With preseason football practice scheduled to start Aug. 6, East Carolina suddenly is scrambling to fill a spot on its staff after assistant coach Mark Nelson admitted to breaking NCAA rules and stepped down.
Nelson is resigning after he admitted breaking NCAA rules by evaluating players during offseason workouts that were supposed to be voluntary, school athletic director Terry Holland announced Tuesday.
Nelson was hired in February to serve on first-year coach Ruffin McNeill's staff as defensive ends coach and special teams coordinator. The school has started an immediate search for an assistant to coach defensive ends, according to ECU sports information director Tom McClellan.
There is a chance the staff will reorganize its responsibilities and have one of the current assistants coordinate the special teams, McClellan said.
In a statement released by the university, Holland said East Carolina's office of NCAA compliance has been investigating possible violations of an NCAA rule that prohibits coaches from evaluating players during the offseason.
"When a coach observes these normal activities, the NCAA considers the activities to be non-sanctioned, out-of-season practice," Holland said in the statement.
McClellan said that by NCAA rule, only coaches on the strength and conditioning staff can watch the players train during the offseason. Once players stop lifting weights and running and break out the footballs to run drills, though, even the strength coaches can't watch.
For safety reasons, medical personnel on the athletic training staff are allowed to monitor offseason workouts in their entirety. But assistant coaches such as Nelson are not allowed to watch offseason drills.
Holland said McNeill called in Nelson to discuss the possible violations.
According to Holland, Nelson admitted violations that Holland said are likely to be ruled "secondary" rather than "major" after the school's formal report is filed with the NCAA.
"Coach Nelson and Coach McNeill agreed that these violations would be a distraction to the team at this critical time of the year, and Coach Nelson offered to step down from his position," Holland said. "His offer to step down was accepted by Coach McNeill pending negotiation of a severance agreement with the athletic administration and the university."
Holland said the East Carolina compliance office will file a formal report and cooperate fully with the NCAA.
Nelson served as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach last season for the Canadian Football League's Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
He has 23 years of combined coaching experience in the professional and college ranks, with coaching stops at schools in the SEC, Big 12, Big East and Conference USA.
