Florida's Dan Mullen Gets One-Year Show Cause for Recruiting Violations

Justin Ford/USA TODAY Sports

Florida football coach Dan Mullen has received a one-year show cause from the NCAA after it found that his Gators football program violated recruiting contact rules on two occasions, and that Mullen "did not promote an atmosphere of compliance," the Division I Committee on Infractions announced Tuesday.

The infractions were processed by the negotiated resolution process.

According to the NCAA's release, the university, Mullen, an assistant coach and NCAA enforcement staff agreed that the assistant coach and head coach had impermissible in-person contact with a prospect when they met with a prospect’s high school coach while the prospect was in the room.

At that meeting, Florida coaches shared their interest in recruiting the prospect. Leading up to the visit, Mullen sent the prospect texts about his upcoming visit to the high school and his interest in recruiting the prospect. Florida committed Level II violations in that off-campus recruiting contacts are not allowed until after a football prospect’s junior year of high school.

The program also violated Level III violations. Members of the Gators' coaching staff also had impermissible contact with approximately 127 prospects when seven nonscholastic football teams visited the campus and toured the football facilities on their way to a tournament in Tampa. The assistant coach had incidental impermissible contacts with several prospects, according to the agreement. 

Mullen agreed that he did not promote an atmosphere of compliance in light of his personal involvement in one of the violations. The full list of infractions by the program include:

• One year of probation.
• A $5,000 fine.
• Reduced fall 2019 evaluations from 42 to 21.
• Reduced football evaluation days by 12 for the 2018–19 academic year.
• Restrictions on all recruiting telephone calls with football prospects from April 15 through May 31, 2019.
• A reduction in the number of football official visits during the 2019–20 academic year by one and in the number of unofficial visits during the 2019–20 academic year by 14.
• A one-year show-cause order for the head football coach. During that period, the head coach is prohibited from all off-campus recruiting activity during the fall 2020 evaluation period and a four-day off-campus recruiting ban during the fall 2021 contact period.
• The university banned the head coach from recruiting for the first 10 days of the January 2020 contact period.
• A 30-day off-campus recruiting ban for the head coach during the fall 2019 evaluation period.
• The university ended the recruitment of the prospect.
• The university will not recruit any prospects from the high school from the 2019–20 through 2020–21 academic years.
• A seven-day off-campus recruiting ban for the entire football coaching staff during the spring 2021 off-campus recruiting period.
• A 30-day off-campus recruiting ban for the assistant coach in October 2019 and a three-day off-campus recruiting ban for the January 2020 contact period.
• One-on-one rules education for both the head coach and assistant coach regarding NCAA contact and evaluation rules.

If an opportunity to serve a penalty is not available due to circumstances related to COVID-19, the penalty must be served at the next available opportunity.