There could be more NCAA violations about to be revealed and one of the targets could be the Texas Longhorns.
Lance Zierlein of Houston area sports talk radio station 1560 The Game, tweeted some ominous looking hints of an upcoming story to be posted by Yahoo! Sports, which has a decent track record when it comes to this sort of investigative reporting.
"If one of my sources are correct, Yahoo will have a piece with Will Lyles that will put a couple of colleges in harm's way regarding NCAA," Zierlan tweeted. He followed up by tweeting "I know that the Texas Longhorns are getting ready to get some unwanted attention thanks to the Yahoo piece with Lyles that is coming out."
Lyles is the man who was reported to be selling recruiting information to the University of Oregon for a sum of $25,000. Some of the information appears to have been outdated but there are spreadsheets with information on possible recruits for the Class of 2012 and 2013 across four states. The NCAA is currently reviewing that case and the school has made a decision not to comment on the investigation until they receive word from the NCAA.
Back in 2008 Texas head coach Mack Brown commented on what he would do if he knew another program was committing an NCAA violation.
“You’re always going to have violations by schools, and that’s in every profession not just ours, because some coaches are going to cheat," Brown said in an archived post by The Houston Chronicle. "That’s the way they’ve made their living. You’re always going to have some families that buy into that and you’re always going to have a certain level of families that look you right in the face and lie to you, and our job is to make sure that we do not recruit a young guy that would be bought, not recruit a family that would be bought and not talk to a family that you think may lie to you. And about 98 percent of the time that works for you, but you’re always going to have people in every profession that are going to break rules. And I’ve talked to Joe Paterno about it because it really used to frustrate me a few years ago. So I said, “Joe, what do you do with guys that are being bought?”
Paterno said, “Stay away from them.” according to Brown, who continued to share the exchange between the two coaches. “Do you turn them in?” Brown asked. Paterno said, “Nah, it doesn’t do any good. Just stay away from them.”
Brown continued to say, "So we try to recruit guys that want to come to Texas, and if they don’t want to come, very honestly that’s okay. And if they don’t want to come and you try to force them into coming by over-recruiting them, it usually doesn’t work anyway. We like the ones we get. I think it’s bad every year. More tough decisions are made near the end of signing day, and that’s why I wish we had an early signing period, because more coaches panic and more families panic when the pressure gets on.”
There is no word on exactly what kind of violation Texas may be accused of yet, nor is there confirmation that Texas will be indicted in any possible story. At this time there is also no indication as to what other programs may be discussed in the story, although it is likely Oregon will be mentioned in relation to Lyles.
An email to the University of Texas about this rumor has not been responded to at this time.
In 1987 the University of Texas was charged with 19 violations over a seven-year period. Some of the violations included inappropriate gift-giving, lending of cash, and empoyment to a prospective recruit.
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