2) By the letter of the law, Brosnan probably broke some of the absurd laws but there may n ot be proof of it.
3) A lot of coaches were IRATE with Brosnan. There seem to be three things established coaches hate more than anything, i) young guns that talk big ii) negative recruiting or iii) any sort of tampering.
This alleged tampering seems quaint by the new modern standards but remember a lot has changed quickly.
Think about, people are upset that a college coach talked to the dad of a cross country runner whom he'd known for year sthe night before she entered the portal when he didn't even offer her a scholarship. Meanwhile, the LSU governor has been openly offering Lane Kiffin $13 million for the last month. We as fans are expected to accept the latter but be outraged about the former?
If I was still in college coaching and my great friend Chris Lear called me up about his daughter transferring, I'd definitely say, "Hey man. I can't officially talk about this until you guys enter the portal. But hyopothetically speaking, we'd love to have someone of xx credentials (similar to their stats) and we have the ability to get them into the school. That's all I can say now"
Rojo agrees Brosnan broke NCAA rules!!!!
The rules are not absurd, they are there to protect the athletes. Nobody wants coaches to be allowed to harass parents trying to get their children to transfer when those athlete may not even have expressed an interest to transfer.
If you allow exceptions or any grey areas, they are manipulated and abused. These rules have been strongly enforced for as long as the NCAA has existed.
The daughter actually even admitted the calls were about recruiting. There is proof:
"During prospect 2’s interview with the enforcement staff, she recalled her father telling her about one of the calls he had with Brosnan in which Brosnan expressed that he would love to have prospect 2 at UCLA."
In Rojo's hypothetical conversation with Lear, he is very careful to NOT say anything about whether he'd love to have the daughter on the team. And Rojo was a college coach so this is very clear evidence that all college coaches know the rules. This shows that Brosnan's conversations crossed the boundary of what is allowed and is proven evidence of tampering.
This same group of critics keeps repeating the NCAA’s talking points because they still can’t accept the reality: Brosnan didn’t tamper, and the NCAA couldn’t prove that he did. That’s not an opinion, that’s exactly why the case rests on nothing but second-hand recollections instead of actual evidence. Let’s be clear about what the actual bylaw requires. NCAA Bylaw 13.1.1.3 only prohibits recruiting related contact with a student-athlete before they are in the transfer portal. It does not ban all human interaction, lifelong friendships, or conversations between adults about life, health, or anything non-recruiting. And both fathers testified under oath that Brosnan’s exact response to any transfer-related topic was: “I can’t discuss that until she’s in the portal.” That is precisely what compliance officers across the country instruct coaches to say. That’s not evasion, that’s textbook compliance. What the NCAA relied on instead is double hearsay: The father never accused Brosnan of recruiting. The daughter merely repeated what she claims she hoped or thought her father told her. There is no recording, no text, no inducement, no scholarship discussion, no visit arranged, no NIL offer, no transfer request. Just the vague phrase “he would love to have her,” which is not a recruiting action as a matter of law or NCAA precedent, especially when both parties directly deny it occurred and no recruiting followed until after the portal entry. And here’s the part critics keep dodging: The NCAA spent massive time and resources on phone extractions, interviews, and document review and still found nothing else. No pattern. No inducement. No offer. No pressure. No “harassment.” Nothing. If this were tampering, the evidence would be overwhelming. Instead, the file is empty. Even worse for the NCAA, the infractions panel admitted in its own decision that: Brosnan had longstanding personal relationships with both families. Both fathers confirmed Brosnan refused recruiting talk pre-portal. UCLA compliance failed to provide clear education on how pre-existing relationships interact with portal rules. An NCAA working group had already flagged that strict application of the tampering rule to friendship-based conversations could be unjust yet no guidance was issued before hammering him. So no, this case does not prove strict enforcement “working as intended.” It proves the opposite: a rushed system that stretched a bylaw beyond its own purpose to create a violation where no recruiting actually occurred. Lastly, calling this “protection of athletes” rings hollow when: No athlete was harmed No athlete testified to being pressured No athlete received improper benefits or scholarship ( the reason tampering was a thing ) And both athletes transferred only after entering the portal, which is exactly how the system is supposed to work Bottom line: Brosnan followed the rule. He said “I can’t talk until you’re in the portal.” The NCAA couldn’t find real evidence to contradict that, so it substituted hearsay and optics. That’s not enforcement. That’s narrative control. And the fact that this case is still being debated at all already shows how weak the underlying proof actually is. This isn’t a loss for Brosnan. It exposed how broken the NCAA process is.
The NCAA, not Brosnan, carries the burden of proof. This isn’t a popularity contest or a credibility poll on a message board. It’s an enforcement case governed by evidentiary standards. The NCAA doesn’t get to say “we don’t like him” and call that proof. You don’t get to replace evidence with character attacks. Even if you assume, purely for argument’s sake, that everyone involved might lie when under pressure, the enforcement staff still has to prove a recruiting violation with admissible proof. They did not. There is: No recording No text messages No inducement No scholarship discussion No visit arranged No NIL offer No transfer request No recruiting follow-up before the portal Instead, the father himself never accused Brosnan of recruiting, and both directly denied that any recruiting occurred pre-portal. The system does not allow enforcement to ignore sworn testimony and substitute speculation. As for dragging up unrelated résumé disputes from years ago, that’s a non sequitur legally. You don’t get to retroactively lower the proof standard for an entirely different allegation based on message-board credibility arguments. Courts, arbitrators, and enforcement panels all follow the same rule: Personal attacks do not replace corroborating evidence. And again, this is the part that keeps getting avoided, the NCAA fully imaged the phone, subpoena level ( without permission to look at all his files and they did anyway and found nothing) deep dove the communications, and still found nothing else. That alone tells you everything. If tampering actually occurred, there would be a digital trail. There wasn’t one. So no, this is not “believing Brosnan because he’s a friend.” This is simply applying the burden of proof standard that the NCAA itself is required to meet and failed to meet. Suspicion is not evidence. Dislike is not evidence. Prior controversies or rumors are not evidence. If the NCAA had real proof, it would be in the record. It isn’t. That’s why this case remains built on inference instead of facts and why the case is on appeal and ESPN called them out!
When a national investigative journalist like Dan Wetzel steps into a case involving a cross-country assistant coach, that’s not random, that’s a signal that the process itself is broken in a way that matters far beyond one person. Wetzel doesn’t chase minor NCAA disputes; he chases systemic abuse of power. The fact that this case drew his attention tells you the NCAA didn’t just get a call wrong, they weaponized their accelerated infractions system, cut procedural corners, split the school from the individual, and then buried a coach using a process that protects institutions and crushes people. And the truly damning part? This isn’t new. The NCAA has been repeatedly sued for due process violations, restraint of trade, and arbitrary enforcement, and they keep losing. Yet they ran the exact same playbook again here. That’s not a mistake, that’s institutional behavior. When an organization keeps breaking its own rules, keeps getting sued, keeps getting overturned in court, and still doubles down, that stops being incompetence and starts looking like intentional abuse of power under the cover of “compliance.”
When a national investigative journalist like Dan Wetzel steps into a case involving a cross-country assistant coach, that’s not random, that’s a signal that the process itself is broken in a way that matters far beyond one person. Wetzel doesn’t chase minor NCAA disputes; he chases systemic abuse of power. The fact that this case drew his attention tells you the NCAA didn’t just get a call wrong, they weaponized their accelerated infractions system, cut procedural corners, split the school from the individual, and then buried a coach using a process that protects institutions and crushes people. And the truly damning part? This isn’t new. The NCAA has been repeatedly sued for due process violations, restraint of trade, and arbitrary enforcement, and they keep losing. Yet they ran the exact same playbook again here. That’s not a mistake, that’s institutional behavior. When an organization keeps breaking its own rules, keeps getting sued, keeps getting overturned in court, and still doubles down, that stops being incompetence and starts looking like intentional abuse of power under the cover of “compliance.”
One daughter’s testimony of her father’s description of conversations with Brosnan, coupled with the phone call records between Brosnan and another recruits father, are conclusive to anyone with a brain.
One daughter’s testimony of her father’s description of conversations with Brosnan, coupled with the phone call records between Brosnan and another recruits father, are conclusive to anyone with a brain.
That allegation is legally worthless for multiple independent reasons. A daughter repeating what her father allegedly told her about what Brosnan supposedly said is uncorroborated double hearsay and carries no admissible evidentiary value absent independent verification. There is no recording, no text, no email, no contemporaneous note, and no third-party witness proving recruiting content. Worse, the statement itself is inherently unreliable because the father could just as easily have been offering parental reassurance, he would love to have you” as encouragement, not reporting an actual inducement. That possibility alone destroys any claim of factual certainty. Critically, both Brosnan and the father explicitly denied that such a statement was ever made at all, which leaves enforcement relying solely on subjective interpretation filtered through two layers of hearsay. Phone logs prove only that calls occurred, they prove nothing about content, intent, inducement, or recruiting activity. Treating that stack of speculation as “conclusive” would fail under due process, administrative evidence standards, and basic principles of fairness.
Sean calm down. It's over. You are out and not getting back in.
Relax. I’m not Sean Brosnan. I’ve actually never met him. But if facts bother you this much, maybe I should be on his legal team.
It's clear you are involved with the case in some way. No casual runner/follower would spend this much time on a message board so vehemently defending someone they don't know.
The NCAA keeps losing in court for a reason, you can’t enforce private bylaws like they override federal and state law. They operate more like an overreaching homeowners association than a real regulator, and judges keep reminding them of that. Credit to Brosnan for not folding quietly and for forcing this into daylight with ESPN , that’s how broken systems get exposed. And this isn’t even the end of it.
One daughter’s testimony of her father’s description of conversations with Brosnan, coupled with the phone call records between Brosnan and another recruits father, are conclusive to anyone with a brain.
That allegation is legally worthless for multiple independent reasons. A daughter repeating what her father allegedly told her about what Brosnan supposedly said is uncorroborated double hearsay and carries no admissible evidentiary value absent independent verification. There is no recording, no text, no email, no contemporaneous note, and no third-party witness proving recruiting content. Worse, the statement itself is inherently unreliable because the father could just as easily have been offering parental reassurance, he would love to have you” as encouragement, not reporting an actual inducement. That possibility alone destroys any claim of factual certainty. Critically, both Brosnan and the father explicitly denied that such a statement was ever made at all, which leaves enforcement relying solely on subjective interpretation filtered through two layers of hearsay. Phone logs prove only that calls occurred, they prove nothing about content, intent, inducement, or recruiting activity. Treating that stack of speculation as “conclusive” would fail under due process, administrative evidence standards, and basic principles of fairness.
Your claim that the daughter’s testimony carries no value has no admissible evidentiary value. That the father and Brosnan denied it is just an attempt to cover their own butts.
Phone call logs were damning due to the timing of the calls. Anyone with a brain acknowledges Brosnan calling the father right before the daughter entered the portal and the father calling right back afterwards is evidence they talked about….the daughter entering the portal.
Relax. I’m not Sean Brosnan. I’ve actually never met him. But if facts bother you this much, maybe I should be on his legal team.
It's clear you are involved with the case in some way. No casual runner/follower would spend this much time on a message board so vehemently defending someone they don't know.
Right? it’s preposterous to think anyone other than Sean would a)write this much b) know this level of detail c) post this many times and d) be this blind to reality
Relax. I’m not Sean Brosnan. I’ve actually never met him. But if facts bother you this much, maybe I should be on his legal team.
It's clear you are involved with the case in some way. No casual runner/follower would spend this much time on a message board so vehemently defending someone they don't know.
i can only see what you see. Ans in my opinion you’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. When a lawyer is doing the talking and the client stays quiet, that’s usually because the legal record is stacked and the strategy is locked. From experience, that’s the posture of a side that knows it has leverage. If I were the NCAA, I wouldn’t feel comfortable right now.
It's clear you are involved with the case in some way. No casual runner/follower would spend this much time on a message board so vehemently defending someone they don't know.
Right? it’s preposterous to think anyone other than Sean would a)write this much b) know this level of detail c) post this many times and d) be this blind to reality
The case is online , go read it. I’m a lawyer, so I know what matters and what’s just noise.
The rules are not absurd, they are there to protect the athletes. Nobody wants coaches to be allowed to harass parents trying to get their children to transfer when those athlete may not even have expressed an interest to transfer.
If you allow exceptions or any grey areas, they are manipulated and abused. These rules have been strongly enforced for as long as the NCAA has existed.
The daughter actually even admitted the calls were about recruiting. There is proof:
"During prospect 2’s interview with the enforcement staff, she recalled her father telling her about one of the calls he had with Brosnan in which Brosnan expressed that he would love to have prospect 2 at UCLA."
In Rojo's hypothetical conversation with Lear, he is very careful to NOT say anything about whether he'd love to have the daughter on the team. And Rojo was a college coach so this is very clear evidence that all college coaches know the rules. This shows that Brosnan's conversations crossed the boundary of what is allowed and is proven evidence of tampering.
This same group of critics keeps repeating the NCAA’s talking points because they still can’t accept the reality: Brosnan didn’t tamper, and the NCAA couldn’t prove that he did. That’s not an opinion, that’s exactly why the case rests on nothing but second-hand recollections instead of actual evidence. Let’s be clear about what the actual bylaw requires. NCAA Bylaw 13.1.1.3 only prohibits recruiting related contact with a student-athlete before they are in the transfer portal. It does not ban all human interaction, lifelong friendships, or conversations between adults about life, health, or anything non-recruiting. And both fathers testified under oath that Brosnan’s exact response to any transfer-related topic was: “I can’t discuss that until she’s in the portal.” That is precisely what compliance officers across the country instruct coaches to say. That’s not evasion, that’s textbook compliance. What the NCAA relied on instead is double hearsay: The father never accused Brosnan of recruiting. The daughter merely repeated what she claims she hoped or thought her father told her. There is no recording, no text, no inducement, no scholarship discussion, no visit arranged, no NIL offer, no transfer request. Just the vague phrase “he would love to have her,” which is not a recruiting action as a matter of law or NCAA precedent, especially when both parties directly deny it occurred and no recruiting followed until after the portal entry. And here’s the part critics keep dodging: The NCAA spent massive time and resources on phone extractions, interviews, and document review and still found nothing else. No pattern. No inducement. No offer. No pressure. No “harassment.” Nothing. If this were tampering, the evidence would be overwhelming. Instead, the file is empty. Even worse for the NCAA, the infractions panel admitted in its own decision that: Brosnan had longstanding personal relationships with both families. Both fathers confirmed Brosnan refused recruiting talk pre-portal. UCLA compliance failed to provide clear education on how pre-existing relationships interact with portal rules. An NCAA working group had already flagged that strict application of the tampering rule to friendship-based conversations could be unjust yet no guidance was issued before hammering him. So no, this case does not prove strict enforcement “working as intended.” It proves the opposite: a rushed system that stretched a bylaw beyond its own purpose to create a violation where no recruiting actually occurred. Lastly, calling this “protection of athletes” rings hollow when: No athlete was harmed No athlete testified to being pressured No athlete received improper benefits or scholarship ( the reason tampering was a thing ) And both athletes transferred only after entering the portal, which is exactly how the system is supposed to work Bottom line: Brosnan followed the rule. He said “I can’t talk until you’re in the portal.” The NCAA couldn’t find real evidence to contradict that, so it substituted hearsay and optics. That’s not enforcement. That’s narrative control. And the fact that this case is still being debated at all already shows how weak the underlying proof actually is. This isn’t a loss for Brosnan. It exposed how broken the NCAA process is.
I have a feeling this isn’t the end of the story, it’s the beginning of public accountability for the NCAA. It won’t be the first time that’s for sure.