What NCAA sanctions mean for Notre Dame Football recruiting



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By now you’ve probably seen the NCAA Offenses Committee found the Notre Dame Fighting Irish guilty of breaking the rules and imposing penalties. Otherwise, here’s the NCAA press release:

The college, former assistant football coach and NCAA enforcement staff agreed the former assistant coach had ineligible contact with a prospect when he met him privately at his high school prior to the 1st. July after the end of his first year of high school. During this meeting, the former assistant coach expressed the school’s interest in recruiting the prospect. The former assistant football coach had also exchanged unauthorized texts with another prospect on 10 occasions.

The case also concerned a Level III recruiting violation involving the head football coach. Specifically, after initially declining a request, the head football coach inadmissibly posed for a photo with another prospect during his visit to the prospect’s high school during the fall review period.

This matter was dealt with as part of the negotiated resolution process. The process was used instead of a formal hearing or summary decision because the university, the coaches involved, and law enforcement staff agreed on the offenses and penalties . The Division I Offenses Committee reviewed the case to determine whether the resolution was in the best interest of the Association and whether the agreed penalties were reasonable. Negotiated resolutions cannot be appealed and do not constitute a precedent for other cases of infringement.

The university and law enforcement staff used ranges identified by the Offense Penalty Guidelines approved by Division I members to agree on Level II mitigated penalties for the university and Level II mitigated penalties for the former assistant coach. The report contains the full list of sanctions approved by the Offenses Committee, including:

* One year of probation.

* A fine of $ 5,000.

* A six-month justification order for the former assistant football coach, including a one-match suspension at any employing member school.

* Reduction of one unit of official football visits for the 2020-2021 academic year.

* Reduction in unofficial 14-day football visits for the 2020-2021 academic year.

* A seven-day off-campus recruitment ban for all football staff during the 2020-2021 academic year.

* The university has stopped recruiting the prospect.

* The university will not recruit any candidates from Seattle High School between the 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 academic years.

If an opportunity to serve a penalty is not available due to circumstances related to COVID-19, the penalty must be served at the next available opportunity.

The mystery of who was all involved was solved fairly quickly on Twitter and other spaces of the internet. Former Notre Dame assistant was Todd Lyght and the Seattle player was Garfield High School 5-star linebacker Sav’ell Smalls. Brian Kelly’s selfie was with newly signed Lorenzo Styles Jr. from Pickerington Central High School in Ohio.

todd lyght notre dame football

One Foot Lower / Mike Miller

As it turned out, the Florida Gators and Texas A&M Aggies were also hit by the NCAA in December for the SAME with Sa’vell Smalls – who ultimately signed with the Washington Huskies. The three cases involving Smalls, in part, also involve Garfield’s coach Joey Thomas, who was in his office with Smalls and the coaches of the 3 different schools at different times. Thomas is now a defensive analyst for Willie Taggart in Florida Atlantic. During this time, Taggart was the head coach of the Florida State Seminoles, and Smalls was heavily recruited by FSU.

Without providing any speculation, you can go ahead and draw your own conclusions about it all.

So what does this mean for Notre Dame and their recruiting efforts moving forward? Above all, it looks worse than it really is. It’s not like the Irish give recruits bags of cash when they visit Notre Dame.

The key wording in all of this is at the end of it when it mentions the circumstances of COVID-19. Right now, rookies and schools don’t really have a clue when the NCAA will allow official visits or off-campus recruiting.

As far as I know, Notre Dame has never been in danger of using all of her official visitation tokens, so losing ONE for ONE cycle is nothing – even when they are allowed to have official visitation. The unofficial 14 day part has to do with events like Junior Day where coaches and rookies can talk on campus. Again … there are a fair number of days available so it’s more a matter of schedule than anything else. Seven days on the road? While this is a bit of a ding, it’s more of an inconvenience than a brutal punishment.

It’s all pretty light, as well as a gigantic joke.

While I agree there must be rules when it comes to recruiting, here we are talking about 15 minutes and 5 seconds of breaking the rules that do not bring any particular benefit to the recruit – and more importantly … fuck of time. Joey Thomas’ involvement is what stands out the most. It’s a short story that reminds people of the recruiting shenanigans of the old SWC.

These incidents certainly “tarnish” the image of Notre Dame for those who care about the smallest details, but there is nothing here that screams “out of control” or blatantly.

That’s the cost of doing business when recruiting 5-star players.

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