George O'Leary's Knights were not so gentleman like
Is Central Florida’s two year probation a precursor to what Southern California can expect in the next couple of days? The NCAA has determined that the UCF staff committed major recruiting violations to include placing over 200 non-permissible phone calls and about 100 non-permissible text messages from June 2007 to January 2009 to 27 recruits and parents.
The responsible parties are former UCF recruiting administrator Ed Marynowitz and former director of player personnel Steve Rubio. Marynowitz moved on and is now the director of player personnel at the University of Alabama, while Rubio was a recruiting intern at the University of Tennessee last season. And we all know, Tennessee recruiting has been anything but squeaky clean.
Of course, the stand-up George O’Leary had no knowledge that any of the infractions were taking place. In a statement, he did say that the “violations that took place are extremely disappointing.”
Since the school reported the violations in 2008, the NCAA did not throw down the gauntlet, but a 2 year probationary period should send a message that all schools must be in strict compliance with the NCAA’s recruiting rules. All eyes are now turning to the west coast to see if and how the NCAA comes down on USC for their questionable recruiting practice.
