Top 25 prep football program to vacate wins from three seasons

One of the nation’s top high school football programs must vacate wins from the past three seasons for using a “recruited player,” according to the Louisiana High School Athletic Association.

The LHSAA made the ruling this week at an appeal hearing for the John Curtis Christian High School football team, according to USA Today. John Curtis Christian is ranked No. 12 in the nation by USA Today, but it now must forfeit 20 or more games from the 2013-15 seasons.

The issue stems from former player Willie Allen, who is now an offensive lineman at Louisiana State. Allen reportedly moved in with an assistant coach during his sophomore year to avoid the long commute to school.

The LHSAA determined that the living arrangement amounted to recruiting, and the school must now forfeit all games Allen played in.

From USA Today:

John Curtis coach J.T. Curtis, who has more wins than any active high school coaches with 548 and was the American Family Insurance ALL-USA Coach of the Year in 2006 and 2012, argued in the hearing that Allen wasn’t recruited and the arrangement merely allowed him to stay in the school he preferred.

…

“We were extremely disappointed in how this went,” he said. “We felt like the facts were ignored. Our next move is we’re going to visit with our attorney the latter part of this week or the early part of next week and make a decision of whether we’re going to arbitration or not. The problem with arbitration is we have to put up $5,000 and if we lose, we have to pay their (attorneys’) costs as well as ours. We have to make sure we have a legitimate chance to be successful. We think with a neutral arbitrator and the facts of the case and the ambiguity of the rule that we would have a legitimate chance. But I want to reserve the judgment on that until we talk to our attorney.”

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