2011 Miami Hurricanes Football Scandal: How Does It Affect Louisville Football?

When 5-star quarterback Teddy Bridgewater committed to the Louisville Cardinals football program on December 20, 2010, head coach Charlie Strong effusively praised the man named 2010 Recruiter of the Year and the Cardinals recruiting coordinator and defensive line coach since January of 2010, Clint Hurtt.

"We succeeded in recruiting because of people like him," Strong said. "Recruiting is the bloodline of our program. We have to turn it around. Teddy and this class starts the whole ball rolling. We can't get complacent. Everyone will do a better job against us. We have made people take notice of Louisville."

With less than stellar play in their first two games of the season, the Cardinals have certainly attracted attention for their failure to live up to the high expectations the nation’s 16th largest city has been so kind to impart upon them.

However, the program may draw global attention once the NCAA completes its investigation of the University of Miami football program, where Hurtt performed as a player from 1997 to 2000, before an injury terminated his career and where he coached the defensive line from 2006 to 2009 while also serving as recruiting coordinator.

Hurtt, who is native of Rochester, NY, was responsible for the top-ranked 2008 class now in its last season as members of the Miami Hurricanes.

On August 16, Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports published a series of jailhouse interviews with former booster and the now convicted manager of a $930 million Ponzi scheme, Nevin Shapiro.

Shapiro claims he granted thousands of dollars of impermissible benefits to a minimum of 72 athletes in the university’s football and basketball programs from 2002 until 2010 and implicated Hurtt as one of at least six coaches from both sports to be involved with his actions.

The Brooklyn native alleges Hurtt transported recruits to his home to be “entertained,” footed the bill for some of his meals and also borrowed $5,000 from him, which was paid in full.

There is, however, a personal check from Hurtt to Schapiro for $2,500 that Schapiro cites as evidence of the loan.

“Here’s the thing: Luther Campbell was the first uncle who took care of players before I got going,” Shapiro told Robinson. “His role was diminished by the NCAA and the school, and someone needed to pick up that mantle. That someone was me. He was ‘Uncle Luke,’ and I became ‘Little Luke.' I did it because I could. And nobody stepped in to stop me.”

Shortly after news of the scandal hit the public consciousness, the University of Louisville acknowledged the NCAA did want to speak to Hurtt in regards to Shapiro’s revelations, but declined further comment on the situation “due to NCAA bylaws which require us to protect the integrity of their review.”

“We are aware of the Yahoo! Sports story and take these allegations very seriously,” Tom Jurich, the University of Louisville’s athletic director said in a press release. “The NCAA has informed us that they wish to speak to Clint Hurtt regarding his time at the University of Miami and we will fully cooperate throughout this process.”

The initial decision the NCAA produced on August cleared player Marcus Robinson, but found 12 other players did indeed accept benefits. Four players received no suspension, five were suspended for one game, two for four games and one for six games.

The entire ordeal has created an outcry for Miami’s program to receive the “death penalty” which has been implemented only in 1987 on Southern Methodist University, and it took the school nearly 20 years to restore it.

While the NCAA takes its time to fully investigate the situation, Hurtt can and most likely will fly under the radar, but as this scenario plays out, it seems highly likely the recruiting coordinator will be found guilty of some sort of illegal behavior.

“If all Shapiro’s allegations seem to check out with the NCAA, what to make of the allegations regarding Hurtt?” wrote Eric Crawford of the Louisville Courier-Journal on August 30. “And even more important, what does the NCAA, which called the overall allegations “some of the most serious violations recruiting violations within the NCAA,” seem to make of them?

Cardinals head coach Charlie Strong said Hurtt’s duties “have not changed at all and they will not change.”

“What counts now is what the NCAA thinks,” he continued. “For the moment, U of L administration to some degree, finds itself relegated to the sidelines on a serious matter involving one of its coaches, largely restricted by rule from action or comment, even if it were inclined to either. The Cardinals can’t be comfortable.”

And why would they or Cardinals fans ever be?

They were counting on Charlie Strong and his staff, of which Hurtt is obviously a member of, to turn this team into a perennial national title contender.

When Bridgewater and Eli Rogers signed their letters to come to Louisville, the city could not stop talking about how good the Cardinals were going to be and they finally had a stud at quarterback to get them to the next level.

Already disappointed by the poor play of the offensive line this season, Cardinals fans are now taking a wait-and-see approach to not only the looming contest against their archrival, the University of Kentucky, this weekend, but to see how this entire scandal affects Hurtt—which, if he is found to have transgressed, will most definitely taint what the University of Louisville is attempting to build.

Strong certainly was correct when he said people will now take notice of the University of Louisville’s football program. Hopefully it’s not for the wrong reasons.