MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Joe DeForest, under a gag order since early September, finally spoke to reporters on Tuesday night, albeit with a crucial caveat: Anything concerning the pay-for-play allegations published by Sports Illustrated was off-limits.
Mike Montoro, WVU’s director of football communications, accompanied DeForest into the interview room and actually said more about the Oklahoma State scandal than did the team’s highest-paid assistant coach.
“He’s here to talk about special teams,” Montoro said. “If you ask him, he is not allowed to talk about the internal investigation—that statement has already been made and put out by the athletic department. And he is not allowed to talk about anything happening at other institutions across the country. So we’re going to talk about special teams. Go ahead …”
And following that introduction, came talk of punting, fair-catches and coverage units. (Click the video above to see that.) Nothing of the potentially career-changing events that did or didn’t occur at OSU, and even nothing on the innocuous matter of DeForest being cleared of any misdeeds at WVU.