STARKVILLE — The 7-on-7 summer team coach of Mississippi State University freshman defensive back Will Redmond went into detail about the improper benefits he encountered during the college recruitment of the four-star prospect.
Byron De’Vinner, who has been interviewed by NCAA investigators regarding the investigations into multiple players in Memphis on his 7-on-7 team, went into details about arrangements for lodging and complementary meals in a Yahoo! Sports report released Wednesday afternoon.
De’Vinner also named the booster, whose name was redacted from the documents obtained by The Dispatch, as Robert Denton Herring. Herring, who is based in Roswell, Ga., was a former MSU football season-ticket holder and has had the school disassociate itself from him because of what their outside counsel described in letters to Herring as “impermissible contact with the prospective student-athlete.”
De’Vinner has become the focus across the Memphis area due to the NCAA investigation into several prospects in that region including Auburn University signee Jovon Robinson, who was declared ineligible earlier this summer by the NCAA after it discovered the player’s high school transcript had been changed.
Redmond was a four-star recruit according to Rivals.com and reportedly had offers from the University of Georgia, University of Tennessee, Ohio State University, University of Notre Dame and Vanderbilt University.
De’Vinner said to Yahoo! Sports that he was given a complimentary cottage room at the Old Waverly Resort, the elite golf club nearby West Point, and free meals at Anthony’s Good Food Market, a restaurant in West Point, after being instructed by Denton Herring to see the restaurant owner Ray Hamilton.
The Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported Hamilton replied to their publication in an e-mail , denying the accuracy of the story published by Yahoo! Sports.
Hours after the Yahoo! Sports story was published, De’Vinner went on a Nashville sports radio show and said Redmond was offered $60,000 by a booster from a Bowl Championship Series school in order to sign with that program this past February but De’Vinner declined to identify the specific school. He also told the Nashville radio station Redmond was offered $6,000 by a MSU booster to shut down his recruitment and sign with the Bulldogs but again, couldn’t be sure if Redmond received that payment.
When contacted by The Dispatch Wednesday afternoon via text messaging, De’Vinner said he was unsure if the MSU booster that offered Redmond the $6,000 was Denton Herring.
De’Vinner also told The Dispatch he was unsure the reason Redmond, a four-star prospect out of Memphis East High School, would turn down the $60,000 offer in order to sign with MSU.
However, a few hours later, De’Vinner told The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal that the booster involved with the $6,000 payment was indeed Denton Herring.
De’Vinner told Yahoo! Sports he interviewed for an open position inside the MSU football program this summer but ultimately wasn’t hired for the job. The Dispatch can confirm the job De’Vinner applied and interviewed for with MSU athletics department was the assistant recruiting coordinator job vacated last season by Mark Ouimet.
“The interview was supposed to be a formality to pretty much get Will [to sign],” De’Vinner said to Yahoo! Sports. “But after I interviewed, it shocked them, because of the way I sold myself, and it went from being a formality to they wanted to hire me. Compliance wasn’t sure because I didn’t have any experience in the position, and so did the athletic director [Scott Stricklin].”
De’Vinner told Yahoo! Sports after he was informed by MSU head coach Dan Mullen he didn’t get the job, he was still asked to come speak at a clinic in mid-April. De’Vinner said he was paid by the university “roughly $700” as a speaking fee for his time.
Sources close to the situation confirmed to The Dispatch last month the NCAA investigation, at least in part, involves an automobile purchased for Redmond. The Ford Mustang was purchased before Redmond signed with MSU this February from a used car dealership in his hometown of Memphis, Tenn.
De’Vinner called into the Head to Head sports radio show hosted by Richard Cross and Matt Wyatt unprompted Tuesday to “clear his name…that had been dragged through the mud.”
“Will Redmond was a kid that was basically taken advantage of by a booster and by an assistant coach,” De’Vinner said on the radio show. “Did I physically see inappropriate benefits? Yes, I did.”
De’Vinner said on the radio show that former MSU receivers coach Angelo Mirando “was aware” of the improper benefits. De’Vinner said he was introduced to Mirando in June 2011 and later Mirando “sent him a message on Facebook, gave me his number to call him.”
Mirando resigned on Aug. 19 due to what school officials are calling “unforeseen personal reasons.” Mirando’s resignation came 13 days before MSU began its 2012 season.
MSU officials released a two-sentence statement on Aug. 23 saying the school “over the last several months has worked in cooperation with the NCAA to examine a potential recruiting irregularity.”
NCAA Associate Director of Public and Media Relations Stacey Osburn released a statement to The Dispatch on Aug. 23 confirming MSU’s statement to the media but “have no further comment” at this time.
Mullen had no further comment on the investigation Wednesday during his allotted time on the weekly Southeastern Conference coaches’ teleconference.
“I know the NCAA is doing their work on that. and we’re not commenting on any of that stuff at this time,” Mullen said.
When asked specifically during the teleconference if Redmond, who hasn’t been active in MSU’s first two home games, would be a member of the travel roster for this week’s game at Troy University, Mullen declined to speculate on that matter.
“I don’t think he’s dressed out but a lot of our freshmen haven’t,” Mullen said. “I don’t know if our plans are to take all the guys that haven’t dressed yet as freshmen and not redshirt those guys. We’ve been able to stay healthy, and that is a big dictator in who we dress.”
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