STARKVILLE – Turns out, it wasn’t a joke.

In his weekly blog on Thursday, Mississippi State Athletics Director Greg Byrne confirmed that “a very limited number” of current football players and football prospects visiting the campus last weekend “visited an establishment deemed impermissible by our recruiting rules and regulations.”

Rumors began circulating on the Internet early in the week that some MSU players had brought prospects to The Pony, which bills itself as “The Ultimate Strip Joint” and is located off Highway 45, just a few miles northeast of Starkville.

Recruits Jay Hughes, Robert Johnson and Jameon Lewis, all of whom have already committed to MSU, each posted on their respective Facebook pages about The Pony.

Lewis told the Clarion-Ledger on Wednesday his Facebook post was “a joke.” The incident occurred without the knowledge of head coach Dan Mullen or any other MSU officials.

Said Byrne, “Coach Mullen and I are disappointed in the poor decisions made by a small number of our student-athletes. We educate our young people repeatedly on the roles they play in representing their teams, the athletic department, the university, and the entire state of Mississippi. They know better.”

It’s not known which current players visited the club. A call by the Daily Journal to The Pony was not returned.

Nor was it known what sort of disciplinary actions might be taken against the current players. Byrne said MSU officials would meet with the players in question “to reinforce the responsibility they have as representatives of this university to conduct themselves in a first-class way.

“Our compliance department has concluded its review of the incident, and determined that the breach of policy was isolated, and will not affect the eligibility or future eligibility of any of those involved.”

A team spokesman said that if MSU finds any violations occurred, they would be reported to the NCAA as secondary.

Contact Brad Locke at 678-1571 or brad.locke@djournal.com.