| FTBL Report: Georgia imposed fine, penalty for recruiting violations

bama alum

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Jawja...What a time to be Kirby Dumb it Greg McGarity, huh? Clay Webb...Glad we missed on him and now the recruiting violations. Sure, $10K is nothing to a SEC university, but some of those sanctions. Nice black eye to a coach who eeds a good slap in the face.

Re: the violations: Report: Georgia imposed fine, penalty for recruiting violations

Report: Georgia imposed fine, penalty for recruiting violations

The Georgia football program paid a $10,000 fine and imposed multiple recruiting restrictions following impermissible benefits provided to recruits.

Bulldogs recruits received discounted or free school apparel three times between March 2017 and January 2019, according to a NCAA violations summary obtained by the Athens Banner-Herald's Marc Weiszer. The violations may be connected to the University of Georgia bookstore, per the report.

In response to the NCAA violations, Georgia paid the $10,000 fine and reduced official visits by four during the current recruiting cycle, took away three weeks of unofficial visits, reduced its evaluation days by nine for the spring of 2020, reduced evaluation days by three during fall 2019 and stopped recruiting the athletes involved. Georgia also agreed not to recruit any prospects at one of the high schools involved for two years.

The names of the Bulldogs staff members and recruits involved in the incidents were not included in the violations summary. The school, which said the violations occurred on Oct. 11, described those violations as Level III, which the NCAA defines as giving a minimal recruiting or competitive advantage.

In addition to the three Level III violations, Georgia also reported two secondary violations. A Georgia football staffer committed one of those infractions by retweeting and adding text to a writer's Twitter post about a recruit verbally committing to the Bulldogs; that violation occurred on Aug. 26.

The other secondary violation was related to a football player's photo being used on a company's social media post. The player was wearing the company's product in the post, and he had granted permission for the photo to be used. However, the school said that the player was unaware how the photo would be used, and he did not receive any payment from the company. The picture was removed on the day it was posted, and the athlete involved was given rules education.

Georgia had previously reported three other secondary violations that occurred last March and April. Those infractions occurred prior to the dismissal of former recruiting program coordinator Dacia King, who handed in her resignation on May 6, 2019. Director of on-campus recruiting Lukman Abdulai was also suspended at the time, and he later resigned with severance pay last June.

An open record request obtained by Dawgs247 in August returned a heavily redacted file detailing the April and March violations. All three of the violations were tagged with the Level III label.

No names were mentioned in the documents obtained by 247Sports, but one violation was reported on April 29 relating to impermissible entertainment. An "institutional staff member" escorted a student-athlete to the sideline for a couple of minutes during the Bulldogs' G-Day Spring Scrimmage, which is against NCAA rules. That staffer was not allowed to participate in on-campus recruiting activities for 30 days.

A pair of violations were also reported the month prior on March 8. One of those was related to a student worker who escorted a recruit from check-in to his seat and spent five minutes with the prospective student-athlete. That resulted in a violation because the student worker isn't allowed to have recruiting duties. The full-time support staffer was reprimanded via a letter for allowing the student worker to host the recruit, and said student worker was banned from participating in any events where recruits were present and placed in an office role for the remainder of the 2018-2019 school year.

The other March 8 violation was related to a member of the coaching staff providing a video to the parent of a recruit who wasn't able to accompany the student-athlete on the visit. The video was "personalized" per the report, making it a violation.

The violating member of Georgia's coaching staff was forbidden to have contact with that recruit for 30 days after the infraction was reported, including text messages, phone calls, and off-campus visits during the spring evaluation period. Georgia also took away two spring evaluation days for said staff member.

Georgia surpassed Ohio State for third place in the class of 2020 247Sports Composite Team Rankings on Thursday, when five-star athlete Darnell Washington announced he had signed with the Bulldogs at the Under Armour All-American Game.
 
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