Urban Meyer to Dispatch, Gainesville Sun: "Absolutely not true" he turned in Florida

Almost as quickly as Fox Sports reported that Ohio State's Urban Meyer turned his former Florida assistant Brian White into the NCAA for committing a low level secondary violation of improperly contacting OSU recruiting target Curtis Samuel during a dead time, Meyer has issued a denial to multiple media outlets.

"It is absolutely not true that I turned in the University of Florida," Meyer sent in a text message to both the Columbus Dispatch and The Gainesville Sun. Meyer went on to explain to Tim May and Pat Dooley respectively that weeks after the incident occurred, he learned that Ohio State's compliance guy reported the Gators after seeing an article concerning a recruiting visit to Samuel from White during a dead time (in which coaches aren't allowed to make contact with prospective student athletes).

An Ohio State spokesperson went on to elaborate to the Dispatch that "someone in the OSU compliance office read an article on a recruiting site that indicated there might have been such occurrence, and the OSU compliance office sent a note to the Big Ten office to make it aware of the possible violation." As we alluded to earlier in the day, this sort of thing probably occurs on the regular, just without us knowing about it on a sourced report from a major national outlet.

The Sun also reported that Ohio State turned in Florida last recruiting cycle in an incident concerning defensive end Jordan Sherit taking a ride with a friend who happened to be an active member of the Florida football team. Sherit ultimately ended up with the Gators anyway, further taking away some of the juice from Fox Sports' previous report which implied that Samuel no longer considering that Gators had anything to do with Ohio State compliance's report.

Samuel's been projected by some experts to end up an Ohio State commit since mid-April, ironically the same day White first visited Samuel's Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, New York. It's unclear whether the specifics of Fox Sports's original report that Florida's formal scholarship offer to Samuel came on that day are accurate, as it's possible that was just a visit to renew acquaintances of a previously extended offer (Samuel told InsideTheGators.com [$] of the Rivals Network that Coach Will Muschamp first extended the offer April 16th). Regardless, Samuel's final five schools of interest are Ohio State, Rutgers, Alabama, Notre Dame, and Miami (FL).