Was ex-Alabama football OL Kadyn Proctor tampered with by Iowa? Don't ask the NCAA | Goodbread

Take your seats, kids.

We begin class today with a general lesson in jurisprudence. Put it on the blackboard, throw the erasers out the window, and never forget this: rules without enforcement aren't rules. They're suggestions. And laws without penalties aren't really laws. They're just legislative fingers crossed for compliance. These truths come with the convenience of universal application, but our context for today's discussion is the NCAA, which has driven this point home about its own regulations by its actions — err, inactions — time and again.

That belongs at the forefront of the latest hot-button discussion on the NCAA's rule against tampering in the transfer portal as it pertains to former Alabama football offensive lineman Kadyn Proctor. If you didn't do your homework, here's the latest chapter: Proctor, who struggled over the first half of last season as Alabama's freshman starter at left tackle, entered the NCAA transfer portal soon after retired coach Nick Saban announced he was stepping down on Jan. 10. On the day Proctor announced a transfer to his home-state Iowa Hawkeyes, he attended a UI basketball game and said the following to a local TV reporter about why he chose Iowa:

“We still had those relationships, and even after I was doing bad in the SEC, and struggling, they (Iowa) hit me up and said ‘We are proud of you. You are going to get through this'," Proctor told WQAD. "That is what ultimately helped me to my decision. They still believed in me.”

Now consider those comments in light of the NCAA's tampering rule that forbids one program from contacting an athlete in another program before that athlete has entered the transfer portal. For Proctor's transfer to Iowa to be completed, NCAA Bylaw 14.5.5.2.10 requires, in part, that both Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz and Proctor must certify that “no athletics staff member or other representative of the institution’s athletics interest communicated or made contact with the student-athlete, or any individual associated with the student (e.g., family member, scholastic or non-scholastic coach, advisor), directly or indirectly, without first obtaining authorization through the notification of transfer process.”

The notification of transfer process begins with Proctor's paperwork to enter the portal, which happened earlier this month, whereas Proctor admitted being contacted during Alabama's football season at the point when he was playing poorly, which was as far back as September.

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Indeed, if the Hawkeyes were encouraging Proctor to transfer during Alabama’s season, that’s the textbook definition of tampering. However, the NCAA's enforcement arm requires hard proof, which is virtually impossible to obtain, which is why tampering in the portal is rampant in college sports. There’s critical context missing that doesn’t quite bridge Proctor’s remarks with hard evidence of tampering.

Was he contacted by an official representative of the school? If not, was he contacted by a third party acting on Iowa’s behalf? What was the nature of the communication? Was there direct encouragement to transfer or a promise made in exchange for a transfer? Nothing in what Proctor said answers any of these questions, and the NCAA's threshold for a tampering violation demands answers to them.

It's also relevant that NCAA rules prohibit contact of any kind, even contact that doesn't rise to its definition of tampering. Contact by one school to another school's athlete that isn't deemed tampering is a Level III violation; the least serious of offenses, the punishment for which is slap-on-the-wrist stuff. Relatively speaking, a parking ticket. Meanwhile, the ultra-high difficulty of proving tampering undermines enforcement, and even in the face of proof, the NCAA classifies tampering as a Level II violation, which also doesn’t have the teeth to be a deterrent.

That's the rulebook, however, not the common sense book. And common sense suggests that Proctor might have spilled some tea that was supposed to stay in the Hawkeyes' mug. Former Alabama offensive lineman Alphonse Taylor, for one, left no doubt about his interpretation. “Relationships being built during SEC PLAY is … say it with me, TAMPERING,” Taylor said via social media.

Personally, I don't expect the NCAA to inquire about Proctor's remarks. Its keystone cops — despite being all whistle, no gun — have certainly sniffed around over less. But according to Yahoo! Sports, the NCAA is in possession of screenshots of text messages sent from current head coaches to players on other teams encouraging them to transfer. If that's the case, it has much harder evidence of tampering on its plate than anything Proctor said.

Yet here we sit, with tampering more prevalent than jaywalking.

There was a time in recruiting when finishing second for a top prospect didn’t matter a bit. Programs either got the player or they didn’t, and as Will Ferrell famously said as Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights: “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” That’s really not the case anymore, because the transfer portal, along with a tampering problem that can't be policed, has given finishing second some meaning. Because when the player decides he’s leaving the school he first signed with, the runner-up becomes the frontrunner. As Proctor noted himself, “No bridges were burned.”

Tampering isn't Proctor's problem. And it's not Iowa's, either.

It's just the NCAA's problem for as long as it keeps a rule against it, but the rule is only as strong as the enforcement and penalties attached to it. Without consequences, there might as well be no rule. And so ends today's lesson in NCAA folly. There's the bell.

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Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Did Iowa tamper with ex-Alabama football OL Proctor? Don't ask NCAA