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Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes staring down the barrel of a number of NCAA violations.
The detail, however, is in the fine print. And things may not be as bad as they seem for Coach Prime and the Buffs.
Brent Schrotenboer of USA Today reports that Sanders and company committed 11 minor NCAA violations since his hiring in December 2022.
But the report also states that Colorado self-reported each of the violations to the NCAA and “none of which risked any serious penalties.”
Schrotenboer states that programs such as Ohio State and Alabama also reported minor violations, and that such violations are commonplace among college football programs.
But what exactly did Sanders and Colorado do to fall afoul of the rules?
“In this case, the violations under Sanders provide a window into how his frequent activity on social media sometimes tested technical bylaws,” the report states. “Colorado’s transfer-heavy recruiting approach under Sanders also clashed at times with NCAA regulations.
“In one case, a security breakdown led to an impermissible ‘gameday simulation’ for a recruit, followed by a write-up from the NCAA that said f’uture similar violations may result in more significant penalties including suspension of the head coach from a contest.'”
The most serious violation stemmed from Sanders’ use of the transfer portal.
The Buffaloes hosted a camp with over 350 invitees, but seven of those 350 were not actively in the transfer portal at the time. This is classified as “tampering” with a prospect not actively in the transfer portal.
Colorado self-imposed a mid-summer recruiting ban as a result and a one-day ban on portal activity to begin December of 2023.
Several other violations involved Sanders’ use of social media. Particularly his Instagram account, where he improperly re-posted video of team workouts.
Almost all of the violations were slip ups on small technicalities. But Colorado saved itself trouble by self-reporting.
The NCAA could hand down more severe penalties had it discovered the violations and ruled that the Buffaloes were not properly policing their own program.
So Sanders and Colorado avoided any major issues this time around. But they may want to be a little more aware of the rules going forward.