Recruit says Notre Dame pulled his scholarship offer 5 days after he verbally committed

Our latest example of how recruiting can be a dirty business comes from high school wide receiver T.J. Sheffield.

The Tennessee native and three-star recruit tweeted Wednesday that he’s no longer committed to Notre Dame. And that the decision was not of his own volition.

Sheffield said he committed to Notre Dame July 6

The three-star recruit said he told Notre Dame assistant coach Del Alexander that he wanted to come to Notre Dame on Friday. Then, he said, he found out Wednesday from the school that he was no longer being recruited by the Fighting Irish.

Notre Dame is not allowed to comment on recruits, per NCAA rules. So the school will not be able to officially dispute Sheffield’s story. And it’s important that his story is simply one side of it.

Verbal commitments are non-binding

Scholarship offers and the verbal commitments that come with them are non-binding. In a perfect world any scholarship offer (and its acceptance) would be legitimate. But we all know that recruiting isn’t the most straightforward of endeavors. A school can pursue three or four different players for one scholarship spot. It looks like the Notre Dame staff has other receiving prospects higher on their recruiting wish list for the 2019 class.

But if Sheffield’s story is true and there aren’t any mitigating factors on Notre Dame’s end, then it’s a bad look for the Fighting Irish. If Sheffield ends up signing with a team on Notre Dame’s schedule he may be circling that game on his calendar.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter

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