As the Oregon Ducks begin fall camp, the biggest news surrounding the team should be their #3 preseason ranking in the USA Today's coach's poll that was released last week.
However, Oregon cannot escape the looming cloud of NCAA allegations in connection to Will Lyles and his recruiting service Oregon paid $25,000 for in 2010.
The NCAA began to have questions when they noticed the $25,000 tab, an amount far exceeding a typical fee for a recruiting service which typically costs less than $10,000. Then as journalists and NCAA officials began digging around a little, rumors began to flutter concerning the timing of the payment in relation to the commitment of Lache Seastrunk, at the time considered a top running back in the nation out of Temple High School (Temple, TX).
In an interview with Yahoo! Sports Lyles said “I look back at it now and they paid for what they saw as my access and influence with recruits…The service I provided went beyond what a scouting service should,”
Lyles established a friendship with Seastrunk that evolved into a mentorship while Seastrunk was in high school. According to Lyles he played a large role in advising Seastrunk on which college to attend from a mentor standpoint to give Seastrunk the best opportunity to continue his career.
When Seastrunk decided to attend Oregon his mother did not agree, wanting her son to attend LSU. She refused to sign his national letter of intent, which requires the signature of a parent or legal guardian of a prospect under the age of 21.
Seastrunk wanted his grandmother to sign his letter of intent because she was the one that had raised him in the first place due to his mother's legal troubles during his childhood.
Lyles then worked with Oregon and the NLI (national letter of intent) office to help Seastrunk and his grandmother petition so she could legally sign his letter of intent to Oregon. The request was granted, and Seastrunk was free to be a Duck.
Lyles told Yahoo! Sports “my motivation was because (Lache) wanted it done. He felt that he wasn't in control of his own process and he felt kind of handcuffed. So, he wanted to free himself from that. So, for him to be able to do that, I needed to find out the information to help him with it.”
Lyles showed Yahoo! Sports documentation that he had exchanged 38 phone calls with members of the Oregon program, including seven with Head Coach Chip Kelly. Lyles also showed several hand-written letters addressed to him from Oregon coaches, including Kelly.
Chip Kelly, true to his colors, has no comment. He can't comment on ongoing NCAA investigations anyway, but considering Kelly's favorite words for the media are “not going to talk about that,” the policy is likely just fine with him.
Skepticism grew when Oregon produced the reports that Lyles provided them for the fee. They were not even for that current year's recruits, being from 2009. One of the recruits on the report had even passed away prior to when the report was given to Oregon.
Lyles claims that Oregon panicked when they had to provide documentation to justify the payment to Lyles and asked Lyles for “anything (he) had.” Lyles sent over old player profiles to give them something, not thinking it would be of any importance.
According to Lyles Oregon did not ask for any documentation prior to that, preferring to discuss players and recruit meetings over the phone.
There have also been questions raised about Seastrunk's official visit to Eugene when the rumor surfaced claiming that he had been given customized Nike shoes. That speculation has been settled when photographs surfaced showing the shoes in a display case at the Oregon facilities where Seastrunk could see but clearly did not touch or take them.
