Jaden Rashada continues to be a thorn in the Gators’ side. (Photo credit: Gabriela Aulisio, the Florida Alligator)
The Florida Gators are under investigation in regards to their recruitment of former four-star quarterback Jaden Rashada.
The “news,” if you can call it that, is not truly anything new. Florida President Ben Sasse first received a notice of inquiry from the NCAA back on June 9. That means the investigation has been going on, and the University of Florida has been aware of the investigation going on, for about seven and a half months now.
But Tampa Bay Times reporter Matt Baker– who has a penchant for giddiness and clickbaity behavior whenever bad news about the Gators comes to his desk– caught wind of the story yesterday, and wrote an article. I’m not linking it because A) it’s behind a paywall B) I’m not rewarding his behavior and C) frankly, ESPN did a much better job reporting the story. As one twitter user pointed out, Baker appeared to be so euphoric over the mere idea that he had bad news to share about the Gators that he published the story with some paragraphs barely even half-completed. So here’s the ESPN story.
While you can roll your eyes at the timing of his piece, though, Baker is correct with his facts. Florida is, in fact, under investigation. And as multiple other outlets have reported, the investigation squarely revolves around Florida’s recruitment of California QB prospect Jaden Rashada.
For those who need a quick refresher, the super-fast synopsis of the story is as follows: Florida wanted a blue-chip QB, but Miami took Rashada away, so Florida offered Rashada north of $13M to flip him away from the Hurricanes, Rashada accepted the deal and signed with Florida, but then backed out and successfully requested a release from his letter of intent when no money materialized.
So: how serious is this investigation?
From the information I’ve gathered so far, Florida is at fault to a low degree here from a legal perspective.
The fact that a contract was promised to an athlete and then the agreed-upon dollar amount was never deposited into Rashada’s bank account is not a great look from a right-and-wrong standpoint, but the contract clearly stated that either side could terminate the deal at any time. Gator Collective, then the Florida NIL partner orchestrating the deal, thought twice about signing an unproven prospect to such a gaudy deal, and exercised that right, pulling the plug in early December. Rashada then signed with Florida anyway, apparently assuming the money would appear out of thin air, and then when it did not, he was released from his LOI and transferred to Arizona State.
But neither UF nor Gator Collective broke any laws or rules there, and so the NCAA isn’t going to be able to drop the hammer down because of that. What the NCAA could levy punishments for, though, is for any number of recruiting violations they can allege Florida to have committed– the same way they could for about sixty other FBS schools, and the way they just did for FSU. The Gators are extremely unlikely to face the worst types of punishments the NCAA can possibly dish out, like forfeited wins and postseason bans; though this is purely speculation on my part, and I’ll again point out that the NCAA is wildly unpredictable and inconsistent, Florida’s probably looking at a few lost scholarships and minor recruiting limitations as a worst case scenario.
There’s still a lot to be determined, and it’s out of Florida’s hands. So as is the case with everything else in college football, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Here’s hoping we get a resolution soon, so we can rid ourselves of the very name “Jaden Rashada” once and for all.
