Rutgers football team slammed with 7 NCAA infractions

While our football team consistently took L’s all season on the field, they also got into some pretty serious trouble off the field, too. The NCAA opened an investigation on the Scarlet Knights team in the Spring of 2015 and earlier today they issued a Notice of Allegations (NOA) alleging seven total violations. The Scarlet Knights have 90 days to submit a response to these allegations, followed by a hearing before the NCAA Committee on Infractions. The Committee will take all this into consideration before deciding what penalties are deemed fit for the crimes.

Since last year, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team was swimming in scandal after scandal, including five of the football players being charged with armed robbery, former Head Football Coach Kyle Flood coercing a football player’s professor to boost his grade, and his subsequent suspension followed by expulsion. This time, however, the NCAA is cracking down on the following. An e-mail sent out earlier today by Rutgers University President Robert Barchi details the infractions that the NCAA is accusing Rutgers football of:

• The former head football coach is alleged to have provided a former student-athlete with an impermissible extra benefit by directly contacting a professor seeking special consideration for the student-athlete in an academic course relating to the 2014-2015 academic year.  In addition, he is charged with failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance in the football program, violating the principles of NCAA head coach responsibility legislation.  Both allegations are deemed Level II by the NCAA.
• A former assistant football coach is alleged to have had improper off-campus recruiting contact with a prospective student-athlete in 2014 (Level III) and the NCAA has also charged the coach with unethical conduct for providing false or misleading information to the NCAA and the institution during the investigation. (Level II)

• The NCAA has alleged that between the 2011-12 academic year and the Fall of 2015, the Rutgers football host/hostess program, staffed by student workers, was not properly operated and supervised as required by NCAA legislation; that two student hostesses had impermissible off-campus contact and electronic correspondence with prospective student-athletes; and that the former football director of recruiting impermissibly publicized the recruitment of prospective student-athletes.  (Level II)
• It is alleged that between September 2011 and the Fall of 2015, the University and the Director of Sports Medicine employed practices and procedures that violated the institution’s drug-testing policy by: failing to notify the Director of Athletics of positive drug tests; along with the former head football coach, failing to implement prescribed corrective and disciplinary actions and penalties; and failing to identify select drug tests as positive in accordance with University policy.  (Level II)
• Because of the scope of these alleged violations, the NCAA has also alleged that between 2011 and 2016, the University failed to monitor its football program regarding its host/hostess program and drug-testing program.  (Level II)

President Barchi also stated in this e-mail that “the University has cooperated fully with the investigation since the start, including both the discovery and self-reporting of several of these violations.” He has also stated that he aims to “be as transparent as possible while the infractions process continues.”

The results of this investigation will likely not conclude until late 2017.