Urban Taking Some Heat

Perhaps the most intriguing story in college football today is the ongoing investigation of Urban Meyer's recruitment of JUCO WR Carl Moore from California.

A few days ago I posted an article spelling out the potential violations: Moore's girlfriend, Maranda Smith, received several calls from Meyer with the intent of aiding in her recruitment to the UF gymnastics squad, one of the nation's best.

I forwarded the information to the good people at The Wizard of Odds, who in turn reported the investigations in more detail. Currently the story can be found on most major media outlets.

The obvious issue is that Meyer is not permitted to recruit a prospective athlete of another sport, particularly under the clear motivation that it would result in a likely commitment from a stud receiver. In addition, even in acting as a gymnastics coach (which he clearly is not) he exceeded how many calls he is allowed at a given time.

In response, UF initially cleared Meyer of any potential violations. Urban was quoted after the meeting with the athletic department as saying "No problems with that, we're fine."

However, since that original meeting, the situation has progressed into something considerably more serious than Meyer has suggested. First came the report that UF hadn't completely finished its investigation into the matter. So Meyer wasn't necessarily off the hook to begin with.

Now Meyer's next problem will be to deal with another emerging issue related to Moore's recruitment. Apparently, Meyer wasn't the only one speaking to Moore during his recruiting calls. Golden boy Tim Tebow has been implicated as well.

Only minutes after Tebow had won the Heisman Trophy, Meyer contacted Moore and handed the phone over to Tebow. This is a clear violation of NCAA regulations against contact between prospective athletes and current student-athletes.

UF and Meyer will now have to deal with two separate issues, either of which could potentially lead to punitive action by the NCAA. So far Meyer has received at least a little bit of help in the form of a Miami Herald piece posted just this morning.

In the report, Smith denies having long conversations with Meyer with the purpose of recruiting her for the gymnastics squad: "Meyer never called me personally.''

Instead she insists the phone calls were simply made to get in touch with Carl Moore. Regardless, Meyer is definitely in some hot water. In most instances, stuff like this gets swept under the rug either by the program itself, or by the NCAA.

However, UF faces a problem in that the violations were originally looked over by the athletic department. Unless their renewed investigation leads to a decision to self-report recruiting violations, it would be likely that any NCAA investigation that finds Meyer guilty would be far less lenient than if UF were to admit some guilt in advance.