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Fedora promised he would emphasize recruiting within the state, and he spoke of building a theoretical wall around North Carolina.  His early recruiting success has placed the Tar Heels far in front of their in-state rivals on the recruiting trail.  Combined, Duke, East Carolina, NC State, and Wake Forest have six commitments so far.

NC State and Wake have none.

Typically I would take this moment to point out O’Brien’s recruiting ability, but instead I want to take a moment to look at Fedora’s most recent recruiting stunt.

On April 4th, Fedora kicked-off their first ‘off-campus scrimmage’ in school history.  The scrimmage would be held at Mallard Creek High School in Charlotte on a Wednesday (a school day) afternoon.  He addressed fans around 5:45pm and kick-off was at 6:00pm.  Anytime something is a ‘first ever’ situation, it begs the question whether there is a damn good reason it has never been attempted before.  The biggest concern with hold an off-campus scrimmage isn’t that it’s off campus; it’s that it gives you advanced contact with recruits in a round-about way that may avoid detection or prosecution by the NCAA.

So what do the NCAA regulations say about off-campus scrimmages?

“Expenses may be paid for practice sessions only if they are associated with an away-from home contest or conducted at a site located within the member institution’s state or, if outside that state, no more than 100 miles from the institution’s campus.” (Revised: 1/10/05)

So it’s alright if it’s within the State but not outside of the state.  Here’s a hypothetical question for you: why does the NCAA care where a team practices?  Why does the NCAA even place a restriction on how far from campus you can be when you practice?  That seems to imply that there are specific reasons why UNC can’t play a scrimmage in Miami, Atlanta, or Southern California.  Is it because the NCAA doen’ts want to risk traveling liabilities?  No, that can’t be it… Is it because the NCAA doesn’t want to distract the players from their academic studies? Let’s not kid ourselves!  The only reasonable explanation you come up with is that the NCAA wants to put a cap on the amount of exposure a program is getting outside of NCAA sanctioned events.

Is UNC breaking any laws?  No… but “they may be breaking the spirit of the law.”  So where is Swofford on this to either confirm or deny that this is something that should be allowed?  Swofford didn’t push for further punishment on Carolina after the NCAA failed to find them guilty of a loss of institutional control, but will he step up now that Fedora and ‘the flagship’ are thumbing their nose once against at the NCAA?

Don’t count on it.  It’s business as usual at Carolina, the shining bastion of hypocrisy and vanity.

(For more on the evil that is UNC-CHeat, please visit CarolinaSucks.com!)