AU Assistants Decline Comment On Rumored NCAA Investigation (Likely Tied To Ex-Tiger Robinson)

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On and on it goes.  Worse and worse it looks.

Earlier this week, oddsmaker Danny Sheridan told a Tuscaloosa fan club that the NCAA is once again investigating Auburn and that two Tiger assistants had been pulled from the recruiting trail as a result.  Given a chance to deny the claims, head coach Gene Chizik declined.

Yesterday, Tiger assistants Curtis Luper and Trooper Taylor — the aides believed to have been grounded — followed suit.  Luper said:

“We’ve got our commitments, and we have a strategy to keep those guys.  We’re not going to elaborate on any of it, and we’re definitely not going to answer any accusations.”

And Taylor said:

“Obviously, we can’t comment on any accusations, but I can tell you this.  We have a plan in place for recruiting. We stick to that plan, and what this coaching staff is focused on, outside of recruiting, is winning a football game.”

If you’re on the road recruiting, you say so and you shoot down Sheridan’s claims.  Chizik, Luper and Taylor all chose to zip their lips instead.  Their silence speaks volumes.

If Luper and Taylor are off the road, then it’s probably — at least in part — tied to the NCAA’s ongoing attempt to clean up recruiting in Memphis and the assistants’ recruiting job on Jovon Robinson.  In August, Robinson was ruled ineligible shortly after his guidance counselor at Memphis’ Wooddale High School admitted to falsifying the running back’s transcript.

Did someone ask said guidance counselor to make those changes to Robinson’s academic record?  If so, was that someone connected to Auburn?  Those are questions that the NCAA is likely trying to answer right now.

Auburn, of course, could have just pulled Luper and Taylor off the road until the smoke clears.  Remember, there was a lot of smoke surrounding Cam Newton, too, but no smoking gun was ever found.

Still with “no comments” now emanating from the Plains on a daily basis, it seems that Sheridan might have been right about this one.