Among the six violations reported by the University of Michigan’s football and men’s basketball programs from July 2019 through March 17, 2020, was the kind of casual mistake many people have made before: the dreaded pocket dial.
According to MLive.com, four of the violations involved contacting a recruit — but in one instance, a football recruiting assistant who was not permitted to make recruiting phone calls inadvertently did so in what Michigan described as a “pocket dial.”
The description of the violation was obtained by MLive via an open records request, which was only responded to recently. The school provided presentations of each of the violations to the NCAA.
The assistant’s accidental phone call reportedly took place outside of a permissible contact period, but no conversation took place. Michigan also told the NCAA that the prospect in question was no longer being recruited by the school at the time of the pocket dial.
“Given the nature of the mitigating circumstances, the institution asserts that relief from the normal penalties is appropriate in this case,” Michigan wrote.
The NCAA agreed, but added that future pocket dials could result in more than just a slap on the wrist, writing in response: “The football coaching staff should be advised that future similar violations may result in additional penalties.”
As it stands, each of the violations the school reported were Level III violations, the lowest severity category. Other cases within the open records request may still be under investigation, however, as Michigan only provided MLive with documents on cases that had been resolved.
