Georgia reportedly dealt with recruiting restrictions following NCAA violation

Georgia’s football and men’s basketball teams have landed themselves in some hot water.

Throughout the college football and basketball offseasons, one of the most important aspects is building up one’s program for the future through recruiting. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, the recruiting process in the NCAA looks a bit different in the spring and summer of 2020.

The NCAA provided guidelines saying that recruiting will be on a dead period until at least Aug. 31. The dead period consists of shutting down all official and unofficial visits, but virtual communication such as phone calls, texts and emails are allowed. For UGA, the university’s athletic department violated certain communication rules, according to Marc Weiszer of the Athens Banner Herald:

"“[An] unidentified football coach made made more than one phone call to a recruit in a week outside a contact period and was hit with an 11-day ban from texting recruits and making or receiving calls for the violation listed on Feb. 20.”"

With the ban, both the men’s basketball and football coaching staffs at UGA are unable to speak with recruits for one week because of two separate errors made by both coaching staffs. In addition to the report by Weiszer, a UGA assistant basketball coach violated recruiting guidelines for communication with a recruit.

For football head coach Kirby Smart and Co., the Bulldogs are constantly in the hunt for one of the best recruiting classes in the SEC and in the country. According to 247Sports, UGA has the best recruiting class for 2020 and the No. 13 ranked class for 2021. These secondary violations could have an impact on the future outlook of the Bulldogs football program.

While basketball at Georgia is not the marquee sport on campus, these violations are still cause for concern. Bringing in hometown blue chip and future NBA lottery pick Anthony Edwards was a great first step for Tom Crean, but building on that success will be critical going forward.

While there have been no further developments in terms of punishment, the message has clearly been sent by the NCAA. Both Georgia sports teams could face bigger violations if the NCAA decides to discipline the school even further with a show-cause penalty, similar to what Texas A&M football and HC Jimbo Fisher faced earlier this offseason.