Oklahoma Sooners Football - Report: Oklahoma self-reports secondary NCAA violations

This is your friendly reminder that the NCAA has some absurd guidelines.

On Monday, Ryan Aber of The Oklahoman reported that OU Athletics has self-reported a number of secondary violations across multiple sports. The violations include the following:

• Legendary Oklahoma Sooners softball coach Patty Gasso replied “Same to you” to a “Merry Christmas” text sent by a prospective student athlete. Apparently, Gasso replied to the holiday text without actually knowing who it was coming from, which is pretty relatable.
• Lincoln Riley sent a text to a prospective student-athlete during a time period in which OU Athletics was serving its electronic correspondence penalty.
• Current OU LB Ryan Jones participated in a workout at the age of 17 and before his parents had submitted necessary paperwork.
• Riley was at Midway High School in Waco during the spring 2017 evaluation period. Unbeknownst to Riley, the high school coach called current OU QB Tanner Mordecai into his office, where Riley shook his hand and informed him that they were not allowed to talk. However, Mordecai remained in the room while the coaches met with one another.
• 2019 commitment Arjei Henderson shot a commitment video on campus prior to the intended start time of his official visit. Because of this, his visit technically went over the allotted 48-hour time period for official visits. The school claims it did not know about the video until it was published on Twitter.
• During the 2017 spring game, a recruit took a picture with a current NFL/former OU player. As of Aug. 2017, this is no longer against the rules.
• Three football recruits took photos with Barry Switzer, who is considered a booster. Some of Switzer’s tickets — through his son-in-law — also ended up in the hands of prospect-aged kids.
• Assistant head coach/defensive line coach Ruffin McNeill took a picture with the son of a longtime friend while visiting a North Carolina high school. That kid happened to be a prospective student-athlete, but McNeill believed it was okay to take the photo due to the previous relationship with the kid’s father.
• Director of Player Personnel Drew Hill tweeted “It’s a Pledger to welcome you to the family” after the commitment of current running back TJ Pledger. I thought it was pretty funny at the time, but I’ll admit that it did raise an eyebrow.
• Dimitri Flowers secured temporary housing at “somewhat below market value” through someone he knew at Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

None of this is expected to result in anything significant, so you can probably breathe easy. However, it just goes to show how far the NCAA tends to overreach with these kinds of things. Is there a person out there who has an issue with Ruffin McNeill posing for a picture? Some of the guidelines are a bit more understandable (the one applying to then-17-year-old Ryan Jones participating in workout without the proper paperwork, for instance), but most of this borders on comical. Having said that, I do appreciate how proactive OU is with this kind of thing. Letting something like this go unchecked can result in punitive measures, so it’s good to see OU doing its due diligence. I kind of love that Barry Switzer — who we all love — is involved in two minor violations. They’re obviously pretty tame and innocent compared to the ones we saw in the past, but it’s kind of hilarious that his name is still popping up in violations.