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Michigan self-reported four secondary NCAA violations over the winter/spring.

(Melanie Maxwell | MLive.com)

ANN ARBOR -- The Michigan football program self-reported four Secondary/Level III NCAA violations from December to April, including a mishap surrounding the recruitment of expected incoming graduate transfer Wayne Lyons.

All four of the self-reported violations were obtained by MLive via a Freedom of Information request. All Level III violations are considered to be minor and unintentional, and none of Michigan's self-reports resulted in the loss of eligibility by any student-athlete or coach.

In all instances, coaches/staffers were educated by compliance, and no further issues came as a result.

In March, Michigan safeties coach Mike Zordich spoke about the recruitment of Lyons -- an expected graduate transfer from Stanford -- with reporters before the cornerback had officially signed with Michigan. Later in the day, Gwendolyn Bush -- Lyons' mother and Michigan's player development coordinator -- also discussed the transfer via Twitter. Those tweets were eventually deleted.

Per NCAA rules, team coaches and administrators are prohibited from making any public comment on any unsigned recruit (including a potential transfer) until the prospect has signed.

Michigan did not disclose the name of the prospective recruit in the comments before commitment violation. The coaches and administrators named were Zordich and Bush.

Michigan has yet to announce Lyons' official addition to the program.

Separately, on March 18, Jim Harbaugh sent an autographed team helmet and jersey to an auction organized by a former high school classmate of his to benefit suicide prevention and awareness. The donation was not reviewed beforehand by Michigan's compliance office, and the items that were auctioned ended up being used to assist a scholarship fund in the name of a student who had committed suicide, something Harbaugh was not aware of, according to U-M's self-reported violation.

The Toledo Blade detailed the donation in March.

Per NCAA rules, programs/coaches may not personally donate items to benefit high school scholarship funds.

"As relatively new personnel, (Harbaugh and associate AD for football Jim Minick) had not yet been briefed on the institution's process for reviewing donation requests," the report reads. "But have now been and will use that system in the future to ensure donations are reviewed by compliance."

The third violation took place March 14, when Harbaugh, Minick and special teams coordinator John Baxter allowed a prospective student-athlete (unnamed in the report) to sit in a premium seating area with coaches during a hockey game at Yost Ice Arena.

"Members of the coaching staff were visiting with a prospect during an unplanned unoffical visit the prospect made to the institution," the report reads. "The head coach was scheduled to make a promotional appearance at the conclusion of the second period of the hockey game. ... The head coach made his promotional appearance and then the group went up to the seats that the head coach had used on prior occasions when attending games with his family. Being newly hired, it did not occur to the football staff that the area was considered premium seating until the compliance personnel inquired about it. By that point there was only about a minute left in the competition."

After the violation, the coaching staff was educated by Michigan's compliance staff about premium seating locations in each facility recruits are allowed to visit, according to U-M's report.

The fourth self-reported secondary violation came by way of an electronic correspondence/recruiting materials violation where electronic materials were created and/or sent to a recruit (who is not named). The staffers named in the violation are recruiting operations coordinator Chris Partridge and Aaron Bills, who create graphics for Michigan that are often sent to recruits and sometimes shared via social media.

Per NCAA bylaw 13.4.1.4, electronic correspondence may be sent from a coach/staffer to a recruit (or his/her parent/guardian) before they're signed, but that correspondence must be private. The other bylaw violated in this case is 13.4.1.7.2, which states "an institution may produce video or audio material to show to, play for or provide to a prospective student-athlete, provided such material includes only general information related to an institution or its athletics programs and is not created for recruiting purposes."

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