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The Colorado football team was a victim of theft while visiting the Rose Bowl earlier this season. Reports state that Buffalo players had items stolen from the team locker room during a game against UCLA.
Arrests have been made in the case and suspects have been ID’d. The news has many questioning the Los Angeles program’s recruiting policies.
As it turns out, the culprits were actually high school recruits on a visit to the PAC 12 matchup. Here’s more from On3 Sports.
Pasadena Police confirmed the suspects tied to the theft were high school recruits on an official visit to UCLA. In their statement, the Pasadena Police revealed the high schoolers allegedly took thousands of dollars in valuables from both locker rooms including jewelry, headphones, and cash.
The UCLA locker room apparently was also raided.
Coach Jason Brown of the hit Netflix series ‘Last Chance U’ broke the news on social media.
🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨 – @TheRealCoach_JB Knows who stole @CUBuffsFootball belongings out of the locker room during the game.
@Darnell_Smith95 @SixZeroAcademy#TheCoachJBShow #NCAA #Colorado pic.twitter.com/c1q92K6a9y
— The Coach JB Show with Big Smitty (@TheCoachJBShow) November 8, 2023
“I got a text message from a buddy of mine,” he said on the JB Show. “He is directly, in fact, involved. Beaumont High School out by my house, a good friend of mine is the head coach there. They were bussing up to go to the playoffs last Saturday, and the police came and arrested two players off his bus… They were the people who stole both UCLA and Colorado’s s—.”
Fans question UCLA recruiting policies after Rose Bowl theft.
There was a lot to break down in Coach Brown’s report. Most notable is the fact that these players were high school recruits. While they weren’t named, the fact that they were on an official visit to a major D1 football game means they’ve potentially garnered interest from prominent programs across the country.
Their future at the Power Five level has to be put in serious doubt following the arrest.
Stealing at a job interview good luck with that fellas
— LA 11 (@LA1146665082) November 13, 2023
Second is the fact that both locker rooms were raided. A gutsy move to steal from the team that’s invited you on campus.
Many online immediately questioned UCLA’s in-game recruiting policies after seeing the breaking news.
It’s not been confirmed why UCLA’s recruits were unsupervised and able to access Colorado’s locker room. -On3
“This story makes no sense. How did 2 high schoolers get into not 1, but 2 locker rooms unattended?”
“So, what was security doing? Watching games on their phone?”
“Why would they bring them into the visitor’s locker room??”
Deion Sanders was vocal about the theft after the fact, though not adamant enough for some. He called for stolen items to be returned to players.
“This is the Rose Bowl. They say the Granddaddy of them all, right? I’m sure Granddaddy has some money.”
As for the high school recruits, we’ll see how this affects their football futures moving forward.