SI article going into detail about the ongoing investigation into Ole Miss violations (going on 4 years now). Interesting case as it will more than likely be the first to go before the infraction committee under the new rules structure. Will the NCAA crack down hard on Ole Miss or will they give them a slap on the wrists and risk being seen as weak?
“[Does the NCAA] stick to their guns like they said a few years ago and hold the head coach accountable?” asked a veteran SEC head coach. “Or is the NCAA going to wipe their hands of this? If they do, it’s going to turn college football into college basketball, which is a free for all. They need to make a damn statement, sooner or later.”
Sources: NCAA’s Ole Miss investigation expands beyond Laremy Tunsil
NCAA Enforcement representatives have visited Auburn and Mississippi State, and perhaps at least one more SEC Western Division school, this summer to speak with players who were recruited by Ole Miss. The players were granted immunity from potential NCAA sanctions in exchange for truthful accounts of their recruitment, sources said.
So, it seems that the NCAA now punishes non-revenue sports in the school if the revenue sports screw up.
Violations found in Ole Miss women’s basketball and track programs
Penalties in the case include three years of probation and show-cause orders for a number of individuals. During the show-cause period, if any of the individuals are hired by an NCAA school, that school must follow the terms of each of their respective show-cause orders. The university self-imposed women’s basketball and women’s track recruiting restrictions, women’s basketball scholarship reductions, a women’s basketball postseason ban and a prohibition of two-year college transfers in women’s basketball.
That’s why Grandpa NCAA faces so much pressure as he examines the switch Ole Miss has handed him. The outside world may rage at him if he ditches it for a branch and says “batter up.” The kids he’s charged with watching may view it as permission to run amok, and their parents may come down on him if he responds too softly. The NCAA will get shredded no matter what happens, but that should feel normal for the people in Indianapolis. They’ve been in a no-win situation for years. But given the choice between public chiding and a full-blown revolt from the membership, here’s guessing the COI sides with the membership.
Four years? Enough said.
G5’s get the death penalty.
P5’s cough up a "gratuity check"
Did someone mention corruption? The ncaa is corrupt beyond the benefit of a doubt.
A lawsuit filed Wednesday by a high-powered Arkansas attorney alleges Freeze orchestrated a media campaign to spread falsehoods about former Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt.
That presents a couple of potentially big problems for Ole Miss. When Freeze and other school administrators allegedly made calls to nine (!) journalists, the school’s first notice of allegations had yet to be released in January 2016.
As Nutt’s attorney Thomas Mars pointed out, there are only two entities that could have released information on it: Ole Miss or the NCAA.
" … the second possibility doesn’t seem very realistic," Mars wrote to an Ole Miss attorney in a letter obtained by CBS Sports.
Although school officials had previously declined to characterize the alleged misconduct, Ole Miss athletic director Ross Bjork said in response to questions from the Journal about Freeze’s travel that the university’s investigation uncovered “calls of a similar nature” over the course of several years, often matching up with travel logs showing the coach’s use of the school plane. The school said it examined his travel logs from peak recruiting times—often November, December and January—when Freeze would travel out of state, using the school plane and other public resources.
“When we say pattern, we are describing other phone numbers that when you Google them pull up similar type websites, services, however you would describe them,” Bjork said. “We took action swiftly.”
The phone calls included the period in which Harris became a part of the NCAA’s investigation into Ole Miss and continued before and after his interview with the NCAA on Nov. 16, 2016, in which he provided information that was determined to be false.
The NCAA will officially announce its sanctions later Friday, but reports from SBNation and ESPN note that the school will receive four years probation, a two-year total bowl ban (one additional year from what has already been self-imposed) and see a reduction of 13 additional scholarships over three years on top of the 11 over four years that Ole Miss self-imposed. The school will also be fined.
Every coach mentioned in the Notice of Allegations received a show-cause penalty of some timeframe, including former head football coach Hugh Freeze (one year), former assistant athletic director for high school and junior college relations Barney Farrar and former assistant David Saunders, who worked for former coach Houston Nutt and was most recently at Louisiana-Lafayette (2011-14).
The additional bowl ban means that players currently with the program have the ability to transfer to other FBS institutions without sitting out a year as generally mandated by the NCAA. So stars like rising junior quarterback Shea Patterson and wide receiver A.J. Brown suddenly have big decisions to make: stay or go.
Committee on Infractions Chair Greg Christopher pointed out perhaps the most telling part of how little they respected NCAA rules, as they kept cheating while the investigation was going on. “This case strikes at the heart of what College sports stand for,” said Christopher, “and is the direct result of a culture where rules violations were an acceptable part of the Ole Miss football program.” He went on to point out that Ole Miss’ rules violations “continued through the investigation of this case,” the ultimate middle finger to the NCAA.
This is another ncaa farce in the making.
“The best legal team in the country” Fine but if you broke the so called ncaa rules shouldn’t you be punished? You are a P5? Go ahead you are clear but first we must have a public legal spectacle.
Is there a correlation between these law firms and the ncaa. I am not a cynic or have time to study it but it begs the question. This entire ncaa enforcement task force is corrupted at its core. What good is it to have rules or by laws when your own members do not abide by them?