By Scott Salomon
The University of Colorado self-reported 11 NCAA violations committed by Coach Prime and his staff, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY. The violations include tampering with transfer portal players and Deion Sanders’ use of social media for recruiting purposes.
“The University of Colorado Boulder athletic department is committed to complying with NCAA regulations and will continue to educate our coaches, student-athletes, and staff to ensure that we remain in compliance,” a Colorado spokesperson said in a statement to USA Today. “We take all infractions seriously, regardless of the severity, and in these specific cases, these minor infractions were all self-reported to the NCAA.”
Of the 11 alleged violations were two instances that occurred in May 2023. One was where Colorado allegedly sponsored and hosted a postgraduate football camp where prospective transfers who did not enter the portal as of yet, appeared and were spoken to by Colorado coaches. This is an alleged violation of NCAA Bylaw 13.11.3 which requires that players actually enter the portal before there can be any other contact with third-party schools.
Incidentally, the University of Oregon is accused, not by the NCAA, but by Florida State, of tampering with running back Rodney Hill, by having illegal communication with him during bowl season, before he entered the transfer portal. This communication allegedly took place during the time Hill was practicing for the Orange Bowl with his former Seminoles teammates. Hill eventually transferred to the University of Miami.
With respect to Colorado’s transfer violations, the NCAA imposed a two-week recruiting ban from June 15-28 and a ban on transfers for one day, December 4, the day in which the fall transfer portal window opens.
The recruits that were allegedly tampered with by the Buffs staff, were deemed permanently ineligible to play for the University of Colorado for all eternity.
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The Colorado spokesperson downplayed the occurrence of the camp and minimized, no, trivialized, the event.
“We believe that this violation should be viewed more as a procedural issue, as opposed to a tampering violation,” Colorado claimed in reporting the mishap to the NCAA.
A procedural issue? This event took planning and the planning was equated to malice aforethought. They planned out the violations and they knew what they were about to do was wrong. They could have stopped at any time and cancelled the event, but they did not and they went ahead with the commission of the violation, which not only hurt the team and the University, but barred the athletes from ever wearing a Buffaloes uniform in the future.
As for the social media issue, Coach Prime allegedly had an Instagram Live session with a prospective athlete who was identified as Aaron Butler, a 2024 signee with the University of Texas. NCAA rule 13.10.1..2 prohibits recruits from involvement, directly or indirectly, from involvement in any media activity conducted by an NCAA head coach.
Deion knew better, but he jeopardized his team and the player.
As a penalty, Colorado’s entire coaching staff was benched for one whole week during recruiting on the road and cannot evaluate players during said week.
Minor NCAA violations are common in major college athletic departments. In Colorado’s case, the infractions provide a window into how Deion Sanders’ social media engagement and transfer-heavy recruiting strategy sometimes violated technical bylaws. https://t.co/qGqjM62n9d
— Brent Schrotenboer (@Schrotenboer) January 25, 2024
Prime allegedly committed a secondary social media violation as his social media team posted a spreadsheet listing names of prospective recruits that were going to attend a game. That is a no-no in the NCAA world.
However, it is the violations that go towards tampering with student-athletes who have not entered the transfer portal are the most heinous. They must be addressed immediately or teams will be poaching players like wildfire.
Colorado and Oregon are not the only two teams to have violations involving tampering with potential portal recruits who have not yet entered the portal. The University of Iowa was alleged to have tampered with with Alabama offensive tackle Kadyn Proctor.
Proctor was unhappy at the University of Alabama and was apparently homesick. Word got to the Iowa recruiting staff, who knew Proctor as the player grew up near campus, and contacted him before he entered the portal.
Alabama transfer Kadyn Proctor on keeping his relationship with Iowa through this past year pic.twitter.com/dmuPLXNOyj
— Dallas Jones (@DallasJonesy) January 20, 2024
Situations like this until teams are hit with sanctions severe enough to deter other schools from activities such as these. If the punishment does not give rise to the level of the crime, then teams will continue to act with impunity.
Colorado should have lost the right to sign transfer portal players for at least one full cycle as a result of their illegal camp. Iowa should lose the rights to Proctor and lose scholarships as a result.
It is important to acknowledge that just because a school self punishes itself, it does not mean that the NCAA cannot come in and levy harsher penalties. The self-imposed penalties are used to make penance with the NCAA and show that they have not lost institutional control. The NCAA can still come in later and read them the riot act and throw the book at them.
Until that happens, it will be like the Wild, Wild, West. The cowboys will come into town and take what they want.