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NEWS
Youngstown State hit with NCAA violations from Bo Pelini era
ZACH BARNETTAPR 20, 2021
Youngstown State has been slapped with a "failure to monitor" penalty for the Penguins' football program for a pair of violations that are at once forgivable and confounding.
First, the forgivable one.
A Youngstown State assistant had 41 impermissible contacts with a transfer recruit. The recruit in question played Division II football at the time and informed his Youngstown State contact he was in the Transfer Portal, and thus "legal" for YSU to recruit. The problem: Division II has no Transfer Portal.
"The prospect had previously requested that his athletics department compliance office add him to the Transfer Portal but did not understand that the school was not required to add him because Division II had not adopted the same transfer rules at that time," the NCAA's announcement reads. "The assistant coach was not provided with rules education or access to the Transfer Portal, and he did not check with the school to confirm the prospect’s transfer status."
Youngstown State needed written permission from the unnamed D2 school to recruit the transfer, and as a result each of the contacts that occurred over the course of the player's unofficial and official visits were impermissible.
And now the other.
Former head coach Bo Pelini and two unnamed assistants had 16 impermissible contacts with recruits and conduced impermissible evaluations of two prospects, the NCAA found.
The contacts were impermissible because the three coaches in question did not pass their NCAA-mandated recruiting certification tests for the 2019-20 academic year. "Though the school had sent multiple email reminders to the coaches who had not passed the required certification, the university and enforcement staff agreed that the school failed to monitor the football program because it did not have an adequate system in place to ensure coaches were properly certified prior to engaging in recruiting activities," the release said.
Pelini was not identified by name in the announcement, but the release said Youngstown State discovered the violations "when the now-former football head coach was hired by another school in January 2020."
Pelini is currently out of coaching, bought of a 3-year contract after 11 months as LSU's defensive coordinator.
As a result of the violations, Youngstown State has been hit with the following penalties:
-- A $5,000 fine
-- A 2-year probation
-- A reduction of three official visits for the 2021-22 academic year
-- A 2-week ban on unofficial visits in 2020-21
-- A 2-week ban on all recruiting communication in 2020-21
-- A reduction of three evaluation days in 2021-22
-- The assistant coach who impermissibly recruited the D2 player was suspended from all coaching for three preseason days and served a 2-week recruiting suspension in February of this year
Youngstown State went 1-6 this spring under first-year head coach Doug Phillips.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.
BY ZACH BARNETT
