But now I read The Commercial Appeal article about Ole Miss’ responses to the NCAA’s Notice of Allegations against the school (“Ole Miss cuts 11 football scholarships”, May 28 article).
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To that point, Ole Miss football was alleged to have committed 13 violations, five were either Level II or III offenses (h/t Alex Kirshner and Steven Godfrey of SBNation).
Speaking at the Southeastern Conferences annual meetings Tuesday, Freeze delivered a lengthy, prepared statement and then took several questions about violations involving first-round National Football League draft pick Laremy Tunsil.Freeze says theres not a single charge in our letter that charges a coach with (being) out buying players. That response specifies nine allegations that took place during Freeze’s tenure as its head coach, which began prior to the 2012 season.
“To me there is a difference in making a mistake and a willful intent to circumvent rules to try and gain an advantage”, Freeze said. “There is no charge in these allegations of a staff member being involved in a payment or offering extra benefits”. Freeze said Tuesday afternoon that he couldn’t comment on the investigation because it was ongoing.
Of course, not everything Ole Miss was accused of is small potatoes, at least in the eyes of the NCAA. “It’s my hope we’ll be known for who we truly are and these mistakes will not happen again”.
Sources say Ole Miss is appealing that and asking that it be reclassified to a lower level. They have also suspended a pair of unnamed assistants from recruiting. May.
Because of that, Freeze said he won’t fire anyone on his staff.
“There is a difference between making mistakes and cheating”, Freeze told Tony Barnhart of Gridiron Now.
Three involved loans of cash and cars and improper payments and free lodging given to former All-American offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil or his family members. “There’s none of that in there”.
The Ole Miss Rebels are in a pretty bad way at this point with a number of allegations being handed down from the NCAA. Those involve academic fraud and a former assistant coach, David Saunders, allegedly arranging for fraudulent ACT scores for recruits and another former assistant, Chris Vaughn, communicating with witnesses of an NCAA investigation after being told by the NCAA to refrain from having those conversations.
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“Four are Level I’s”, Freeze said. “There are nine under me, and as I said, I own them. I think we’ve been pretty punitive to ourselves, but that’s not for me to decide”. It doesn’t make what Ole Miss did – knowingly or not – right, but we have seen a very recent example of a real-life scandal that has some real-life implications.
