Kentucky coach Brooks calls for more enforcement

Kentucky head football coach Rich Brooks has found East Tennessee to be fertile recruiting ground.

He's secured one of the most versatile players in the SEC, a near-record-setting kicker, an up-and-coming receiver and a valuable utility man - all from the Knoxville area.

Brooks has landed two Alcoa High School standouts: Randall Cobb, who played a key role for the Wildcats at quarterback and at receiver last season, and receiver Kyrus Lanxter, who is coming off a career-best five catches for 46 yards in the 2008 Liberty Bowl.

Kentucky also relies on two former Central High School standout players: kicker Lones Seiber, who is 15 points shy of becoming Kentucky's all-time leading scorer, and fullback A.J. Nance, who is one of Kentucky's best special teams performers.

This year, Kentucky has reportedly offered a scholarship to rising Alcoa senior tight end Tyler Robinson.

And, Brooks is proud to say, he's done so cleanly.

Brooks doesn't believe that self-reported, secondary violations are always inadvertent missteps. He believes there may be more afoot as some programs try to get an upper hand in recruiting.

"I think that some of these things are not accidental," Brooks said on the News Sentinel's radio show, The Sports Page.

Brooks called for changes in enforcement, saying that will keep the amount of secondary violations from growing.

"The only way that will change is the conference office or the NCAA may have to take more stringent action on those that are having - quote - secondary violations because everybody that is a head coach or a recruiting coordinator in this league understands what the rules are," Brooks said. "Something really should change.

"If not, it's going to force everybody to have secondary violations because there's no question they can gain a slight advantage with some of the things that are going on."

Whether it's a smoke machine or a special celebration for visiting prospects, Brooks sees self-reporting as a necessary way to avoid punishment - not simply altruistic policing.

If schools don't report themselves, technology often times will.

"I won't say what school but I just watched something on Youtube that is clearly a secondary violation by a member school in our conference," Brooks said. "If they don't self report it, somebody else is going to report it.

"I think there's maybe a little too much gamesmanship going on right now."

Kentucky is the only SEC school that reported no secondary violations since Dec. 1, 2008 to the News Sentinel. Such statistics were not available from Auburn, Alabama and Vanderbilt.

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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