Trolls keep repeating the NCAA’s conclusion without actually looking at the structure of the bylaw itself, which is the real problem. The NCAA essentially stretched the tampering rule beyond its text and created a standard that doesn’t logically exist in the rulebook.
Under NCAA Bylaw 13 (Recruiting), a tampering violation requires impermissible recruiting activity directed at a student-athlete enrolled at another institution prior to their entry into the transfer portal. That means identifiable recruiting conduct, inducements, promises, organized contact, or direct recruiting communication with the athlete.
But in this case the NCAA acknowledged there were no texts, no emails, no DMs, and no direct recruiting contact with the student-athlete. Instead, they built the violation around a conversation with a parent and the timing of phone calls. That’s not what the bylaw actually regulates. The rule governs recruiting contact with the student-athlete, not vague second-hand interpretations of conversations with third parties.
What the enforcement staff effectively did was reverse-engineer a violation. They started with the assumption that a transfer must have involved tampering and then treated circumstantial timing as if it were proof of recruiting. That flips the basic enforcement standard on its head. The burden of proof is supposed to be on the NCAA to show actual impermissible recruiting activity, not on a coach to prove a phone call didn’t involve recruiting.
That’s why the penalty structure itself exposed how weak the case was. A Level II violation with no coaching suspension is almost unheard of in legitimate tampering cases. If the NCAA truly had evidence of pre-portal recruiting, the penalty framework would have reflected that.
So the issue isn’t just the facts, it’s that the NCAA essentially expanded the bylaw beyond its plain meaning, turning normal conversations and preexisting relationships into violations. When enforcement bodies start inventing standards that don’t appear in the rulebook, you no longer have rule enforcement, you have rulemaking after the fact.