ASU & Cal alum Herm Edwards under investigation by NCAA for recruiting violations during the pandemic
It's not looking good for the Sun Devils
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ASU is being investigated for, allegedly committing multiple recruiting violations and infractions during the extended dead period due to Covid-19. According to Pete Thamel, the investigation already holds “…documentation includes specific evidence of multiple examples of high school prospects taking illicit on-campus recruiting trips to the Arizona State campus. Those came during the pandemic-inspired dead period that ended June 1. For more than a year prior, NCAA rules explicitly banned players from visiting on campus because of COVID-19. The dossier, according to sources, lays out pieces of both the players' trips to campus and how those trips were paid for.”
The story was first broken by Doug Haller and Bruce Feldman of The Athletic, and expanded upon by Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports.
Earlier this month, an anonymous person sent a dossier of dozens of pages to the Arizona State athletic department. It included screenshots, receipts, pictures and emails related to numerous potential violations within Arizona State’s football program, according to sources.
The NCAA enforcement staff is in possession of those documents, sources told Yahoo Sports. Among the enforcement staff members working on the case is Vic DeNardi, an assistant director of enforcement. And the arrival of those documents to Arizona State compliance chief Steve Webb has ASU officials conducting internal interviews. (The NCAA declined comment.)
Arizona State vice president for media relations Katie Paquet confirmed the NCAA investigation to Yahoo Sports, which was first reported by The Athletic. She declined further comment on specific allegations.
Sources said members of the football program deliberately, blatantly and consistently broke rules related to hosting players during the dead period, including coach Herm Edwards meeting with recruits. A source added that the evidence included pictures of the visits, including Edwards with a recruit who ended up enrolling at ASU. “It’s clear whoever provided it had a ton of access and knowledge of the football program,” a source told Yahoo Sports. “The stuff in there wouldn’t be provided by anyone outside the football program.”
It remains to be seen how quickly the investigation will collect the necessary evidence for a ruling. This story is developing and will be updated as more information is released.
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I read this article last night. If true it's damning for the Sun Devils. Herm Edwards hands off CEO style may come to haunt him and Antonio Pierce probably wrecked his career. Yahoo Sports does have a way of being overly dramatic on scandal stories, but in this case it's hard not to see that what ASU did repetitively is about as bad as it gets.
A “Bay Area prospect - who enrolled at a rival PAC-12 school” was recorded and analyzed by ASU coaches in violation of the rules.
There’s not a lot of recruits who fit that bill, and, of that group, the Cal roster holds the majority.