Ole Miss Admits Minor Violation

((HT: Jackson Clarion-Ledger/Brandt))

When the topic is college football recruiting, somebody's always watching. If Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt ((pictured, thanks Jackson Clarion-Ledger)) didn't know that already, he does now.

According to a letter obtained by The Clarion-Ledger through a public records request, the NCAA recently sent an inquiry to Ole Miss detailing possible violations by Nutt and several UM assistants of the NCAA rules that prohibit coaches of speaking publicly about prospects before they have signed letters of intent.

Nutt's comments were made in a story posted on the Internet site Rivals.com on January 28, about a week before the national signing day for football prospects.

The article by Tom Dienhart detailed a day in the life of recruiting for Nutt as he flew from Oxford to Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia and Maryland.

The article and possible violations were brought to the attention of the NCAA by an outside party that was not identified in the NCAA's letter.

After an internal investigation, Ole Miss responded with a letter to the Southeastern Conference on May 6 stating that a Level II secondary violation of Bylaw 13.10.2 was committed as a result of the comments and information in the article.

Level II secondary violations are considered minor, and their punishment usually does not affect scholarships or practice time.

"Rules are rules," Nutt said. "The difficult thing is I didn't think we were doing anything wrong. But the good thing is we won't make the same mistake again."

Nutt said he didn't know who turned Ole Miss into the NCAA. Mike Horn, a member of the NCAA enforcement staff who sent the letter to Ole Miss, would not comment.

NCAA Bylaw 13.10.2 covers comments before signing. It states that schools can't comment about a recruit's ability or the impact a recruit could make on the team. It also says schools can't comment on the likelihood of the recruit signing with any school.

In its inquiry, the NCAA also questioned whether Ole Miss violated 13.10.1, which covers recruiting contacts in the presence of media. But both Nutt and Dienhart said the writer was never in the presence of the recruits and Ole Miss found no violation of that rule.

"I did this exact same story with Houston in 2003 and nothing ever came of it," Dienhart said in an interview with The Clarion-Ledger. "I was never introduced or even in the presence of recruits. I'm just tagging along."

In the Rivals.com article in question, no names were printed, but Nutt went into detail about various recruits. His comments were often coupled with specific details about where each prospect is located, which makes it quite easy to figure out who Nutt is talking about.

An example: The article talks about a quarterback from Maryland who is considering Ole Miss. Nutt and offensive coordinator Kent Austin make various comments about the quarterback's ability and also his background. There's no name in the article, but there was only one quarterback in Maryland that Ole Miss was recruiting last year - Raymond Cotton.

Cotton signed with the Rebels.

Another example: The article says that UM offensive line coach Mike Markuson is talking to an offensive line prospect from Hargrave Military Academy, with the writer listening. Dienhart quotes Markuson in his story as saying: "Hey, we are going to get you to 'the league.' You know that. We are the best school to develop you."

From that excerpt, it's not a stretch to infer that the prospect was offensive tackle Bobbie Massie, who also signed with the Rebels.

In UM's internal investigation, it found that "while the article did not mention any prospect by name, it did provide other information which could identify the prospect. The institution concluded that this constituted a violation."

Ole Miss compliance director David Wells said that outside of the secondary violation, he expects nothing else to come from the investigation.

Athletic director Pete Boone said recruiting rules can be confusing and that Nutt wasn't trying to commit a violation.

"The hard thing about recruiting is that no two cases are alike," Boone said. "We just need to make sure our coaches have a constant communication with our compliance staff about what you can and can't do."