re: Does there need to be an NCAA investigation into what Leigh did?

Shea dixon said this morning on OTB that LSU, Florida, and OU were all really surprised as they all felt confident that they were going to get his signature. He also said they signed NDA's so they weren't allowed to notify anyone. Whole situation looks bad for the kid.

To be clear, the NDA was from NBC (or whoever was putting on the AA Game I cant remember) because they claimed exclusive rights to the announcement. Either way Shea did say there was nothing stopping him from letting staffs know what was happening. Kid chose to Lead 3 other schools on.

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Shea did say there was nothing stopping him from letting staffs know what was happening. Kid chose to Lead 3 other schools on.

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From my point of view this is a side issue.

The two most critical points are, in my opinion, in order:

1. Any school initiating contact was in violation of NCAA tampering rules without even knowing it.

2. The LOI states Leigh must disclose that he is signed exactly to prevent (1), but there is no consequence for him if he doesn't (hence not enforced).

So putting those together, LSU (or OU, or UF) could possibly be punished for Leigh's violation of the terms of his LOI. I'll repeat: We could be punished for him not abiding by the terms of a signed contract.

Now, granted, the NCAA would be crazy and illogical to try to punish us (or OU/UF). However, NCAA at times has behaved very illogically. We lost recruiting visits because of a an extra blank page in our media guide. We got punished because Womack signed with Bama and when we contacting him it was within the rules, but later it was not.

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Do we know whether he notified other coaches that he had signed? Is it possible other coaches knew but he (and they) just didn’t announce it? Not plausible, I know, just asking if it’s possible.

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The indications are that the LSU, OU, & UF staffs were not aware that he had already signed. But I do think it’s possible that coaches knew, and everyone’s freaking out for no reason.

I listened to Shea’s segment on OTB this morning and I thought he kind of danced around the issue. He was pretty vague about the whole thing. But Shea definitely suggested that recruiters had expended resources (i.e. continued recruiting him) and were surprised to find out he had already signed.

That said, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for why nobody has outright said “Leigh failed to notify recruiters that he signed an NLI.” For starters, coaches can’t talk openly about recruits that haven’t signed with their school. Second, if an insider says directly that Leigh failed to notify a coach who contacted him, that insider is basically admitting that the program committed a recruiting violation.

So I don’t think we’ll get much clarity on it one way or the other. It’ll probably just disappear like a million other allegations of recruiting frickery.

ETA: I stand corrected on the public commentary about recruits - I was thinking coaches couldn’t talk about them until they enrolled elsewhere, but it appears they are allowed to talk about recruits once they sign an NLI with another school.

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I mean he has a point. His lies could have led a team to potentially unknowingly commit one or more recruiting violations. Hell, it may have been he and Dabo’s plan to do that. Fact is that once a player signs, that should be the end of it. They should be announced by the ncaa.

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This 100%

Makes sense, but not necessarily the way it happens. NCAA may have changed their rules, but getmorewithles posted on page 2: Remember Matt Womack. He signed FA papers with us and therefore coaches had unlimited contact with him. He then flipped to Bama and we had to report a violation for which we received penalty
Hopefully the NCAA realizes the problem this causes and clears up the process. Make sure these young men know to inform the other coaching staffs when they sign.

This is an embarrassing thread and should be deleted it's a really salty look

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This is an embarrassing thread and should be deleted it's a really salty look

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Thread title is a bit over the top, but it's a good point nonetheless.

Schools are not supposed to be able to contact a signed recruit (as that's part of the whole point of signing). It's an NCAA violation to do so. However, in this case, the kid signed somewhere early, told absolutely nobody, allowed himself to be continually recruited right up until he announced his commitment without informing anyone that he also already signed weeks prior.

By law, this is an NCAA violation for any coaches/schools who recruited him the moment after he signed. So they could face punishment of some kind. However, it wasn't their fault at all, as they had no idea or any indication he had signed with any school. This really should go back on Leigh in some way, as the NCAA cant be allowing this to happen if technically it's a violation by rule. I dont know what the NCAA can do, or if they can even fault Clemson since Clemson technically did nothing wrong I guess unless schools have to report signees immediately somewhere (which it doesnt seem like they have to).

Not sure what punishment they could give Leigh, maybe a forced redshirt like they do with academic issue enrollees or something...IDK what you do there...but the schools certainly deserve no punishment despite "breaking the rules". Leigh going unpunished makes it seem like it's totally fine to do.

My guess is this nonsense ends and the NCAA just makes a portal of all signed players for coaching staffs to see and you have to report a player as signed in that portal within 24hrs or something so other schools are not allowed to recruit them if they see them in there. No more of this "Secret" or "silent" signee crap. If you sign, at minimum every coaching staff will know about it.

NBC should be fined and lose rights to the game.