A coach at a major college football program is in hot water after tweeting at high school recruits.
Jay Norvell, an assistant coach at Oklahoma University, tweeted nearly identical scholarship offers on Tuesday to six different high school players with his cell phone number: “This is Coach Jay Norvell from Oklahoma. … Would like to offer you a Full Scholarship to Oklahoma. Call me!”
All six players are wide receivers and high school juniors. He also sent them individual messages, like “we have the best Offense in the country for a WR Here at OU!”
The tweets have all since been deleted, though they were screengrabbed by SBNation.com.
According to NCAA rules, “Tweeting is permissible as long as coaches are not using it to contact individual prospective student-athletes and are … not discussing specific recruits or contacting them.”
It appears Norvell only committed a “secondary violation,” meaning he tried “to provide only minimal recruiting, competitive or other advantages.” Punishment for a secondary violation is usually a slap on the wrist.
If the NCAA somehow chooses to see Norvell’s multiple tweets as multiple violations, however, he could be found guilty of a “major infraction,” prompting an NCAA investigation that could lead to penalties for the school.
As always is the case with Twitter scandals, there’s some speculate that the Norvell’s account was hacked. “I’d say it’s a near certainty,” tweeted Josh McCuistion, editor of SoonerScoop.com, a site devoted to Oklahoma University recruiting.
However, one of the recruits seems to have disproven that theory. When asked on Twitter if it could have been anyone but Norvell behind the tweets, recruit Rashaad Samples tweeted back “nah he sent me that on fb too.”
According McCuistion, Norvell’s efforts were in vain to begin with. “Sooners aren’t likely to land any of those guys anyway,” he tweeted.
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