The UNK football team has been placed on probation for two years from the NCAA due to recruiting violations under former coach Josh Lynn.
One of the results of the probation includes UNK vacating two of their best seasons in program history. UNK has lost all eight wins from the 2022 season, and five of their 10 from 2021. The two playoff games from 2021 are not included in the vacancy.
The violations under Lynn and two former assistant coaches occurred in August of 2021, July of 2022 and August of 2022. The staff offered impermissible benefits to six prospective student athletes, booking cost free one way airfare so they could participate in preseason practice and/or enroll in classes. The coaches also arranged for one of the prospects to receive interim lodging.
In summer 2023, West Texas A&M self-reported a similar violation. Lynn, who now coaches at West Texas A&M, indicated to the compliance office that UNK had allowed the football staff to purchase that airfare and did not require the prospective athletes to return home. UNK completed an internal investigation, finding that the former football staff members did not submit official visit paperwork to compliance for any of the prospective athletes. The total value of the impermissible benefits was approximately $1,872.
UNK was first notified in October of 2023 about the possible infractions, and athletic director Marc Bauer said the Athletic Department immediately complied.
“We were very forthcoming and helpful to the NCAA because we wanted to make sure we fully understood the situation,” Bauer said. “We needed to rectify the situation and ensure that this can never happen again.”
The NCAA found in its investigation that the institution failed to adequately monitor the former staff’s booking of the transportation and lodging, and that Lynn had failed to promote an ‘atmosphere of compliance’ because of his involvement, knowledge and approval of the assistant coaches arranging for the airfare.
Lynn, who left UNK after the 2022 season, just finished his second season at West Texas A&M.
“In regards to the recent NCAA investigation, I take full responsibility as a head coach for the violations that occurred under my watch,” Lynn said in a statement given to The Antelope. “To be clear, the NCAA ruled that violations did occur; however, no unethical conduct rules were broken. Moving forward, I will adhere to the consequences of the ruling and continue to abide by NCAA rules, as my programs and I have always tried to do. I will have no further comment on this matter.”
While the situation is disappointing, Bauer said it’s an opportunity for the department to grow.
“Many of our policies and procedures have been in place for a very long time and we’ve just got to do a better job of making sure we’re educating coaches and staying on top of compliance,” Bauer said. “We want to be good representatives of the institution and the athletic department. We obviously do not want to put coaches or student athletes in any type of jeopardy for the future.”
UNK has completed an internal audit and recently completed a process called the Blueprint review with the NCAA. It is a voluntary review on the institution’s compliance program and identifies strengths and areas where things can be improved.
UNK has also partnered with Teamworks, an automated online platform that UNK will use to help with recruiting and communication. All Athletic Department staff will go through Teamworks training. Bauer said the goal is to have everything in place and have everyone trained by August 2025.
The probation period for UNK will run until Jan. 28, 2027. UNK must continue to develop and implement an educational program on NCAA legislation for the Athletic Department, vacate team and individual records from any game where ineligible players played, pay a $3,744 fine, attend rules seminars and lose 19.5% of the average number of official paid visits for football over the next two years.
While the current coaching staff had nothing to do with the infractions committed, they will be limited to just 83 official paid football recruiting visits during the probation period.
“This is not a reflection of them, their values and their coaching philosophy,” Bauer said. “I’ve talked to coach (Ryan) Held extensively about this and we feel like we’re in a good place because we can divide that between the two years however we want. We’ve had such a great retention rate for our football team so we didn’t have to do as many official visits as some other years.”
For current players like redshirt freshman Trey Prichard, it’s not a knock on the current coaching staff, but it is something they did not see coming.
“It stinks to be hit with the probation, but it’s not changing where we’re going,” Prichard said. “We’re going to continue to do our thing, continue to put that work in for next year.”
Lynn is also suspended for one game, will have to complete a show-cause order and will not be allowed to have any recruiting communications for six weeks during the show-cause period.
With the situation resolved, Bauer said the University and the Athletic Department is trying to find the good in what happened.
“We’re going to learn from this and will grow from this and we hope to avoid or head off any future issues,” Bauer said. “We’ve got to make sure we have oversight on all of our policies and all our procedures and a shared responsibility as well.”
