Florida has been placed on one year of probation and coach Dan Mullen has been given a one-year show-cause order after the NCAA determined that the football program violated recruiting contact rules on two occasions in 2019.
Mullen was found to have failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance and will be banned from all off-campus recruiting activity during the fall 2020 evaluation period. He was also given a four-day off-campus recruiting ban during the fall 2021 contact period, and the university banned him from recruiting for the first 10 days of the January 2020 contact period.
At the heart of the infractions report are Mullen’s contacts with a Seattle-area recruit in January 2019. Mullen arranged for an impermissible off-campus recruiting contact when he messaged the recruit leading up to and on the day of Mullen’s visit to his high school. Mullen admitted to having a 15-minute meeting with the recruit’s head football coach while the recruit was in the room.
Florida ended its recruitment of the player in question and will not recruit any prospects at his high school through the 2020-21 academic year.
The university also self-reported a Level III violation when it had a series of unofficial visits at its football offices with seven nonscholastic football teams on March 28 and 29 of 2019. The teams were on their way to a tournament in Tampa and a total of 127 prospective recruits were given a tour of the facility, during which time an assistant coach had contact with several athletes and posed for a photo with at least one of the teams.
In a statement, Mullen said that “promoting an atmosphere of compliance within our program is important to me.”
“Following the rules and being committed to doing things the right way is part of my history as a coach, at all levels, and I regret we didn’t do things the right way in this situation,” he said. “Even though this is an isolated matter, I’m still disappointed in the violations outlined in the report. We’re going to learn from our mistakes and I’m confident this won’t happen again. Most importantly, we’ll keep working for the benefit of our student athletes to make our program one our fans and University can be proud of.”
Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin said there is “no evidence of systemic compliance issues” but that in this case we “accept responsibility for our actions.”
“NCAA rules are in place to create fairness and integrity, and the University of Florida has an established history of adhering to those rules,” Stricklin said in a statement. “It is important for our coaches and staff to remain diligent and take responsibility for compliance, and extricate themselves from potential NCAA violations.”
Other penalties approved by the Committee on Infractions include:
• A $5,000 fine.
• Reduced fall 2019 evaluations from 42 to 21.
• Reduced football evaluation days by 12 for the 2018-19 academic year.
• Restrictions on all recruiting telephone calls with football prospects from April 15 through May 31, 2019.
• A reduction in the number of football official visits during the 2019-20 academic year by one and in the number of unofficial visits during the 2019-20 academic year by 14.
• A seven-day off-campus recruiting ban for the entire football coaching staff during the spring 2021 off-campus recruiting period.
• A 30-day off-campus recruiting ban for the assistant coach in October 2019 and a three-day off-campus recruiting ban for the January 2020 contact period.
• One-on-one rules education for both the head coach and assistant coach regarding NCAA contact and evaluation rules.
