Auburn football, which has fallen significantly after winning the BCS national championship just two years ago, is under NCAA investigation for the recruitment of players courted by Tigers’ assistants Trooper Taylor and Curtis Luper, several sources revealed.
Yahoo! Sports reported Wednesday that Taylor and Luper are not actively recruiting for the school at the present time, due to the investigation. Auburn coach Gene Chizik has declined comment when asked specifically about whether his coaches had been pulled from the recruiting trail.
Taylor is the Tigers’ assistant head coach and wide receivers coach, while Luper coaches running backs and is the recruiting coordinator. The website al.com reported Wednesday that at least one Auburn assistant coach and several players were interviewed by the NCAA this week as part of the investigation.
One of the players whose recruitment is being examined is running back Jovon Robinson, sources said. In September, Yvette Lynch, a former guidance counselor at the Memphis high school Robinson attended, was found to have changed the grades of an Auburn football recruit. She told ESPN that she altered the grades at the request of a fellow teacher.
Lynch, 62, who said she retired as a counselor at Wooddale High School in May to care for her ailing husband and mother, wouldn’t specifically identify the teacher who she says instructed her to change Robinson’s academic transcript.
But when Lynch was asked whether Wooddale physical education teacher Rhonda Wilkinson instructed her to change Robinson’s grades, Lynch smiled and told a reporter, “No comment.” Later, when Lynch was asked why she changed Robinson’s grades, she said: “You already said her name. Go talk to her.”
The NCAA declared Robinson academically ineligible after Lynch and another Wooddale guidance counselor admitted to changing one or more grades on his transcript.
Robinson, who was ranked the country’s No. 20 running back prospect by ESPN RecruitingNation, was enrolled in classes at Auburn this past summer, but withdrew from school and returned to his mother’s home in Memphis.
Citing “someone familiar with the situation,” al.com said the current NCAA investigation “is not limited to the recruitment of Robinson.”
Chizik, who coached Auburn to the national championship in January 2011, would not confirm if the NCAA was in Auburn this week.
“Again, I’m not going to comment on any speculation about any of that,” Chizik said.
Robinson’s recruitment has been under scruitiny since late August, when Wooddale guidance counselor Valerie Starks-Sykes admitted making changes to Robinson’s transcripts and told Memphis City Schools officials that she was “certain someone had asked her to make the changes but was reluctant to name anyone who may have been involved,” according to an email obtained by the Memphis Commercial-Appeal.
Starks-Sykes resigned from the school on Aug. 9. Multiple attempts by ESPN to reach her for comment have been unsuccessful.
