The NCAA put the Florida State football team on a two-year probation and issued other penalties Thursday for violation of name, image and likeness rules.
The Seminoles also must disassociate from their NIL collective, known as Rising Spear, for a year, and an unnamed booster can’t have contact with the program for three years.
In addition, an unnamed Florida State assistant coach was suspended for three regular-season games and handed a two-year show cause order. According to Yahoo Sports, the coach involved is offensive coordinator Alex Atkins.
The sanctions are the first handed out in relation to the two-plus years since NIL benefits became permissible.
According to the NCAA, the unnamed coach transported a player in the transfer portal, who was considering moving to Florida State, to a spring 2022 meeting with the head of booster who was the chief executive officer of Rising Spear. The booster offered the player around $15,000 per month if he were to enroll at Florida State. The player eventually decided to stay at his previous school.
The assistant coach was only partially truthful in his explanation of the events during an investigation by the school’s enforcement office, the NCAA ruled.
The NCAA’s penalties also include:
–A $5,000 fine in addition to 1 percent of the school’s football budget.
–A 5 percent reduction in football scholarships over the two-year probationary period, which will equate to five scholarships.
–Seven fewer official (paid) visits will be allowed in 2023-24, and six unused official visits from the 2022-23 school year won’t be permitted to roll over.
–Football recruiting communications will be cut by six weeks during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years.
–In-person recruiting days will be limited during the 2023-24 school year.
Seminoles head coach Mike Norvell was not implicated in any wrongdoing.
