The old joke in SEC coaching circles goes something like this: Jeremy Pruitt got caught cheating at Tennessee because he had more than one bagman.
Now it looks like Pete Golding could be staring at a visit from the NCAA — whatever that means/is worth — because he didn’t use any go-between.
He’s — allegedly — doing the dirty work himself.
Multiple coaches have now accused Golding of tampering with signed players, a move that’s against NCAA rules — even though the coaching community isn’t sure if it will ever be enforced.
Which is to say, it has no teeth. At least not yet.
Some in the coaching community want tampering changed to a Level I violation, and have specific sanctions and fines for each event. A loss of scholarships, or more damning: a coach suspension.
For each event.
In other words, if what Clemson and Fresno State coaches allege is true and Golding tampered with signed players, he’d have to serve a two-game suspension in the upcoming season.
He’d serve one game for allegedly sending texts to former Clemson (and now Ole Miss) linebacker Luke Ferrelli, and another game for alleged illegal contact with Fresno State wide receiver Josiah Freeman.
Or the NCAA could go even stronger, all but daring coaches to tamper with other rosters. The first violation is 10% of the season (one game), the second violation is 50% of the season (six games) and the third violation is a season-long suspension.
If the goal is to truly eliminate this nonsense, there must be teeth to the rule.
No more soft playing it, no more declarations of investigations only to find out months (or years) down the road the coach was given one year of probation and wasn’t allowed to contact recruits for the first two days of the transfer portal opening.
Or some other do-nothing sanction.
Want to make coaches think twice about tampering? Hit them where it hurts most: Take away their ability to coach games.