When Nathan Hazi and Chris Baradziej began a group on the popular social networking Web site Facebook.com, their intention was to influence football and basketball recruit Terrelle Pryor to consider representing the blue and white.

Then, they got an e-mail from Penn State's NCAA compliance coordinator.

John Bove, the coordinator, told the creators of the group, "Terrelle Pryor, Come be a Nittany Lion!!!" that they needed to shut the group down to avoid potential NCAA recruiting violations.

The reason the group had to be taken down, Bove said, is because recruitment is heavily monitored. Hazi and Baradziej, he added, are not permissible recruiters.

The group garnered about 1,000 members who hoped that a simple click from their computer mouse would bring Pryor, a junior at Jeannette Senior High School, located near Pittsburgh, one step closer to donning not one, but two blue and white jerseys.

"It exploded," Hazi (sophomore-biochemistry and molecular biology) said. "Everyone follows Penn State basketball, football recruitment."

Bove said neither Hazi and Baradziej nor Penn State was in violation of NCAA rules because once the university got wind of the group, it took immediate action.

"Penn State is not guilty of a violation. We can't knowingly allow students to permit in recruiting athletes," he said. "When we became aware of it, we acted immediately and therefore the institution was not guilty of a violation because we did what we needed to do."

Stacey Osburn, a NCAA representative, said she did not know the details of the situation, but did say the NCAA has explicit rules about recruits.

"We do have specific rules about how often an athlete can be contacted by a school, who can contact them," she said.

The only way to delete the group, Hazi and Baradziej said, is to eliminate all members. They said only some of their members left the group after a message was sent out explaining the circumstances.

"We told [Bove] we'd take it down, but only one-third [of the members] left the group," Hazi said. "I'm not sure if the others are trying to stick it out."

As for the remaining members, Hazi and Baradziej said the only possible solution would be to manually delete them.

"I'm not manually deleting anyone," Baradziej said.

Baradziej said when he created the group he had wondered about the possible consequences.

"I thought there might be some concern, but I wasn't really paying attention," he said.

As of press time, a group similar in nature to Hazi and Baradziej's group remained on Facebook. "Terrelle Pryor must go to PITT!," created by a student from Marietta College, had 267 members as of press time.

Hazi and Baradziej called the existence of it "unfair."

Hazi said he thought the other Facebook group should be disciplined by the same rules and regulations that his was.

"If they don't shut it down, we're making another one," Baradziej said.