I'm quite sure this has already been posted so spare me the tongue lashing. Wait...tongue lashing? Lash away, lash away. Also, this is from a couple of months ago on SBNation. But, I was curious because I really haven't looked closely at what the Black Bears are facing. You know I'm one that believes it goes on everywhere, but these guys have been out of control. Then their corch is popped for hookers and blow. A couple are meh and the author points that out. But dayum!!!
Ole Miss’ football team is facing 21 NCAA allegations, including 15 of the most serious classification, Level I. The Rebels were already staring down 13, and that number grew on Wednesday and came with a self-imposed postseason ban for 2017.
Current head coach Hugh Freeze’s staff is responsible for the entire round of new charges, making Freeze look pretty lousy for his defensive tone when people started to raise eyebrows about Ole Miss years ago. Here’s how the situation looks going forward.
Ole Miss had 90 days to issue a formal response to the NCAA’s newest Notice of Allegations, which they did. Here’s a ranking of the NCAA’s current allegations against the Rebels, sorted by the only criterion that matters: zestiness.
1. Boosters paid at least $13,000 to a recruit who later spurned them.
That’s what the NCAA says a couple of Ole Miss boosters did. In its new batch, the NCAA alleges a former Rebel staffer set up a couple of boosters with a recruit, and those boosters furnished the player with between $13,000 and $15,600 in cash between April 2014 and February 2015. And then the recruit didn’t even go there.
What a waste of 13-grand this would’ve been. Ole Miss doesn’t deny that the boosters had contact with a recruit, but it’s not saying yet whether it agrees with the existence of payments.
2. Two former Ole Miss assistants helped fix recruits' ACT scores.
Before the Rebels’ alleged failed Bag Man attempt, this was the top of the ticket, as part of the NCAA’s initial 13 allegations last year.
The NCAA says previous assistants Chris Vaughn and David Saunders instructed recruits to take the ACT college entry exam at a specific high school in Wayne County, Miss., in 2010.
Vaughn and Saunders instructed the recruits to leave blank any answer spaces they weren't confident about, the NCAA says. This would allow correct answers to be filled in later, presumably so they'd qualify at Ole Miss.
As a result, the NCAA says three Ole Miss players competed while they weren't eligible in 2011, and one continued to play while ineligible for three more seasons.
Ole Miss agreed testing fraud happened, though the school was light on details.
3. Ole Miss demonstrated a lack of institutional control.
This is a big one. The NCAA says “institutional†control describes “the efforts institutions make to comply with NCAA legislation and to detect and investigate violations that do occur.†To say you’ve “lacked†it is to say you haven’t cared about rules, and it can be a pretext for a hammering.
The LOIC is an evolved form, according to Ole Miss, of a “failure to monitor†charge the NCAA had previously announced. Ole Miss is contesting it.
4. A former staffer knowingly broke rules and lied to everyone about it.
The staffer the NCAA believes set up the big payment to the recruit is charged with trampling over NCAA regulations. Ole Miss says that staffer lied to the school, too. It’s juicy in the same way perjury is juicy in actual courts.
5. An Ole Miss booster gave a player’s family member $800 in cash in August 2014.
The juice depends mostly on the means of transfer. Was the alleged payment delivered in a duffel bag? A wad of cash? A wire transfer? Venmo? It’s down on the list because it’s a lower dollar amount than the $13,000-plus, but it has mysteriousness.
Ole Miss has responded affirmatively, that a booster met the family member in Oxford's airport and handed him $800. This family member is referred to throughout the NCAA's allegations and Ole Miss' response to them as "Family Member 1."
Based on everything we've known for months, this appears to be former offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil's stepfather, and Tunsil appears to be listed as "Student-Athlete 1." He personally told the NCAA about much of this.
Tunsil’s comments at least year’s NFL draft helped lead to this second round of allegations, but Tunsil isn’t apparently involved in them.
6. A trio of Ole Miss assistants cheated in recruiting six players in 2010.
This focuses mostly on Vaughn and Saunders, the alleged ACT fixers, but also on current assistant Derrick Nix. (Ole Miss agrees Vaughn and Saunders were involved but says the NCAA has overstated Nix's involvement.) In total, the NCAA says $1,750 in impermissible benefits reached six recruits.
The aim of the help, according to the NCAA, was to help the recruits with transportation to a summer class that would aid their eligibility status. Ole Miss is in trouble for helping recruits get to class.
7. Players got a lot of help with car loans.
All under one allegation, the NCAA outlines four automobile-related charges occurring between 2014 and 2015. They're all boring, relating to plumb loan deals players got on cars.
Three of the four are against Student-Athlete 1, Tunsil. There's one other car allegation against a non-Tunsil player.
The NCAA estimates the car arrangements resulted in $7,495 of impermissible benefits altogether. Ole Miss agrees this happened.
8. A booster with a store gave stuff away.
9. A booster with a restaurant gave stuff away.
The NCAA’s new allegations include these. Both are Level I allegations, though the store owner’s “merchandise†was reportedly worth $2,800 and the restaurant owner only gave away a few hundred bucks’ worth of food, drinks, and cash, the NCAA believes. If you’re going to be a booster, I guess you might as well spread the love?
10. Ole Miss made personalized hype videos for recruits.
The NCAA claims Freeze, in 2013, directed a video staffer to take pictures of recruits in the Rebels' indoor practice facility, wearing official team apparel, and then had the pictures incorporated into "commercial-style" videos to be played for recruits and their families while they were on visits. This seems like a silly way to get tripped up.
11. A current assistant helped link recruits with a booster who gave impermissible benefits.
Ole Miss accepts that a booster who also volunteered at a local high school gave several recruits what amounted to $2,250 worth of "recruiting inducements," including lodging, transportation, and meals.
Maurice Harris, still an Ole Miss assistant, facilitated $485 of that and knew of the booster's relationship with prospects, the NCAA estimates.
12. Ole Miss put up a player's family members in hotels and rental properties.
Ole Miss admits to $2,253 of extra benefits having gone out to a player's family (and an associated boyfriend) in the form of free lodging around Oxford. I can’t muster the energy to care about this.
13. Former assistant Chris Kiffin let some player sleep on his couch without demanding $33 in payment.
We've got a real bombshell here.
It is alleged that in the summer of 2013, the former assistant coach provided an unnamed player with two nights' lodging at his residence.
There are a lot of questions. Did the player sleep in a bed? On a couch? On an air mattress? Was there a TV in the room? If so, how many inches was it? It's fascinating that the NCAA devoted hours to figuring out the per-night value of a stay in a coach's home.
Ole Miss agrees this happened.
14. A former staffer set up lodging and transportation for recruits.
This is the same staffer from item No. 1. The benefits were worth more than $2,000, and they make up one of the many Level I allegations. It’s against the rules, but it’s hard to get outraged about it.
15. Kiffin talked to two high school players in an office when he wasn't allowed.
Ole Miss agrees Kiffin spent 10 minutes speaking privately with two players about their recruitment at a high school in the spring of 2014.
Neither committed to Ole Miss, and Kiffin was banned from doing off-campus recruiting for 30 days, which sounds like a reward.
16. A current staffer had impermissible off-campus contact with a recruit.
Yawning.
17. Kiffin had Ole Miss give benefits to a man who wasn't a player's "real" father, but a "father figure."
NCAA rules permit schools to pay for things when recruits take one of their five "official" visits to a campus, and those benefits extend to legal guardians.
One recruit came to Ole Miss with a man whom Kiffin viewed as the player's father, but was not his biological father. Kiffin "failed to make the distinction clear," Ole Miss says, and so the man and his wife received meals and lodging.
The NCAA calls this a Level II violation, but Ole Miss wants it to be a lesser Level III and cites precedent to that effect.
18 and 19. The NCAA says Vaughn and Saunders, once they were already gone from Ole Miss, lied to investigators and weren't fully cooperative.
Two allegations are lumped into one.
Both Vaughn and Saunders deny they were involved in the fixing of ACT scores, and the NCAA claims it has evidence that illustrates they're not telling the truth. The NCAA also says Vaughn had inappropriate contact with enforcement investigators in 2013.
Ole Miss isn't taking any position, because both men were out of the program by the time the actions may or may not have occurred. This feels like an offshoot of the more serious allegations.
20. Freeze didn’t live up to his responsibilities as head coach.
You don’t say, NCAA?
21. A player went hunting on a booster’s private land while a recruit, then a few more times after he signed at Ole Miss.
Nature is to be enjoyed by all. Let everyone enjoy the Mississippi wilderness in peace.
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