Since the start off the year, according to the Athens-Banner Herald. All of them are minor, and two of them are The University of Georgia has self-reported seven NCAA violations since the start related to football.
According to the report, one of the two football violations occurred off-campus while the other happened during an on-campus visit. In the off-campus violation, one Georgia staff member had contact with a recruit who was a junior in high school when the prospect approached him in the lobby of the school. That coach was prevented from off-campus recruiting for 15 days and couldn’t participate in on-campus recruiting for 30 days.
The second football violation occurred when a current football player was hosting a recruit during a visit. The current Bulldog gave the recruit a hoodie. To make up for it, the recruit contributed the price of the hoodie to charity, and the Georgia player was educated on NCAA compliance rules.
The other five violations involved gymnastics, softball, women’s golf, and equestrian with the gymnastics program reporting two violations of its own. The violations are considered to be very minor by the NCAA.
At the moment, no programs at the University of Georgia can do any recruiting. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the NCAA has suspended all on-campus and off-campus recruiting until May 31. It will be until at least June 1 before programs can visit recruits in their homes or bring them to campus.
On Monday, Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart talked with Bulldogs on Gameday about how he and his team are dealing with the shutdown. During this period, the staff has had limited contact with the players in terms of virtual meetings, but Smart has been encouraging his players to use their newfound free time to develop their skills — both on and off the football field.
"We are asking and challenging our guys to be somewhere local, have a pen and paper, write things down," Smart said. "Really use this as a time to commit to their trade because you have so many hours during the week, this is a small piece when you talk about the time our kids have on their hands now. Take two hours out of seven days, and say we are going to dedicate this to knowledge and learning a trade."
Personally, Smart has taken time during the shutdown to examine the way he and his staff operate and see if they can create any kind of advantage for themselves when the pause ends.
"I don't know if creative, but definitely innovative technological ways that maybe coaches weren't comfortable with," Smart said. "And maybe you're finding a better way of doing something that you should have been doing all along. I can sit on a defensive meeting, listen in to an offensive meeting and still have something up in my office watching tape. So it's very unique and you're able to see more things at once. And that's been a learning curve for me." (Courtesy of 247Sports.com)
