NCAA punishes Florida, Dan Mullen for recruiting violations

Florida be cheatin’! The NCAA just announced it has penalized the Gators football program for violating recruiting contact rules on two occasions and head coach Dan Mullen for not promoting an atmosphere of compliance. Mullen received a one-year show cause penalty, which prohibited him from all off-campus recruiting activity during the fall 2020 evaluation period and also includes a four-day off-campus recruiting ban during the fall 2021 contact period. Florida also banned Mullen from recruiting during the first 10 days of the January 2020 contact period.

So, what did the Gators do? Here’s the rundown from the NCAA:

The university, the head football coach, an assistant coach and NCAA enforcement staff agreed that the assistant coach and head coach had impermissible in-person contact with a prospect when they met with a prospect’s high school coach while the prospect was in the room. At that meeting, the Florida coaches expressed an interest in recruiting the prospect. Leading up to that visit, the head coach sent the prospect texts about his upcoming visit to the high school and his interest in recruiting the prospect. NCAA rules were violated because off-campus recruiting contacts are not allowed until after a football prospect’s junior year of high school. The violations were Level II.

According to the agreement, members of the coaching staff also had impermissible contact with approximately 127 prospects when seven nonscholastic football teams visited the campus and toured the football facilities on their way to a tournament in Tampa. The assistant coach had incidental impermissible contacts with several prospects. The violations were Level III.

The head coach agreed that he did not promote an atmosphere of compliance in light of his personal involvement in one of the violations.

As part of its punishment, Florida ended the recruitment of that prospect and agreed not to recruit any prospects from his high school in Seattle through the 2020-21 school year. Other penalties included fewer evaluation days last year and a $5,000 fine.

For more, check out the release at the link below.

[NCAA]