From Bruce Feldman's blog at espn.com...
RANDOM STUFF
• There was some juicy stuff that came from Auburn's "Big Cat Weekend," in which the Tigers hosted a bunch of blue-chip prospects on unofficial visits. A lot of recruits, especially Texas RB Lache Seastrunk, left Auburn raving, Charles Goldberg writes.
There's also some video of the weekend festivities floating around the Web and at one point Seastrunk looks into the camera and gives Nick Saban a shout-out, saying, "What's up, Nick Saban? Wait 'til we get here."
A bigger concern for Gene Chizik is the school's examination of Auburn's violation of some rules, Evan Woodbery reports:
"At least two NCAA bylaws may have been breached during the weekend. Although NCAA rules (Bylaw 13.10.6) bar the introduction of visiting student-athletes during any function, videos of the event posted on two Web sites show the crowd cheering as the players are introduced by name, position and hometown. The man yelling the introductions does not appear on the videos, but assistant head coach Trooper Taylor is shown leading the crowd in cheers immediately after the introductions. Introduction of student-athletes would be a secondary violation and would not affect the athletes' eligibility.
"NCAA Bylaw 13.10.5 prevents schools from publicizing an athlete's visit or allowing the visitor to "participate in team activities that would make the public or media aware of the prospective student-athlete's visit to the institution (e.g., running out of the tunnel with team, celebratory walks to or around the stadium/arena, on-field pregame celebrations)." The rolling of Toomer's Corner was advertised on all three major Web sites that cover Auburn Saturday, with push-pinned message board posts urging fans to attend. The posts did not attribute the information to coaches or other Auburn staff members. However, many fans did show up for what was clearly a planned event. Auburn police provided crowd and traffic control. Aubie, Auburn's mascot, helped lead cheers."
OK. No doubt we've been seeing more and more of this kind of colorful recruiting story making it into the press (and into the NCAA's crosshairs) in the past few years. I'm going to get into this topic more in a subsequent entry since it's obviously one I feel a connection to given some of this spectacle was the reason I wrote a book about recruiting. I spoke to a college administrator Monday morning about Big Cat Weekend and got an interesting reaction:
"That is one of the biggest problems I have with the NCAA. All of the prospects enjoyed it, and they leave the campus having a great time. Auburn will report a secondary violation, which is nothing. In the end they will probably get some of those players. They should put in a rule that if you have multiple reported violations with a prospect you are not allowed to recruit him."
Seastrunk sure left Auburn gushing: "I can't reveal all the information, but you guys will be surprised when I commit [in early January]. And I think y'all might like where I choose," he told Auburnundercover.com. "This is the best ever," Seastrunk continued. "They just welcome you in. I feel the warmth of everyone. I love the environment here and I feel at home."
I suspect the reporters who were told the "y'all might like where I choose" probably are a little uncomfortable with that part especially as the school's compliance folks snoop around how Big Cat Weekend came together.