Notre Dame tight end Tyler Eifert was excited to meet five-star recruit Jaylon Smith who was visiting campus. Unfortunately, he expressed said excitement on twitter, which constitutes an NCAA violation.

The Twitter handle in that tweet belongs to Smith, a linebacker from Bishop Luers High School in Eifert’s hometown of Fort Wayne, Ind. And that message seemingly is in violation of NCAA bylaw 13.10.5, which refers to publicization of a prospective student-athlete’s visit.

“A member institution shall not publicize (or arrange for publicity of) a prospective student-athlete’s visit to the institution’s campus,” the bylaw reads. “Violations of this bylaw do not affect a prospective student-athlete’s eligibility and are considered institutional violations per Constitution 2.8.1.”

Notre Dame’s AD claims this will be “an excellent teaching moment for all of our teams and student-athletes.” He’s right. You can’t have college football players recklessly acknowledging benign events happening in front of them. It’s a slippery slope from that to cream cheese and lox on bagels.

With national media sites covering recruiting and National Signing Day an event covered by multiple networks, arcane rules about publicizing recruits have clearly outlived their usefulness.

[Photo via Getty]