Auburn's recruiting ban that wasn't could further complicate the programs standing w/ NCAA

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A report last week from AL.com said that Auburn “did not conduct recruiting of any kind from September 2017-April 2018.” The media outlet cited Auburn athletics as the source for that information, adding that there were “no official visits, no unofficial visits, and no contacts or phone calls made to any recruits during that time.”



But there was just one problem: The ban that supposedly stretched from the Sept. 26, 2017, arrest of assistant coach Chuck Person as part of the nationwide federal corruption investigation until the end of that season, wasn’t exactly ironclad. And if Auburn implemented a compliance policy in direct response to a potentially major NCAA rules violation by a member of its staff, and then flouted its own policy, that could magnify the issues that lie ahead for the basketball program.


“What Auburn was hoping could be a mitigating factor in dealing with the NCAA could wind up being an aggravating factor,” said a source with extensive knowledge of the NCAA investigative process. In NCAA parlance, “mitigating factors” often are steps a university took to be in compliance with the rules; those are taken into account by the Committee on Infractions when it comes to levying sanctions. “Aggravating factors” are just the opposite: Rule-flouting actions by a school that can increase the severity of sanctions.


Only Pearl, with his florid history of failing to adhere to recruiting parameters, could end up involved in this one. He was fired at Tennessee in 2011 after lying about having two recruits at his house for a cookout when the recruiting calendar did not permit it. Fifteen years ago, when he was at Milwaukee, the school turned in a secondary violation for an impermissible contact with a recruit that was cut from the same cloth — attending a function at Pearl's house. And only Auburn, with its long and storied tradition of athletic dysfunction, could turn a potentially positive compliance decision into a potentially massive negative.

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