January 25, 2009

Message board posts led to violation reporting

By now you may have heard that Washington has self-reported a recruiting violation for simulating a game-day environment. New UW head coach Steve Sarkisian brought recruits out to Husky Stadium, ALLEGEDLY gave them all jerseys with their name on the back (which would be a violation), and had them run out of the tunnel with the fog machines blasting while being introduced over the PA system (violation!).

Now... you would think that the Husky coaches would think it pretty obvious that tunnel runs and smoke machines would be a rather obvious simulation of a game-day experience, right? Not so fast, according to U-Dub.

Morris said UW coaches thought the fog machine did not violate the rule since it is not a regular part of UW's game-day environment.

"They were just looking for a way to make the visits fun," he said.

Morris said he is confident there were no other violations related to the visits, which were the first for new coach Steve Sarkisian and his staff. Thirteen players were in for visits.

Morris said he spoke with Sarkisian and "he was remorseful and regretted that it happened and said if he had known it was going to be a violation it never would have happened."

Umm... yeah... right, Pinnochio.

What you may not have heard is just how that reporting of that violation came about.

According to Jim Moore at SeattlePI.com, the Huskies had to report several recruiting violations because stories of the game-day simulation were ferreted out on a Washington State message board.

According to Moore, user 89Steep read a post on DawgNation.com in which UW recruit Jeremiah Tofaeono (who has since committed to Utah, btw) bragged about the jerseys. When he checked back, 89Steep found that the quotes referring to the jerseys had been removed from the original post. That set 89Steep to posting at Cougfan.com and a little back-and-forth crossposting ensued with charges of a cover-up.

Fast forward to another recruit post at DawgNation, this time about the fog machine and tunnel run.

Nobody would have known about the fog machine if it weren't for another story on Dawgman, this one about Desmond Trufant's visit last weekend.

"I was shocked by what they did," Marcus Trufant's brother said. "They acted like it was a real game, and they had smoke, and we ran out of the tunnel."

The Cougfan message board lit up over that story, too. In a shot at Dawgman, CougGrad82 wrote: "Maybe you can hire Ollie North to help you shred this past weekend from existence."

Moore goes on to point out that the fog machines and cheering isn't an accurate simulation of Washington game-days, either, but "putting 'LSU 52, Huskies 0' on the scoreboard" is probably over-kill.

Comments:

Message board posts led to violation reporting
By now you may have heard that Washington has self-reported a recruiting violation for simulating a game-day environment. New UW head coach Steve Sarkisian brought recruits out to Husky Stadium, ALLEGEDLY gave them all jerseys with their name on the back (which would be a violation), and had them run out of the tunnel with the fog machines blasting while being introduced over the PA system (violation!). Now... you would think that the Husky coaches would think it pretty obvious that tunnel runs and smoke machines would be a rather obvious simulation of a game-day experience, right? Not so fast, according to U-Dub.
Morris said UW coaches thought the fog machine did not violate the rule since it is not a regular part of UW's game-day environment. "They were just looking for a way to make the visits fun," he said. Morris said he is confident there were no other violations related to the visits, which were the first for new coach Steve Sarkisian and his staff. Thirteen players were in for visits. Morris said he spoke with Sarkisian and "he was remorseful and regretted that it happened and said if he had known it was going to be a violation it never would have happened."
Umm... yeah... right, Pinnochio. What you may not have heard is just how that reporting of that violation came about. According to Jim Moore at SeattlePI.com, the Huskies had to report several recruiting violations because stories of the game-day simulation were ferreted out on a Washington State message board. According to Moore, user 89Steep read a post on DawgNation.com in which UW recruit Jeremiah Tofaeono (who has since committed to Utah, btw) bragged about the jerseys. When he checked back, 89Steep found that the quotes referring to the jerseys had been removed from the original post. That set 89Steep to posting at Cougfan.com and a little back-and-forth crossposting ensued with charges of a cover-up. Fast forward to another recruit post at DawgNation, this time about the fog machine and tunnel run.
Nobody would have known about the fog machine if it weren't for another story on Dawgman, this one about Desmond Trufant's visit last weekend. "I was shocked by what they did," Marcus Trufant's brother said. "They acted like it was a real game, and they had smoke, and we ran out of the tunnel." The Cougfan message board lit up over that story, too. In a shot at Dawgman, CougGrad82 wrote: "Maybe you can hire Ollie North to help you shred this past weekend from existence."
Moore goes on to point out that the fog machines and cheering isn't an accurate simulation of Washington game-days, either, but "putting 'LSU 52, Huskies 0' on the scoreboard" is probably over-kill.