:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/34225273/156647501.0.jpg)
Details are starting to dribble out about why Joker Phillips allegedly and abruptly stepped down as wide receivers coach at Florida. And the details that have come out -- they're not the kind of thing that would normally lead an assistant coach at a major university to resign three months before the football season.
Joker Phillips forced to resign at UF by Will Muschamp because of Phillips' possible NCAA recruiting violations source told @espn
— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) June 11, 2014
Correction to last tweet: Joker Phillips not forced to resign by Will Muschamp. Apologies for mistake
— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) June 11, 2014
All the misstep really proved was that things were a bit confusing and that even the best sports reporters -- and Brett McMurphy is one of the best sports reporters there is -- make mistakes. And if Joker Phillips is resigning over a recruiting violation, it can't possibly be a secondary recruiting violation. Secondary recruiting violations happen all the time, as Lane Kiffin can tell us, and --
The sources I spoke w said the issue at hand is a "bump" w a HS junior. Very minor. Was turned in by another program in Florida.
— FootballScoop Staff (@footballscoop) June 11, 2014
I'm not sure I buy this one, or at least not without it being part of a larger picture. It's not that it's unprecedented for a coach to lose his job over a "bump" violation -- basically, bumping into a recruit and talking to him when you're not not supposed to -- but the most prominent example was Bruce Pearl at Tennessee, and there were other issues at play there.