Tosh Lupoi Under Investigation

The LA Times' allegations stem from Lupoi's recruitment of Andrew Basham, a Lynwood High student who signed with UW's most recent recruiting class. Allegedly, Lupoi provided money to get Basham tutoring and pay for online classes to get Andrew eligible to play football for the Huskies.

Mike Davis, a throwing coach who helped Basham win a state shotput title, told The Times that Tosh Lupoi, Washington's defensive line coach, gave him $3,000 to cover private tutoring for Basham through a test preparation company. Davis said he also received $1,500 from Lupoi to reimburse Basham's father for online classes

You really need to read the entire Times column to get the full impact of just what's being alleged here. The stuff that Lupoi is being accused of having done is really old school kind of stuff. Putting $1,500 in a coffee cup. Leaving $3,000 in a brown paper bag. Seems like stuff that SMU would have been doing way back when, not things that happen in the 21st century.

Mike Davis is Andrew Basham's high school throwing coach and the man who dropped the dime on Lupoi. His motives for doing so remain unclear.

Steve Sarkisian claims that he did not know of this until USC vetted Lupoi in order to attempt to hire him for the staff down there. It's worth noting that when Lupoi did not initially follow Sark with Keith Heyward and Peter Sirmon, rumors of some sort of investigation popped up, but nobody could confirm this until now.

This is obviously a major infraction, if true. The NCAA has been wildly inconsistent in terms of enforcement of penalties, but the one thing they've been without a doubt the most stringent on is providing any sort of financial impropriety to an amateur athlete.

Regardless of whether or not this is true, you can go ahead and put a big "X" through Tosh Lupoi's name for Chris Petersen's staff. There's no chance he comes back to Washington with this cloud hanging over his head. Nor will he go to USC, because with all their goings on with the NCAA of late, they simply can't take on someone with these kinds of questions surrounding them.

If the allegations are true, it's hard to say how the NCAA will act on it, because NCAA. You'd think that since Basham never made it into the University of Washington, and Tosh Lupoi will no longer be a part of the staff once any decision comes down that UW will not be punished too severely. I would expect that Tosh Lupoi would get hit with some sort of show-cause penalty.

There's a good chance that this becomes a circus pretty quickly. And there's a better chance that this drags on for a while.