Hope this turns out to be a big bunch of nothing. LSU football paid $6,000 for services of 'street agent' - College Football News | FOX Sports on MSN
Oh wait, let me do my AU fan impression: Thayer Evans is a hack who has a vendetta against LSU, and he has no solid evidence of anything. Seriously, I have no idea if this technically violates any bylaws, but this "street agent" business stinks to high heaven, and dealing with them is just asking for trouble. I would hope Les is on top of things and nips these problems in the bud.
Nothing out of the ordinary on LSU's end. Every team pays firms for scouting services. LSU paid 2 others last year which averaged close to $6K and the service in question was paid the least of all. Every team pays for these services and this expense was for Juco film from CA and AZ. The only thing in question is Lyles who may be acting as a street agent and possibly taking payments on the side or just causing stirs among the high school coaches in Texas. Then comes in Oregon who paid them $25,000 the year they signed Lache and others. Lyles has Houston ties and has his head in all the high schools. Trevon Randle of this class knew him like most but the timeline doesn't add up for any wrong doing. Trevon's comments on Scout about accepting an LSU offer on the spot when offered because we were a childhood favorite and had family close by where before Trovon and his father meet Lyles at a combine. Randle was questioned but not LSU. LSU has openly supplied all their payments to recruiting services last year. I don't see anything coming out of this on LSU's end but Oregon might be the one getting a lot of questions.
I tend to agree. The good news is we only paid the guy 6k and that's obviously not the going rate for a top prospect. Just ask Phil Knight.
As usual bhelmLSU is dead-on right. Most schools pay recruiting services. But there's a big difference in paying a normal fee like $5 - 6 thousand for services as compared to paying $25 - 30 thousand. Paying five times the normal price gives the obvious perception that a school is paying for guaranteed deliverance of a particular player.
Just to clarify, it also is not that uncommon to pay $20K or more to recruiting services either. LSU paid one service $20K last year but it was likely a service which provided info on a larger recruit population like the Southeast or Texas, etc... They usually provide measurements, contact info, film, etc... Oregon is not wrong for paying the $25K for what is called the 2011 National Package from Lyles and Co. The question will be is Lyles using these funds to give Oregon a competitive advantage or is he making deals under the table? The NCAA is focused on Lyles for now and Oregon just seems to be the one team under scrutiny right now.
Joe Schad is on a witch hunt for sure. See his latest tweets. He claims a full story is coming Wednesday. Twitter
