Love hurts.

I’m not sure if this is now my favorite NCAA violation, but it’s certainly the most romantic one I’ve ever seen.

A former Seton Hall associate head men’s basketball coach had impermissible phone contacts with a prospect’s mother, according to an agreement released by the Division I Committee on Infractions. The head men’s basketball coach did not promote an atmosphere of compliance within his program because he did not take adequate steps to report or stop the calls when he found out about them.

The university, the former associate head coach and NCAA enforcement staff agreed that while the men’s basketball prospect was enrolled at a different university, the former associate head coach and the prospect’s mother had 154 phone calls without written permission from the prospect’s athletics director at the time.

After the prospect informed his original university of his intent to transfer and requested permission to contact Seton Hall, the university denied the request. The former associate head coach learned the request was denied, but still had 87 impermissible calls with the prospect’s mother.

According to the agreement, the former associate head coach said he did not report the calls with the prospect’s mother because they involved a personal relationship outside of the prospect and basketball, and he believed the communications were permissible.

Now there’s a man who’s taken get on the mom’s good side to get to the recruit to a whole new level.

Advertisements

Another long national nightmare is over.

BREAKING: The NCAA has concluded its review. #OhioState star DL Chase Young will sit one more game (against Rutgers) and then will return for the rest of the season.

— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) November 13, 2019

Good to see Ohio State’s suffering come to an end after **checks notes** playing the worst team in the conference.

Losing the messaging war

One reason the NCAA is faring so poorly right now in the face of numerous state legislatures moving to protect college athletes’ NIL rights is because amateurism is a tougher sell when you’re not talking about putting them on a straight salary paid by the schools.  I mean, how convincing is yelling “student-athlete!” at the top of your lungs when this is the argument the other side is making?

“At first we got crushed. They beat us in every avenue and we kind of anticipated that,” said Walker, the North Carolina congressman. “But with some of these states taking a look at it, we’ve been able to push back a little bit on what the truth of this legislation is and we believe it’s starting to shift to our side with people saying, ‘Yeah, a 20 year old male or female busted their rear end 40 hours a week on a volleyball court or gymnasium or football field and to tell them they have no access to their name, image or likeness isn’t right.’ Look, Nike isn’t coming in and signing 450,000 college athletes but somewhere the backup quarterback at some university can go back home and pick up 100 bucks for an appearance fee at a restaurant or a car wash or whatever, that individual should have access to be able to do so and not be the only people in this country that are banned from having that access.”

Sadly, I feel pretty sure the NCAA won’t be able to come up with an effective answer until it gets its ass kicked a few more times in the political arena.

Stop making sense

Really, this is college football in two sentences:

Urban Meyer: suspended 3 games for mishandling domestic assault allegations against Zach Smith and misrepresenting what he knew in a public statement.

Chase Young: expected to be suspended 4 games for accepting a loan from a family friend to fly his girlfriend to the Rose Bowl.

— Paul Hembekides (@PaulHembo) November 9, 2019

What a time to be a fan!

“That’s just up to the school.”

Let me see if I’ve got this straight.

James Wiseman, the top high school recruit in the country last year, is enrolled at Memphis and plays for Penny Hardaway.  Prior to signing, here’s the lead up:

And that’s what the NCAA is alleging happened when Hardaway gave Wiseman and his mother $11,500 for moving expenses when Wiseman relocated from Nashville to Memphis in the summer of 2017.

The NCAA considers Hardaway a University of Memphis booster because he donated $1 million to the school in 2008. According to the NCAA, that makes Hardaway a booster in perpetuity.

Does the NCAA shut down Wiseman from playing when he gets there?  After all, this looks pretty open and shut.

The answer is nah.  It waited until the first game of the season was just around the corner.  And from there, fun ensued.

First, prominent Memphis attorney Leslie Ballin conducted a news conference inside his 12th floor offices and announced that the NCAA had deemed Wiseman ineligible earlier this week and that he had filed a lawsuit on Wiseman’s behalf with the NCAA and the University of Memphis as defendants. A few minutes after that, a Shelby County Judicial Court judge granted Wiseman a temporary emergency restraining order that allowed Wiseman to play Friday.

About 10 minutes after that, at 5:17 p.m., Wiseman emerged from a black Sprinter van in the garage underneath FedExForum and ran inside the building. Just after 6 p.m., he was announced as a member of the starting lineup. By the second half, the NCAA responded.

The response?

NCAA statement on James Wiseman: pic.twitter.com/B4hClOQxMj

— Inside the NCAA (@InsidetheNCAA) November 9, 2019

“Likely ineligible”?  Boy, that sounds open and shut.

This is the lesson learned from the North Carolina academic scandal.  There are times when the best strategy is to simply brazen things out.  The NCAA doesn’t handle brazen particularly well.

It's been wild to watch the last few years as schools in trouble have gone from mostly cooperating/playing nice with the NCAA to just flat out fighting them at every turn.

Mind you, the schools ARE the NCAA. They set the rules they are now protesting. Good times.

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) November 8, 2019

It’s a pretty strong indication of how screwed up things are when the NCAA’s own membership — itself, in other words — is the resistance.

Welcome to our world, Ohio State.

It’s a great feeling when your best player is put in limbo because of a potential NCAA violation, let me tell ‘ya.

The Heisman Trophy campaign and the most dominant individual season in college football is on hiatus: Chase Young is facing an indefinite suspension.

Fresh off the finest performance of his career in a record-breaking win over Wisconsin, the Ohio State junior is now suddenly, shockingly unavailable for the nation’s top-ranked team heading into the final month of the regular season, according to multiple Lettermen Row sources. Poised to break the school’s single-season record with his next sack, the captain won’t be available to do it for the Buckeyes on Saturday against Maryland — and now the wait is on to see exactly how much time Young will miss.

Ohio State has not publicly commented at this point on Friday morning, and exact details about the potential NCAA violation remain unclear at this point. Multiple sources have indicated that the program is optimistic that Young will be cleared to return to Buckeyes this season, but a resolution for the matter still hasn’t been reached.

The rumor swirling around is that Young took money from an agent.  He can pay it back and take that familiar four-game hit, if that’s the case, I suppose.  Fun in the meantime, though.

And if I can offer one small bit of advice… don’t waste any time consulting with Greg McGarity about how to deal with the NCAA on the matter.

***************************************************************************

UPDATE:  This didn’t take long.

The school has confirmed the absence: "Ohio State’s Chase Young will not play in this Saturday’s game between the Buckeyes and the Maryland Terrapins due to a possible NCAA issue from 2018 that the Department of Athletics is looking into." https://t.co/stCRE5xIST

— Austin Ward (@AWardSports) November 8, 2019

***************************************************************************

UPDATE #2:  From Chase Young, comes this:

pic.twitter.com/ji7uTdYXxp

— CY2 (@youngchase907) November 8, 2019

A loan.  From a family friend he knew before he enrolled.  That’s been repaid.

Thank Gawd the NCAA is on the mother.

***************************************************************************

UPDATE #3:  And from Young’s representative…

Chase took a small loan from a close family friend last year to cover basic life expenses. Loan was repaid months ago and we’re working to restore his eligibility. Unfair and outdated @NCAA rules punish athletes for making ends meet while enriching everyone else. https://t.co/2Jsqj7f7TR

— Tim (@TimNevius) November 8, 2019

***************************************************************************

UPDATE #4:  This just gets better and better.

A source told The Dispatch that the loan is believed to have been used to pay for airfare for Young’s family to attend the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day. If Ohio State had been in the College Football Playoff, such expenses would have been covered by a special fund to defray costs for players’ families. But since the Rose Bowl wasn’t a CFP game, families of players had to pay their own way.

Maybe one day we won’t look back and laugh about it.

Ha ha ha.

If there is one college football player in America who could benefit from the new NCAA’s name, image and likeness rule, it’s Rodrigo Blankenship…

“I think he might have missed his window,” quipped Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart. “I don’t know enough about ‘name, image and likeness’ to know where it’s going to go, but he would have been a guy that would have done well with that, for sure.”

It’s only a funny joke when it’s about college athletes, get it?