Mike Farrell Sports

College Football Recruiting, Opinion, and Analysis

Choosing ‘To Be First’ Over ‘Being Right’ Is Always A Losing Proposition

With Fifita’s strong rebuke to tampering reports, was BBB right or was this a poor case of journalism?

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Dec 28
Dec 28

by Kyle Golik

To say college football is messed up might be a gross understatement. It is literally the wild west between players opting in and opting out, transfer portal, boosters that are essentially extensions to the program with NIL, coaches finding ways to conquer the transfer portal, and much more.

Now we have a potential tampering claim against Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer that he reached out to Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita about transferring to Alabama. With Fifita not officially in the transfer portal, this would be a clear case of tampering, at least according to Blue Bloods Bias (BBB).

BBB read between the lines and did cite sources from The Athletic and BroBible – who in turn cited 247Sports.

247Sports Greg Biggins got this quote from Fifita’s dad Les about Noah’s decision to stay in Tucson on January 20, ““We’ve known Kalen DeBoer for a long time and he loved Noah when he was at Fresno State,” Fifita said. “He recruited him hard when Noah was at Servite and they wanted both boys at Alabama. It’s ’Bama, we had to listen. But, end of the day, both kids felt like they had unfinished business here. Plus, it’s a family here — it really is. We want to keep this thing together and we know the whole team couldn’t go to ’Bama just like the whole team wasn’t being recruited to Washington. This is the best move for everyone and, with Noah and TMac and the core staying, we think we got a great shot to keep everyone else here as well.”

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On February 1, Antonio Morales wrote for The Athletic an article about the impact Nick Saban’s retirement had on West Coast programs who had to deal with the effect of the major announcement.

Morales got some quotes from Les Fifita, “We had three for sure,” Fifita said. “Alabama is the only one we were really interested in outside of Arizona and staying and obviously Washington. The boys were like, ‘I don’t know if we could go to Washington.’”

Now the NCAA rule is very clear about permissible and impermissible communications allowed by coaches who are in or out of the Transfer Portal:

“Student-athletes may not speak to other schools about transferring directly or indirectly through others (e.g., family member, scholastic or nonscholastic coach, advisor, former teammates) until they receive notice that they have been input into the Transfer Portal […]

Existing recruiting rules prohibit communicating with a student-athlete who is enrolled at another Division I school prior to the student-athlete appearing in the Transfer Portal. These rules extend to indirect contact made by third parties on the student-athlete’s behalf.”

The question now is Fifita’s quotes to 247Sports and The Athletic admissions of tampering? For BBB it seems to be a yes.

With BBB posting on social media, “BREAKING: Alabama & HC Kalen DeBoer are being accused of TAMPERING with Arizona Star QB Noah Fifita…” as a lead to a post and this is clear case of bad journalism and moreover guilty of sensationalism.

No where in the source content produced by 247Sports or The Athletic did they accuse Alabama or Kalen DeBoer tampering. BroBible did produce a piece of content titled, “Breakout Star QB’s Father Claims Tampering After Reportedly Revealing Alabama Contacted His Son” but there was no supporting content, it was a sensationalized title with no content to back it up. The article ends with “Therein lies the possible tampering” with no concrete proof just surmising Les Fifita quotes were an admission of guilt.

What BBB accusation led to a viral event surrounding Noah Fafita and his father Les stepped up to strongly rebuke any illegal or wrongdoing.

“Absolutely fake…blatant lies…just the world we live in I guess,” wrote Fifita on Twitter (X). “Never have I spoken to Coach DeBoer or anybody from his camp. Crazy these dudes hound you to talk and then spit out shit for likes and views. Just literally had this talk with my HS kids about doing things for the right reasons and not just likes. Damn, maybe it’s not the kids…. Maybe it’s the adults,” Fifita continued. “Bet you next thing will be these dudes jumping in my DMs.”

Irresponsible journalism is bad for all that partake in covering athletics. A major slur to a journalist is calling content “fake news,” but when you have an individual that deduces from quotes that something happened, without having factual information and alleges something happened, that is a black eye for all of us who try to do the right thing.

No one was accusing Alabama of tampering, no one is accusing DeBoer or the Fafita’s of doing anything wrong because legitimately Les and Noah could have discussed opportunities they perceived to be out there and with the transfer portal open to Noah, he could have pursued something.

They chose as a family what was best for Noah, his family, his teammates and stayed in Tucson.

BBB did not have the facts to make that accusation, BBB may be right with their accusation but without the “smoking gun” and no possession of facts or the truth, it’s another bad case of poor journalism.

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