Ole Miss / NCAA - Inside Perspective

[TXDawg.sixpack]

I’ve been around this site for a while and have never claimed to be someone with “sources”. I still don’t consider that to be the case, but I had a very interesting encounter this weekend and wanted to share.

I was travelling this weekend and, like always, was wearing Mississippi State gear. As I’m sitting in the spectator area of the event I was attending, a guy sits next to me and asks if I’m a Mississippi State fan. I say yes and he proceeds to tell a few stories of people he knows with State connections. He then asks if I’ve been following “the NCAA stuff.” I ask if he means the stuff with Ole Miss (assuming he had mistaken State and Ole Miss). He confirms he means Ole Miss and I tell him I was watching it pretty closely.

Turns out this guy is the attorney for one of the “named parties” in the NCAA case…he was in the room in Covington for the meeting between the COI and Ole Miss. We ended up having about a 30 minute conversation regarding the investigation, the punishment(s), and what’s still to come. Obviously, I can’t share all of what he said, but here are a few highlights:

• In his opinion, the level of sanctions Ole Miss received was heavily influenced by their strategy of self-imposing restrictions in advance of the hearing and NCAA ruling. I told him I thought they got off light; he didn’t disagree.

• He said that the narrative that everything was done by rogue staffers and rogue boosters was completely false and he was SHOCKED that Freeze didn’t get a show cause.

• He’s surprised that Bjork has been able to retain his position but thinks the current situation with Patterson and the other transfers may be the nail in the coffin.

• He’s involved on the periphery of the Patterson waiver request but is very familiar with the situation and is almost certain that Patterson’s waiver will be granted and Ole Miss will end up looking very bad in the process.

• He said the RR suit is moving forward. He expects depositions to be held this summer and thinks the depositions will be “a circus.” I asked him if Ole Miss really wants these depositions to happen or if they’d prefer the case to just go away. He replied that Merkel is really good, but the problem he has is that facts are facts. He also said “I don’t know what people are going to say under oath, but I’m not sure anyone involved really wants them to happen.” His list of anticipated deposed parties included Lewis, Jones, Miller, Mullen, Freeze, Farrar, Warren, Sheridan, and others.

Great guy, great conversation. I don’t think we’ll ever know all that went on. He did imply that there was more that would come out – and I don’t think he was just referring to RR.

 

[aTotal360]

And water is wet.

 

[Faustdog]

I’d be interested to know if he thought Leo’s testimony, which was found credible by the committee, bombed like Ole Miss fans McReady and Godfrey contended.

 

[Joe Schmedlap]

It would seem to me that it bombed or at least COI members thought so. How else would one explain the complete disconnect between the number of level 1 sanctions handed out and the ridiculously low number of scholarships taken away?

I’d be interested to know if he thought Leo’s testimony, which was found credible by the committee, bombed like Ole Miss fans McReady and Godfrey contended.

 

[00Dawg]

I'm still waiting on the appeal ruling.

We're overdue.

 

[Dawgzilla]

The way I understand it, the NCAA response brief was due April 8. UMIss then has 14 days to file a reply brief, so the briefing probably won't be done for another week. I don't know how long the NCAA appeal committee should take to rule. Heck, I don't even know why the appeal briefs are not publicly available like everything else was.

 

[TXDawg.sixpack]

I’d be interested to know if he thought Leo’s testimony, which was found credible by the committee, bombed like Ole Miss fans McReady and Godfrey contended.

The only thing he said about Leo’s testimony was that it was unnecessary because there was already enough evidence without it. Apparently UMiss’ attorneys argued that Leo wasn’t credible and his testimony should be disregarded. NCAA’s response was OK, we’ll just use everything else we have and the outcome will be the same.

 

[Faustdog]

They probably should be. But you can bet if there was anything favorable in the response from the NCAA due on 4/8 it would have leaked the minute they got it.

 

[TXDawg.sixpack]

I’d be interested to know if he thought Leo’s testimony, which was found credible by the committee, bombed like Ole Miss fans McReady and Godfrey contended.

The only thing he said about Leo’s testimony was that it was unnecessary because of the other evidence they had. Apparently, Ole Miss’ attorneys tried to say the Leo wasn’t credible, so his testimony should be disregarded. The NCAA’s response was OK, we’ll just use the other evidence and the outcome will be the same.

I got the impression that he believed Leo’s testimony to be true.

 

[TXDawg.sixpack]

The way I understand it, the NCAA response brief was due April 8. UMIss then has 14 days to file a reply brief, so the briefing probably won't be done for another week. I don't know how long the NCAA appeal committee should take to rule. Heck, I don't even know why the appeal briefs are not publicly available like everything else was.

This guy’s opinion was that the COI bought the narrative that it was all orchestrated by rogue staff members and rogue boosters. As he said, though, that shouldn’t matter with the new head coach responsibility rules in place. He said Freeze spoke on his own behalf at the meetings and played the role of innocent victim very convincingly.

 

[MSU601Dawg]

The only thing he said about Leo’s testimony was that it was unnecessary because of the other evidence they had. Apparently, Ole Miss’ attorneys tried to say the Leo wasn’t credible, so his testimony should be disregarded. The NCAA’s response was OK, we’ll just use the other evidence and the outcome will be the same.

I got the impression that he believed Leo’s testimony to be true.

Leo may not can remember exact days, time of day, or amounts EACH time, but isn't that typical of just about any witness in a trial? Hell prosecutors piece together murder trials on different timelines than their star witnesses originally report. Leo may have embellished a little or mis-remembered exact dates/times, but he's not making this up.

Bottom line is, Leo had text messages from the still unnamed booster, knew what kind of car he drove, had texts from the Funky's owner, and even more damning the NCAA found a text from the unnamed booster to Barney saying that he and Leo "had a deal." Of course they didn't need anything else

But the NCAA still did absolutely nothing that will hinder Ole Miss going forward.

 

[maroonmania]

I’ve been around this site for a while and have never claimed to be someone with “sources”. I still don’t consider that to be the case, but I had a very interesting encounter this weekend and wanted to share.

I was travelling this weekend and, like always, was wearing Mississippi State gear. As I’m sitting in the spectator area of the event I was attending, a guy sits next to me and asks if I’m a Mississippi State fan. I say yes and he proceeds to tell a few stories of people he knows with State connections. He then asks if I’ve been following “the NCAA stuff.” I ask if he means the stuff with Ole Miss (assuming he had mistaken State and Ole Miss). He confirms he means Ole Miss and I tell him I was watching it pretty closely.

Turns out this guy is the attorney for one of the “named parties” in the NCAA case…he was in the room in Covington for the meeting between the COI and Ole Miss. We ended up having about a 30 minute conversation regarding the investigation, the punishment(s), and what’s still to come. Obviously, I can’t share all of what he said, but here are a few highlights:

• In his opinion, the level of sanctions Ole Miss received was heavily influenced by their strategy of self-imposing restrictions in advance of the hearing and NCAA ruling. I told him I thought they got off light; he didn’t disagree.

• He said that the narrative that everything was done by rogue staffers and rogue boosters was completely false and he was SHOCKED that Freeze didn’t get a show cause.

• He’s surprised that Bjork has been able to retain his position but thinks the current situation with Patterson and the other transfers may be the nail in the coffin.

• He’s involved on the periphery of the Patterson waiver request but is very familiar with the situation and is almost certain that Patterson’s waiver will be granted and Ole Miss will end up looking very bad in the process.

• He said the RR suit is moving forward. He expects depositions to be held this summer and thinks the depositions will be “a circus.” I asked him if Ole Miss really wants these depositions to happen or if they’d prefer the case to just go away. He replied that Merkel is really good, but the problem he has is that facts are facts. He also said “I don’t know what people are going to say under oath, but I’m not sure anyone involved really wants them to happen.” His list of anticipated deposed parties included Lewis, Jones, Miller, Mullen, Freeze, Farrar, Warren, Sheridan, and others.

Great guy, great conversation. I don’t think we’ll ever know all that went on. He did imply that there was more that would come out – and I don’t think he was just referring to RR.

The opinion in his first bullet is baloney. The NOA made it clear that OM had not been very cooperative and the self-imposed stuff was very light (as were the sanctions themselves). In addition, most of the staff that committed serious violations remained on the staff and Hugh Freeze who ran the whole thing and was named himself in a couple of the Level 1s was only let go because of a hooker scandal that had nothing to do with the NCAA stuff (at least formally). There is really no above board way to explain the light punishment handed out by the COI to OM other than they are really not that interested in punishing recruiting violations and academic fraud anymore or somebody with some major influence was paid off. Why you would spend 3+ years investigating a program only to discover the most Level 1 violations in the history of investigations against a bunch that was defiant every step of the way only to essentially give them a speeding ticket makes no sense to me or anyone else with a brain.

 

[War Machine Dawg]

The opinion in his first bullet is baloney. The NOA made it clear that OM had not been very cooperative and the self-imposed stuff was very light (as were the sanctions themselves). In addition, most of the staff that committed serious violations remained on the staff and Hugh Freeze who ran the whole thing and was named himself in a couple of the Level 1s was only let go because of a hooker scandal that had nothing to do with the NCAA stuff (at least formally). There is really no above board way to explain the light punishment handed out by the COI to OM other than they are really not that interested in punishing recruiting violations and academic fraud anymore or somebody with some major influence was paid off. Why you would spend 3+ years investigating a program only to discover the most Level 1 violations in the history of investigations against a bunch that was defiant every step of the way only to essentially give them a speeding ticket makes no sense to me or anyone else with a brain.

Nailed it. The NCAA has no interest in actually enforcing the rules. They don't want to do anything that will potentially harm the gravy train that is college football. If that means anything goes in crootin', then so be it. Northern Miss got away with it and aren't even slowing down much. It's obvious The Network is still very much in place and active, at least within MS. They'll wait a couple of years before ramping it back up nationally.

After all this, if we haven't learned the lesson that it's time to be "all in", then I don't know what to say. The NCAA is willfully toothless. They can talk all they want about a pattern of behavior (which is true), but that's all they'll do - talk.

 

[josebrown]

Does this attorney now work for TCU?

 

[TXDawg.sixpack]

Does this attorney now work for TCU?

No.

 

[dawgstudent]

Thanks for the info