Rumors All Over The Map About A Top-12 Program Facing Major Recruiting Violations And How It Might Relate To TCU

Before I go into this here is a disclaimer that this is all essentially rumor based regarding the exact teams.

Earlier Tuesday evening, SPORTSbyBROOKS sent out a tweet that TCU would be receiving good news in the morning, but their tweets were vague and there is chance that it may have something to do with a report that a major college football program will be cited for allegedly having committed major recruiting violations. The allegations will also be announced tomorrow through a major publication, and the major publication is expected to be Sports Illustrated.

The obvious culprit seems to be Auburn with the news about the tapes that have been floating around where Cecil Newton was shopping his son Cam to teams, but the twist was that the younger Newton was in the room. To me that seems hart do prove with an audio medium. The story of those tapes from sports radio host Scott Moore is all over the map and apparently do not include the Newtons from what I can tell since there are so many twists to the story.

However, it appears the team is not Auburn.

The report that is saying a major college football program is going down came from ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd who said this:

I received an interesting text about 10 days ago, and this should be very frightening if you're a fan of college football, that a major program in this country is going to be outed very soon for major recruiting violations. It is a top 10-12 program. I know what I think it is according to both my sources; I received another tip last night. I went to Vince Doria, who is sort of the journalistic editor at this company. He had heard the exact same thing. We are pursuing this story with vigor. A major publication is about to unseat a major college football power on recruiting violations. I will tell you from my source, it is not - it is not - Auburn. I will leave it at that. It is a major program and a major publication. When we can validate more... I have not been able to validate it nor has this company. We're both pursuing it.

With Auburn allegedly not the culprit, signs -- and internet rumblings -- then point to Oregon that there might be violations with LaMichael James and/or Lache Seastrunk regarding a street agent. However, John Conzano from Oregon Live says that Oregon has not heard a peep from the NCAA about violations:

I was contacted by several national college football writers after those early rumors began to point at the University of Oregon being that program.

Made some calls. A reliable source high in the athletic department said everyone there was "surprised" to hear about the rumors.

Said source: "We haven't heard a peep from the NCAA. If there was something going on, we'd typically hear about it way beforehand."

It may not be Oregon, but if a school did not want to leak out the information about potential rules violation they would say they have not heard from the NCAA. Now, I am not saying that Oregon is guilty because they say no, but these rumblings could just be a witch hunt because the original source say a top 10-12 team is in trouble. So, the top teams will be questioned.

So, does the SPORTSbyBrooks tweet even relate between TCU having good news and these potential violations? I am not sure.

If it is Oregon the only connection would be the LaMichael James angle because he did not go to TCU because a coach called him LaMarcus James instead of LaMichael Jame, but again how is that good news. The only reason is that if Oregon is busted for recruiting violations around James they did not happen at TCU.

A long shot is that violations are against Boise State since TCU fans are upset about the move of their game. A commentator on the College Football Talk article makes some good points:

If TCU is going to be happy…and it is indeed a shocker, it may be Boise St. Why not? Why would anyone voluntarily go to Boise? An SEC school wouldn’t be a shocker and the NCAA would never want to rock the Nike cash boat at Oregon. Maybe Texas had a lot of trouble holding onto assistant coaches for a reason.

Again, I doubt that is the case.

If the team is Auburn, TCU would not move up to take the crown since with the USC violations surrounding Reggie Bush left the title vacated so that is not good news.

These are some suggestions from the comment section on the post about the Brooks tweets:

It could be nothing related between the alleged recruiting violations and the good news at TCU which could be a reduced price on season tickets since the home schedule is a joke.

Sanctions against Texas, Texas Tech or Oklahoma. I will include my own gut reaction which was TCU going to the Big East a early early, but I was reminded through twitter that the Big East has already released their 2011 schedule.

Honestly, I have no idea what the TCU good news will be or if it is connected to an alleged top-12 team who have allegedly committed recruiting violations. All of this news might be coming from the same are on the internet being passed around through the college football world.

Hopefully the stories will come out tomorrow and we will see what all the fuss has been about.

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