LSU Football Program Sanctioned By NCAA For Recruiting Violations

The NCAA has decided that LSU's football program will receive additional penalties for secondary violations that involved the recruiting, housing and transportation of 2009 signee Akeim Hicks. LSU faces one year of probation and recruiting and scholarship reductions. Hicks was signed out of Sacramento City Community College, but never played in an LSU game. The coach that recruited him, D.J. McCarthy, lost his job as a result of the self-imposed violations.

The NCAA could have put harsher penalties on the LSU football program, but decided not to after LSU self-reported the recruiting violations and cooperated with investigators. According to espn.go.com, "the sanctions include a 10 percent reduction in official recruiting visits for football during the 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years, as well as a reduction of two initial scholarships for 2011-12 and two overall scholarships for 2010-11."