Go ahead and look at the flier above. It seems about as clear as clear can be.

Maybe it's the big "Oklahoma State" down on the bottom. Or the fact the copyrighted "OSU" logo appears in five different locations. There's even a nice picture of coach Mike Gundy, complete with his signature, a true mark of authenticity. That sits right next to the address for the Oklahoma State program – "OSU Football, West End Zone, Stillwater, OK 74078." Up top, of course, is a lineup of the team's recruiting assistants right under the words "Cowboy Coaches At Summer Camps In Texas!"

The flier is all but calling out to every Texas high school prospect: The Big 12 program is coming to a town near you.

Except, Oklahoma State isn't running any camps. Doing so would be a violation of NCAA rules and the compliance-committed Cowboys would never do such a thing.

They'd just make it look like they are doing such a thing.

"We actually don't host those camps in Texas, so they're not Oklahoma State camps," said Cowboys spokesman Gavin Lang. "They are hosted by Mary Hardin-Baylor and our coaches serve as employees of their camp."

Wait, what? Mary Hardin-Baylor? You mean the 3,000-student, Division III Christian school located in little Belton, Texas? Well, upon closer inspection of the flier, UMHB isn't just the location of the first stop on the camp tour. The school actually runs all six events. The only clue from the flier is the listed website – cruathletics.com – which is run by UMHB. Oklahoma State's website – OKState.com – is not on there.

Funny, the promotional material doesn't feature any pictures of Mary Hardin-Baylor Crusaders coach Pete Fredenburg.

So when is a flier not a flier? When it comes to football recruiting in Texas, of course.

Confused? Yeah, that's the point, and while this looks like Oklahoma State is running right through an NCAA rulebook loophole, the Cowboys certainly aren't the only ones. This is just the masterful use of some fairly comical and creative maneuvering.

Six years ago, the NCAA passed rule 13.12.1.2, which set limits on where football programs can run high school camps, namely any out-of-state location that sits more than 50 miles from campus. Essentially, unless your campus sits on a state border, you're fenced in. Prior to that, Oklahoma State, or anyone else, could run its own camp in whatever area it wanted to gain a foothold – Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, wherever.

In the Big 12, Lone Star high school talent fuels almost every team. No other state produces a fraction of the talent. Oklahoma State has 67 players from Texas on its current roster. Oklahoma has 43. Conversely, the University of Texas has just two players from Oklahoma.

Under the spirit of the NCAA rule, OSU and OU would be forced to sit idly each June as their rivals in Texas crisscross the geographically vast and talent-rich state, making inroads with recruits and high school coaches. Texas Tech, Baylor, Houston, TCU and others did just that this summer, bringing their staffs to prospects in all corners of the state, rather than just hoping the kids could get a ride to their home campus. In the extreme, UTEP ran a camp in Houston, some 755 miles away from El Paso.

That's a boon for Texas schools, especially as satellite camps have become one of the hottest trends in recruiting and seen by college coaches as increasingly influential. While the trend is most prevalent in Texas, college coaches think it could extend to other big-time football states such as Florida, Georgia, Ohio and California. In Texas, it isn't unusual for a high school prospect to attend a handful of one-day camps each June.

So to combat the rule and avoid getting boxed out, OU and OSU – among others – became creative and started teaming up with a D-III institution to do what their Texas rivals are able to do – get their coaches some valuable face time with recruits.

The Sooners coaches appeared at camps in Houston, San Antonio and Tyler during the summer of 2012 that were technically run by McMurry University, a 1,400-student liberal arts college in Abilene. At least the flier was less deceptive – hyping up "War Hawks Football Camp," featuring "instructions by coaches from the University of Oklahoma and McMurry University."

Oklahoma State, meanwhile, hooked up with Mary Hardin-Baylor five years back, a relationship born because Fredenberg's son, Cody, was a grad assistant in Stillwater. Now, a school with a 7,500-seat stadium runs half a dozen camps and employs the coaching staff (mostly just the assistants) of T. Boone Pickens' team. "We hired [the Cowboy coaches] to work our camp," Pete Fredenberg said.

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