PASTAGATE II: GIRLFRIENDGATE (or, OU’s NCAA compliance is hilariously vigilant)

Former Oklahoma center Gabe Ikard alleged on Tuesday that the NCAA forced him and his girlfriend to sign an affidavit promising she wasn’t dating him because he was a football player. Via Sooner Scoop:

“They did some digging and I’m actually compliant official with my girlfriend,” explained Ikard. “We had to sign a signed affidavit that she was not dating me just because I was a football player.”

(h/t Fox Sports)

This seems like a perfect LOL NCAA moment, but the problem is it probably isn’t true. There isn’t any evidence that the NCAA has ever done something like this before, and it doesn’t have a vested interest in using a preventative measure like this to keep Ikard eligible. An NCAA employee confirmed that to John Infante of The Bylaw Blog.

This is an LOL OU moment, because if it’s true, Oklahoma’s compliance office seems to be incredibly over-the-top, and maybe even creepy, in the extent to which it tries to avoid NCAA violations. Ikard and his girlfriend were apparently seen together at Thunder games, according to the Sooner Scoop story, and OU probably wanted to get out ahead of any potential issues and make Ikard sign one of the strangest affidavits in history.

This isn’t the first time OU compliance has done something absurd to prevent NCAA violations. In October, OU made a few athletes, including Ikard, pay $3.83 to charity for taking too much pasta at a banquet. That also resulted in a lot of LOL NCAA comments, but it turns out portion sizes are not regulated by the NCAA.

So is Oklahoma just ridiculously over-vigilant about NCAA rules? Do they not know the rules? Or are they just trying to make a mockery of the NCAA? Who knows.

We’ve reached out to OU compliance to see what their thought process was here, but regardless, this is certainly an impressively hilarious run.