Florida State Seminoles and NIL Cheating
Florida State University, the intercollegiate athletics program in Tallahassee that wants to vacate the Atlantic Coast Conference, is on the hot seat and is such a bad reflection on the conference, maybe vacating the Seminoles is better than fighting their desire to drop out.
Can you say probation? For Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) violations! Hah!
We all know it: NIL is a legal license to lie, cheat, and steal (Is it LCS not NIL?). The cheating therein is running rampant and not just at Florida State. If you think otherwise, your head is in the nearest sand bunker, under the surface.
The Seminoles just happen to get caught. Big time. Okay, a FSU assistant football coach, identified by Yahoo Sports and other media outlets as offensive coordinator Alex Atkins got caught and lived to lie about it.
From media outlet Field Level Media, Here’s the story:
According to the NCAA, (an) unnamed coach transported a player in the transfer portal, who was considering moving to Florida State, to a spring 2022 meeting with (a) booster who was the chief executive officer of Rising Spear. The booster offered the player around $15,000 per month if he were to enroll at Florida State. The player eventually decided to stay at his previous school. The assistant coach was only partially truthful in his explanation of the events during an investigation by the school’s enforcement office, the NCAA ruled.
And, from the Washington Post:
According to the NCAA, the player entered the transfer portal and contacted the assistant — identified in media reports as offensive coordinator Alex Atkins — about making an official visit to Florida State. During the visit, which reports say took place in the spring of 2022, Atkins transported the player — identified by the Associated Press as Georgia tackle Amarius Mims — to and from an off-campus meeting with the booster, who at the time was CEO of a Florida State NIL collective. The booster later offered Mims and his family an NIL deal worth approximately $15,000 per month over his first season, the NCAA alleges, though he decided to remain at Georgia and did not receive any benefits.
All this stuff is a “no-no” by the NCAA, as if anyone cares after LCS (lie cheat, steal) was okayed. Until the prospect is enrolled (and other requirements), boosters cannot contact prospects and prospects cannot contact boosters. Boosters cannot offer money—really? It’s been happening since the beginning of time, or so it seems—to prospects. Coaches cannot offer players transportation of any sort. Lots of little rules in college athletics, some of which may seem petty but rules is rules, as they say!
More from the Washington Post:
Under NCAA recruiting rules, such meetings with boosters are not allowed because they are not authorized team recruiters. The booster also committed violations when he contacted the family himself and offered the recruit the NIL deal before he signed a letter-of-intent. The NCAA also said that Atkins lied about certain aspects of his role in the meeting on two occasions.
Florida State agreed that the violations took place and negotiated the penalties with the NCAA, avoiding the NCAA’s usual drawn-out investigatory process. According to Yahoo Sports, Atkins is expected to remain in his current role on the Seminoles’ coaching staff.
No wonder Florida State played so badly in the Orange Bowl as this cloud was not only covering the program but it was coming up a big storm, as they say in the deep south. It took lots of on the field concentration to be undefeated, win the ACC, and then get shunned for the playoff. The “Committee” probably knew Florida State’s problems would surface sooner than later, though later it was, and didn’t want that to cloud the playoffs, or rain on their parade.
Here’s the official statement about the NCAA disclosure and penalties from Florida State’s athletic director, Michael Alford:
“We are pleased to reach closure to this situation and view this as another step in strengthening our culture of compliance at Florida State University. We take all compliance matters very seriously, and our full cooperation with the NCAA on this case is a clear example of that commitment. We remain committed to compliance with all NCAA rules including disassociation of the booster and the collective.”
The penalties, as reported by Field Level Media, include:
The football team is on a two-year probation (not sure what that means);
The Seminoles must disassociate from their NIL collective, known as Rising Spear, for a year, and the unnamed booster can’t have contact with the program for three years;
The Florida State assistant coach is suspended for three regular-season games (next fall) and handed a two-year show cause order;
A $5,000 fine in addition to 1 percent of the school’s football budget;
A 5 percent reduction in football scholarships over the two-year probationary period, which will equate to five scholarships;
Seven fewer official (paid) visits will be allowed in 2023-24, and six unused official visits from the 2022-23 school year won’t be permitted to roll over;
Football recruiting communications will be cut by six weeks during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years; and,
In-person recruiting days will be limited during the 2023-24 school year.
Seminoles head coach Mike Norvell, who is facing an up-hill battle to keep his team at the top of the ACC, was not implicated in any wrongdoing. The day after the NCAA sanctions were reveled, Norvell, who many thought would be considered for the Alabama job (maybe he was briefly), signed a contract extension at FSU. Good for him for not knowing the evil dealings of one of his top assistant coaches. Wink, wink!
Forgive me, for being a college athletics cynic—a person who believes all college coaches and administrators are motivated by selfishness, individual or institutional—but there was no way payment to college athletes through the Name, Image, and Likeness program would make intercollegiate athletics pure. Remember, it’s LCS not NIL.
No way, I say? Correct! Because money exchanging hands—alumni to booster clubs and NIL collectives and from booster clubs and collectives to coaches and players—is involved.
When money is part of the recruiting formula at the legal or illegal level, there’s going to be cheating just as there was when there was no NIL. Cars, apartments, clothes, food, and so on and so forth have been and still are enticements for high school recruits and portal transfers, and it’s not going to stop no matter who thinks it can be halted. Not getting caught is the game.
College football and men’s basketball programs just can’t help themselves—even when the blame is placed on over-zealous alumni who only want to help the teams to victory—when it comes to building a roster that, on the surface, can be projected to win conference and national titles or at the very least making the field of 12 in the college football playoffs or the field of 68 in the NCAA basketball tournament.
Usually, there’s a member of the coaching staff involved in the illegal activities, but unbeknownst to the head coach to keep him honest and coaching on game day. Hah, hah, wink, wink!
As far as NIL (or LCS) is concerned, we know this: there are assistant coaches at various colleges who visit with players from other colleges to entice them to enter the transfer portal, promising NIL contracts/dollars. And, there are college players who make telephone calls and visits to other colleges and their coaching staffs to see if they will fit and be selected if they enter the transfer portal. “Show me the money,” is the rally cry of college athletes. If not, why so many transfers, or those who want to transfer. Playing time? Hah! If they’re good enough, staying not leaving and proving is good enough.
As of this writing, we’ve not seen a statement from Jim Phillips, commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference who had to know this was coming, even as FSU is suing the ACC and the ACC is suing FSU over media rights fees and annual conference payouts. At this point, maybe Florida State needs to take it’s lumps and stick around the ACC, if the conference wants the Seminoles to stay. It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
By the way, according to Field Level Media, the sanctions (against Florida State) are the first handed out in relation to the two-plus years since NIL benefits became permissible.
And, in all of this, some will say we have Ed O’Bannon to thank for this situation. Maybe, but we also have greedy college athletics coaches and administrators to thank. If you aren’t familiar with O’Bannon, click on his name and read away.
Don’t fool yourself. Florida State is not the only college to skirt the NIL and transfer portal rules. Just the first to get caught and sanctioned. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the Seminoles were ratted on by connections—alumni, coaches, NIL collectives—with the University of Georgia. If Florida State had been a member of the Southeastern Conference, this probably would have gone away with little fanfare.
All is fair in love and war among college coaches, but if turning in your brethren spreads, it will like wildfire, and eventually the NCAA may have to sanction most of its membership. That may be a good day for college athletics.
NIL Rules Changes
At the most recent NCAA meetings, changes were make in the rules governing Name, Image, and Likeness. Here’s a good website to learn more about the changes: Varnum Law: Name, Image, and Likeness in the Spotlight at the 2024 NCAA Convention