantially on (the Committee on Infractions) judgment" that the violations provided the university with a significant competitive advantage.

But the Infractions Appeals Committee disagreed.

"While the violations provided some competitive advantage, the conclusion that the advantage was 'significant" was a clear error of judgment, such that the imposition of the postseason ban was arbitrary," the appeals committee wrote in its decision.

The Eagles, who have made six playoff appearances through the years and advanced to the quarterfinals in 2004 and 2007, are currently 5-3 overall and 4-2 in the Big Sky Conference.

EWU faces Portland State on Saturday at Qwest Field in Seattle and closes out the regular season with games at Southern Utah on Nov. 14 and Northern Arizona on Nov. 21.

"It gives our players hope," said EWU coach Beau Baldwin. "But we do have to take care of business to give us an opportunity to possibly be selected. The scenario we are in is the same as it was in 2004 and 2007 when we had teams that had to win their last four games to get in."

After the arrival of EWU President Rodolfo Arevalo and Chaves, who came to Eastern in September of 2007, several new monitoring systems and resources for coaches were put in place to reflect Eastern's commitment to properly-managed athletic programs.

At the time of the violations, many of those resources were not in place, including checks and balances that may have helped avoid the violations from occurring.