I muted Darren Rovell on Twitter a long time ago, mostly because everything he tweeted, even if useful, always rubbed me the wrong way. But on Wednesday, I wish I had changed that decision because, in a particularly Rovellian way, he may have accidentally tweeted out a recruiting violation without knowing he did.
Boss recruiting move by Pitt football coaches, who showed up at the Fort Myers News-Press offices yesterday, according to @NewsPressSeth.
The paper was having a photo shoot with the top talent in the area.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 13, 2017
Pitt coaches showed up in the newsroom while a photo shoot was going on with top area talent. Rovell thinks this is a “boss recruiting move”. Turns out, as the first reply to the tweet shows, that it’s actually a recruiting violation.
Darren, this is actually a recruiting violation for Pitt coaches to have contacts with these recruits in the presence of Media. There’s a reason other Universities don’t do this. pic.twitter.com/Dl9WCmvL2J
— Matt Varnadoe (@MattMVarnadoe) December 13, 2017
Varnadoe is the director of compliance at James Madison, the defending FCS Champions, for the record. In their defense, the News-Press described the Pitt coaches’ visit to the newsroom as a “spontaneous recruiting spot” where the coaches spent two hours just coincidentally visiting some top talent in the area in a place they were all gathered in at the same time. Varnadoe then goes on to explain why this is a recruiting violation to Rovell:
Correct, it would be different. Same as when universities have visits and media happen to see them. But the media should not be actually present during those contacts. But if they are meeting in a news room, then I don’t know how you get away from that.
— Matt Varnadoe (@MattMVarnadoe) December 13, 2017
Obviously, the NCAA isn’t going to impose the death penalty on Pitt for something as minor as this, but it’s still hilarious to see Darren Rovell of all people tweet praise for the move, only to get truth-bombed by an actual athletic department compliance director right after.
That has to be peak Rovell, right?
