Notre Dame Fined, Put On Probation For Violating NCAA Recruiting Rules
Notre Dame was placed on probation for one year, issued a $5,000 fine and handed a few recruiting visit restrictions for multiple minor recruiting violations, the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions announced Thursday.
The penalties stem from a former assistant coach’s impermissible contact with a Seattle-based recruit, impermissible texts to a recruit and head coach Brian Kelly impermissibly posing for a photo with a prospect.
The NCAA’s findings say the ex-assistant “met privately with the prospect at his high school before July 1 after the completion of his junior year of high school. During that meeting, the former assistant coach expressed the school’s interest in recruiting the prospect. The former assistant football coach also had exchanged impermissible text messages with another prospect on 10 occasions.”
The meeting with the recruit took place on Jan. 15, 2019, according to the NCAA’s case document. The player was a class of 2020 prospect. Notre Dame terminated the assistant coach in January 2020.
Based on the timeline of the coach’s departure and BlueandGold.com’s record of staff recruiting visits on Jan. 15, 2019, the assistant is believed to be former cornerbacks coach Todd Lyght. The prospect is believed to be defensive end Sav’ell Smalls, a four-star recruit from Seattle’s Garfield High School who eventually signed with Washington.
Florida and Texas A&M were previously handed NCAA punishments for violations of recruiting rules due to impermissible contact with a recruit in Seattle. The Athletic reported in December that both cases stemmed from contact with Smalls at Garfield before July 1, 2019.
The 10 impermissible texts were sent to a class of 2021 recruit between July 17 and Aug. 19, 2019, which was before Sept. 1 of that recruit's junior year.
“The assistant football coach mistakenly believed him to be a 2020 prospect and sent him one text message July 17, 2019; three text messages August 7, 2019; and six text messages August 9, 2019,” the NCAA’s full report reads.
Kelly’s photo with a recruit was deemed a Level III violation, the lowest kind in the NCAA’s penalty structure. The NCAA investigation found that “after initially declining a request, the head football coach impermissibly posed for a photo with another prospect while visiting the prospect’s high school during the fall evaluation period.”
The photo was taken in October 2019 at a high school in Pickerington, Ohio, with a class of 2021 recruit “while visiting Pickerington during the fall football evaluation period, the head football coach was being escorted through the high school’s cafeteria when the football prospective student-athlete recognized the head football coach and requested a photo with him. The head football coach initially declined, but ultimately allowed the photo.”
The infractions for Notre Dame and the former assistant are Level II-mitigated penalties.
“Any violation of NCAA rules is unacceptable and Notre Dame takes full responsibility for its actions in this regard,” Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick said in a statement to several media outlets. “While we made clear to the NCAA that our view that the agreed-upon penalties exceeded the nature of the infractions, we accept the final outcome of the case.”
The full list of penalties, per the NCAA’s announcement:
• One year of probation, from Jan. 21, 2021 through Jan. 21, 2022.
• A $5,000 fine.
• A six-month show-cause order for the former assistant football coach, including a one-game suspension at any employing member school.
• Reduced football official visits for the 2020-21 academic year by one.
• Reduced football unofficial visits by 14 days for the 2020-21 academic year.
• A seven-day off-campus recruiting ban for the entire football staff during the 2020-21 academic year.
• The university ended the recruitment of the Seattle-based prospect.
• The university will not recruit any prospects from the high school in Seattle from the 2019-20 through 2021-22 academic years.
If certain penalties can’t be served during the designated year due to COVID-19 complications, they will carry over to the next academic year.
Probation itself does not include a bowl ban, but a violation of it could turn into one.
This story has been updated.
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