Deion Sanders era at Jackson State is off to a rocky start as he will have to deal with NCAA violations committed by the previous regime as JSU will serve penalties for violating NCAA certification of student athletes and recruiting rules.
The university and NCAA enforcement staff agreed 34 athletes practiced and competed before receiving final certification from the NCAA Eligibility Center.
The program also is charged for paying $300 to the godmother of a football prospect and arranging impermissible tutoring for a student-athlete. These are both Level II violations according to the NCAA.
Here is an outline of all the punishments the NCAA announced for Jackson State:
- Two years of probation.
- A fine of $5,000.
- A 2% reduction in baseball scholarship equivalencies from the annual limit of 11.7 equivalencies during the 2021-22 academic year and a 2.5% reduction in football scholarship equivalencies from the annual limit of 63 equivalencies during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years.
- The football program must serve a one-week ban on unofficial visits in each of January, February, March and April 2021.
- A reduction of four football official paid visits during the 2021-22 academic year.
- The football program must serve a one-week ban of all recruiting communication contacts and off-campus recruiting by the entire football staff with any prospects, including transfers, in each of May and June 2021.
- A vacation of records of contests in which student-athletes participated while ineligible. The university must provide a written report containing the contests impacted to the NCAA media coordination and statistics staff within 14 days of the public release of the decision.
The news comes a month and eight days before football coach Deion Sanders officially takes over.
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NCAA stories via Google! Follow Us
“Jackson State University is committed to a culture of compliance, and the actions we took reflect that commitment,” JSU athletic director Ashley Robinson, who was hired by the university in June 2018, said in a school release. “I will like to commend my compliance staff and let the record show we responded quickly, investigated vigorously, immediately self-reported the violations, and independently took decisive corrective steps.”
