Ole Miss has posted notice of allegations, school’s response:

[jbcarol]

Ole Miss released the notice of allegations and its response to it Friday morning.

The school submitted its response on April 21, meaning the NCAA has 60 days from that date to formulate its rebuttal for a case summary. The parties will then go before the committee on infractions, which could take a few weeks to schedule.The committee's ruling would come about six weeks after the hearing, perhaps in October.

[jbcarol]

Ben Garrett ‏@SpiritBen 18m18 minutes ago

#OleMiss has released the NOA. http://athleticsworking.wp2.olemiss.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/05/Allegations-Redacted-5.26.15.pdf ...

And now #OleMiss has released its response. http://athleticsworking.wp2.olemiss.edu/

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/ArRecruitingGuy/status/736206668925566976

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/HKellenbergerCL/status/736207944207962112

[ricepig]

https://twitter.com/BruceFeldmanCFB/status/736209137319579648

[ricepig]

https://twitter.com/schadjoe/status/736209606863556612

[ricepig]

https://twitter.com/BruceFeldmanCFB/status/736209932349890561

[ricepig]

https://twitter.com/schadjoe/status/736210140949544960

[ricepig]

https://twitter.com/McMurphyESPN/status/736211758474534913

[jbcarol]

Letter to the Ole Miss Family

Dear Ole Miss Family:

As you know, the University of Mississippi has been cooperating with the NCAA since 2012 on a review of potential NCAA bylaw violations associated with our Department of Athletics. After almost four years and more than 265 interviews with current staff, former staff, boosters, third parties, and student-athletes, the NCAA issued a Notice of Allegations ("NOA") to the University on January 22, 2016, alleging violations in women's basketball, track and field, and football.  According to the NCAA enforcement process, the University had 90 days to formally respond, and we submitted our Response to the Notice of Allegations ("Response") in April.  Around that same time, another involved party requested and received a 30-day extension. Because that extension has now elapsed, we are releasing our Response and the NOA to the public.

The NCAA has alleged, and we agree, that serious violations have occurred. Most of the more significant violations resulted from either (1) intentional misconduct and efforts to conceal that misconduct by former employees who face unethical conduct charges and personal sanctions; or (2) actions of individual boosters who conducted themselves contrary to rules education provided by the University.  For 27 of the 28 allegations, we agree that a violation of NCAA rules occurred; however, for several of those allegations we do not agree on all of the facts.  For five of those 27 violations, we believe the violation should be classified differently (e.g., the violation is alleged as a "Level II violation" but we contend the violation should be classified as "Level III").

In response to these violations, we have taken several corrective actions and we have self-imposed significant penalties.  The NCAA Committee on Infractions ("COI") will consider our Response as it determines whether to assess penalties in addition to the penalties we have already self-imposed. We based our self-imposed penalties on the COI's decisions in other cases and the NCAA penalty matrix released in 2012. 

The University's cooperation with the NCAA throughout this process has been exemplary. In fact, the University self-reported or played a central role in discovering most of the violations.  When employees or student-athletes failed to live up to Ole Miss core values, the University took decisive action, including terminating or disciplining employees and imposing scholarship reductions and recruiting restrictions.  The University also disassociated itself from representatives of Ole Miss's athletics interests — boosters — who were involved in violations.  The most serious violations involve academic misconduct that occurred in football six years ago and in women's basketball almost four years ago.  Before, during and since the issuance of the NOA, we have taken a proactive approach to compliance, rules-education, and monitoring. As our Department of Athletics has grown, so has our commitment to compliance. Since 2011, we have more than doubled our compliance staff and instituted more than 100 new compliance measures.

On the first day of the 2016 NFL Draft, new information came to light involving a former football student-athlete. That very night, the University and NCAA began a joint review to determine whether bylaws have been violated, and we hope this review will be concluded soon.  To ensure fairness to all parties and pursuant to COI procedure, we have asked the COI to remove the hearing from this summer's docket until this review can be completed and closed.

The Ole Miss family expects and deserves athletics programs that compete for championships, graduate our student-athletes, and operate with integrity.  From the moment we learned about possible academic misconduct in women's basketball in 2012 until today, the University has demonstrated its values, and we are a stronger University because of our decisive actions. We believe in our coaches, staff, and student-athletes, and you have our assurance that we will continue the pursuit of excellence consistent with the University Creed and athletics core values.



Sincerely,

VitterSigwRoss

Jeffrey S. Vitter                 Ross Bjork
Chancellor                        Director of Athletics

http://athleticsworking.wp2.olemiss.edu

[jbcarol]

Hugh Kellenberger ‏@HKellenbergerCL 11m11 minutes ago

Maurice Harris, Chris Kiffin and Derrick Nix are all current assistants named for some level of violation.

[jbcarol]

http://athleticsworking.wp2.olemiss.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/05/Clean-Copy-of-Response-5.26.15.pdf

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/HKellenbergerCL/status/736208397129928704

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/NealMcCready/status/736208716475863040

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/NealMcCready/status/736208874945032193

[azhog10]

If a number of vioalations were discovered can someone tell me what the heck ESPN is talking about?


They say in the article and I quote "Among the other penalties self-imposed by Ole Miss, according to the report: "The termination of four coaches, including the only two involved head coaches still employed when the violations were discovered" If Freeze was the coach at the time of the violations I don't think he has been terminated......

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/15766359/ole-miss-self-imposes-postseason-ban-women-basketball-reduced-scholarships-football

[jbcarol]

Bruce Feldman ‏@BruceFeldmanCFB 22m22 minutes ago

Among #OleMiss self-imposed penalties in FB: recruiting suspensions for 2 coaches; a monetary fine of $159,326 & scholarship reductions

[jbcarol]

Stewart Mandel ‏@slmandel 5m5 minutes ago

In total, eight of the 13 alleged violations for Ole Miss football are deemed Level I (most serious).

[ricepig]

Bruce Feldman ‏@BruceFeldmanCFB 22m22 minutes ago

Among #OleMiss self-imposed penalties in FB: recruiting suspensions for 2 coaches; a monetary fine of $159,326 & scholarship reductions

https://twitter.com/BruceFeldmanCFB/status/736209137319579648

[ricepig]

https://twitter.com/McMurphyESPN/status/736214156232167426

[jbcarol]

Jon Solomon ‏@JonSolomonCBS 2m2 minutes ago

Ole Miss self-imposed penalties in several sports include "double digit" reduction in FB scholarships, 4 coaches fired, WBB postseason ban.

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/HKellenbergerCL/status/736216330689478656

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/Carvell_AJC/status/736222112323665920

[jbcarol]

John Davis ‏@oxfordcitizenjd 25m25 minutes ago

In the response by OM, the bill for lawyers is approximately $1.5 million. To fight $15,000 of improper benefits.

Ralph D. Russo ‏@ralphDrussoAP 32m32 minutes ago

Great day for Ole Miss fans to play the Moral Equivalence game.
Enjoy.

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/slmandel/status/736214436176764928

https://twitter.com/dpmreb/status/736213351030755329

[jbcarol]

John Davis ‏@oxfordcitizenjd 1h1 hour ago

No mention of Houston Nutt in the football allegations. Only Saunders, Vaughn and Derrick Nix.

Part 1: On Page 27 of OM response, we learn that the 2012 Titan, one of the loaner vehicles in question, was booted by parking services.

In the response by OM, then boyfriend, now ex-husband, is listed. I wonder who that could be?

[Jim Harris]

https://twitter.com/schadjoe/status/736210140949544960

the bag men

[RealHog]

Very strategic move by Ole Miss the day after Baylor. It's been a bad summer for the NCAA. I hope they are able to send a message on these, but I'm sure they will just heavily punish the Women's field hockey teams and slap the football programs on the wrist as usual.

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/SpiritBen/status/736248646602227712

The only real "news" is Ole Miss' response to the NCAA Notice of Allegations, a majority of which are old, dating all the way back to 2010, except for the Tunsil "stuff" of improper lodging, improper use of a loaner car and boosters mixing with his stepfather, Lindsey Miller, who is now suing Laremy in an obvious money-grab, last-resort effort.

Now, before going any further with this, make no mistake, there are serious – Level 1 – allegations involved here, some that Ole Miss agrees with. Nobody is dodging that fact – not Ole Miss, and not your friendly neighborhood homer reporter. This is serious, and Ole Miss took it that way with every step, spending over $1.5 million in legal fees on its investigation/defense/response. In total, eight of the 13 alleged violations for Ole Miss football are deemed Level I...

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/JTalty/status/736213615016050689

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/ByJoeFleming/status/736237715184836608

[DLUXHOG]

so...... will Ole Miss get serious and impose the "death penalty" on themselves?

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/RivalsJWright/status/736235086685851648

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/DanielPaulling/status/736362228425838592

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/JonSolomonCBS/status/736264444158709760

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/DanielPaulling/status/736360984906989568

[jbcarol]

Brett McMurphy ‏@McMurphyESPN May 27

Correction on Ole Miss violations: 13 of 28 NCAA allegations involve football program; 9 of those 13 violations in Hugh Freeze era

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/DanWolken/status/737021149050249216

Ole Miss released its response to the NCAA and the allegations that organization brought forward regarding football, women's basketball and the track program Friday morning.

Located twice in the 154-page document was the figure $1.5 million. That is the amount the university estimates it will have spent on the case, in defense of the allegations. Let that number sink in because there are more to come.

NCAA's allegations to the university, dated January 22, 2016, outline a total of just over $15,000 in improper benefits. Let that number sink in as well. From 2010, until 2015, the NCAA was able to uncover and outline $15,000 worth of improper benefits. Ole Miss has spent $1.5 million, or close to it, and hundreds and hundreds of hours of time trying to get to the bottom of it all.

What all that means to me is a considerable waste of resources, money and time. It's another example of why the NCAA, as an overall organization, needs to be erased. Disbanded. Or at the very least, re-organized. My question is how much money did the NCAA spend on travel and expenses to come up with $15,000 worth of benefits being used inappropriately? One would think several thousand.

Don't get me wrong, if you make mistakes, you have to pay for it based on the rules. The root issue here are the rules, the bylaws that are outlined in all these reports. Hot flash to the NCAA, the fans don't care or understand your laws. What the fans that pack Vaught-Hemingway Stadium want to see on a Saturday afternoon is a good game. And preferably a win.

You think people who pay $1,600 for four season tickets care if a player's family got an extra $800 at the airport or not? You think the vast majority of those same ticket holders care if Laremy Tunsil or CJ Hampton are driving around with a loaner Nissan Titan or Dodge Challenger? Most people would say "It's not my car. It's not my issue. I just want to see a win over Alabama for the first time in my life."

[jbcarol]

Oxford Eagle ‏@OxfordEagle May 27

Ole Miss requests delay of hearing regarding rules violations in athletic programs. http://tinyurl.com/zdgz3eh

Ole Miss has asked the Committee on Infractions (COI) to remove its hearing from this summer's docket because of the school's ongoing investigation into the events of the first night of the NFL Draft when a screenshot of a text conversation between former offensive lineman Laremy Tunsil and assistant athletic director of football operations John Miller was posted on Tunsil's Instagram account. The leaked messages, which at one point showed Tunsil asking Miller for money to help pay rent and family bills, were "new information" to the case, Vitter and Bjork wrote, and weren't one of the violations alleged in the Notice of Allegations, which the school also released Friday.

It isn't known if Tunsil ever received any money from a staffer at Ole Miss, which could be an NCAA violation.

Ole Miss recently submitted its response to the notice after receiving a 30-day extension. The school was originally supposed to give its response by late April as NCAA enforcement policy requires all schools to respond within 90 days of officially receiving the notice, but Ole Miss was granted the extension after a party other than the school involved in the case requested it.

The first nine allegations listed in the notice for football occurred during head coach Hugh Freeze's tenure, spanning from 2012 to August 2015. Tunsil was suspended the first seven games last season for the free use of three separate cars from Cannon Motors in Oxford, getting an interest-free loan on a down payment on the purchase of another vehicle and two nights of free lodging.

Cannon Motors, a corporate sponsor of Ole Miss athletics referred to in some of the allegations as "a representative of the institution's athletics interests," has been disassociated for at least three years.

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/Carvell_AJC/status/737641068578103296

https://twitter.com/ClowESPN/status/737632645887066112

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/MrCFB/status/737635226399047680

[NoNC4Tubs]

https://twitter.com/JTalty/status/736213615016050689

LOL!

I guess they did... 

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/JTalty/status/736213615016050689

Daniel Paulling ‏@DanielPaulling 48m48 minutes ago

Freeze on Finebaum: This has drawn me closer to my family. Regrets using Twitter for "infamous" tweet regarding 2013 class.

[Sivad]

Freeze on Finebaum: Regrets using Twitter for "infamous" tweet regarding 2013 class.

I'll bet he do.

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/bmarcello/status/738174700786831360

"I've known Hugh since 1991," Auburn's Gus Malzahn told ESPN, "and he's always been a man of integrity."

The Ole Miss football program was recently hit with a Notice of Allegations from the NCAA. The football program was charged with 13 violations, including nine under Freeze's tenure. Four of those violations were considered severe.

[jbcarol]

https://twitter.com/seccountry/status/738142892108054529

Chris Low told The Paul Finebaum Show on Wednesday that the Rebels could be "on the threshold" of a postseason expulsion in light of the recent NCAA investigation, which revealed that Ole Miss was charged with 28 NCAA violations across football, women's basketball and track and field.

[jbcarol]

Rewind: The top stories from an awkward, interesting week

Hugh Freeze did meet the media, and said he would "own everything" associated with the ongoing NCAA violation.

Meanwhile, Sankey reminded everybody that the SEC was probation-free for the first time since 1984. How long that'll last, well ...

[jbcarol]

Ben Garrett
‏@SpiritBen

College football player caught with guns and drugs? Move along. But wrath of God if he doesn't pay for his Denny's Grand Slam.

Andrew Cox ‏@TigerRebel 19m19 minutes ago

@SpiritBen We should stop comparing the Ole Miss situation to this.We are talking about enforcement of NCAA bylaws vs actual law enforcement

[jbcarol]

Ranking all of the NCAA's allegations against Ole Miss football

1. Two former Ole Miss assistants helped fix recruits' ACT scores.

By any measure, this is the top of the ticket.

The NCAA says previous coaching staff 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 June 2010.

As they were taking their tests, Vaughn and Saunders instructed the recruits to leave blank any answer space for a question they weren't confident about answering correctly, the NCAA says. This would, in turn, allow the correct answers to be filled in later, giving these players higher scores --

2. Some Ole Miss booster gave a family member $800 in cash in August 2014.

The juice of this allegation depends mostly on the means of financial transfer. Was the alleged payment delivered in a duffel bag? A wad of cash? A wire transfer? Venmo?

Ole Miss has responded affirmatively, that a booster met the family member in Oxford's airport and handed him $800. Airports are somewhat clandestine.

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 Tunsil's stepfather, and Tunsil appears to be listed as "Student-Athlete 1."

3. A trio of Ole Miss assistants cheated in recruiting six players in 2010.

The allegations here focus mostly on Vaughn and Saunders, but also on current assistant Derrick Nix. (Ole Miss agrees Vaughn and Saunders were involved in them 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 with Ole Miss. (Meals were also involved.)

4. Players got a lot of help with car loans.

All under one allegation, the NCAA outlines four automobile-related charges against Ole Miss, all occurring between 2014 and 2015. They're all fairly 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.

...

12 and 13. The NCAA says Vaughn and Saunders, once they were already gone from Ole Miss, lied to investigators and weren't fully cooperative.

While numbers 12 and 13 were ranked at the bottom of this list, ask Bruce Pearl how that went for him.

[Inhogswetrust]

Ranking all of the NCAA's allegations against Ole Miss football

While numbers 12 and 13 were ranked at the bottom of this list, ask Bruce Pearl how that went for him.

Ironic about the car allegations. I heard Sean Tuohy, which we all know is an Old Misses Alum and booster once say on Memphis sports radio something along the lines of "If the NCAA wants to really get schools for cheating all they need to do is camp out in the parking lot where athletes park and check out the cars".