NCAA penalties against Florida coach Dan Mullen announced Tuesday stem in part from an incident nearly identical to one that landed Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher in NCAA trouble earlier this year. Both coaches were punished for violating NCAA recruiting contact rules during visits to the Seattle high school of the same class of 2020 recruit in 2019.
According to NCAA public infractions reports, both coaches made impermissible contact with a recruit at the recruit’s school in January 2019. The Florida NCAA report specified the high school is in Seattle and the date of the violation as January 14, 2019. The report in the Texas A&M case didn’t specify the location of the high school, but it listed the date of the violation as January 22, 2019. Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter confirmed to The Athletic that the recruit was current Washington edge rusher Sav’ell Smalls, and that the contact took place at Garfield…
