from the OANews
On National Signing Day this past February, Auburn University’s official athletic website created a “hidden†biography and statistics page for five-star Auburn High prospect Rashaan Evans which would be ready to publish should the player sign with the university.
Even though the page wasn’t considered “live,†it was somehow found and published by media throughout the state and country, creating an NCAA secondary violation because the player had yet to officially sign with the school.
Evans never signed with Auburn, instead he chose to sign with rival Alabama at a nationally televised ceremony at the Auburn High Fieldhouse on the morning of Feb. 5.
This violation, which was reported the same day (Feb. 5), was one of 21 secondary infractions that Auburn University self-reported to the NCAA this past year. Tuesday, the university released the heavily redacted violation documents, which span from July 1, 2013-June 30 of this year, in response to an open records request by media outlets.
Auburn claims the “hidden†page had been created in preparation for potential signees, but wouldn’t publish where the public could see it until the athlete officially signed.
Auburn claims in its self-reported document to the NCAA that, “Media personnel were able to hack into the site and ‘find’ the code to pull up the bio.â€
According to the document filed by Auburn to the NCAA, which has Evans’ name redacted, the university claims it “never posted the information on its own site and never intended for the bio to be visible.â€
The violation of NCAA Bylaw 13.10.2.1 did not require any eligibility issues for Evans because he signed with a different school.
Auburn said the release of the information was “an embarrassment to the athletics department,†in its response on whether it should self-impose penalties. Auburn wrote to the NCAA that the athletics department will “work harder to ‘hide’ the information in code, so that future successful hacking attempts do not result in violations.â€
And because Evans signed with another school, Auburn believes no additional penalties are “warranted†by the NCAA.
Two of Auburn’s other self-reported violations are believed to involve junior-college signee Cinmeon Bowers and assistant coach and former Auburn basketball great Chuck Person, who is part of Bruce Pearl’s staff.
During an official recruiting visit from April 11-13, Auburn self-reported two NCAA violations that both happened April 12.
The first infraction violated NCAA Bylaw 13.11.1.9, which states that no institution can have basketball practice or competition with prospective student-athletes on visits.
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