Getty Image / Harry How
The NCAA today announced an 8-year show-cause penalty for Antonio Pierce tied to 2020 recruiting violations which included taking the parents of a recruit to a local gentlemen’s club. Details of the investigation were announced by the NCAA detailing the recruiting violations of Antonio Pierce and another staffer.
Normally, this would be a huge speed bump for a college football coach but Antonio Pierce has been a coach with the Las Vegas Raiders since 2022 and he took over as interim HC last year and began this season as the official head coach. So will this show-cause penalty from the NCAA really impact his day-to-day? Not in the least bit.
This all dates back to the 2020 season according to the NCAA’s release. It states Antonio Pierce personally:
“arranged for or personally provided free meals, apparel, airfare and/or lodging for 27 prospects, often in collaboration with the booster, who was the parent of a then-football student-athlete in the program. In addition to violating the dead period rules, the meals, entertainment — which included taking a prospect’s parents to a gentlemen’s club — and travel expenses associated with the unofficial visits also constituted impermissible recruiting inducements.”
For what it’s worth, the ASU Sun Devils were 8-5 in 2021…
Unsurprisingly given that he’s no longer with the program and off with the Las Vegas Raiders for the past few seasons, several staff members appeared to have thrown Antonio Pierce under the bus.
The NCAA’s report found “several members of the coaching staff indicated during their interviews with enforcement staff that Pierce “ran the show” within the Arizona State football program, and they feared that not complying with Pierce’s directives would result in losing their jobs.”
An NCAA show-cause violation is imposed on a coach when they are “found to have committed major rules violations” and it remains in place, against that coach, for a specified period of time. So should Antonio Pierce seek to return to college football at any point he’d have to face the music.
It is interesting to see the NCAA unable to impose any actual penalties at this point. Another reminder of how their power has dwindled in the NIL era.