Ole Miss scandal recent developments and some speculation
This may or may not tangentially impact the NCAA's decision to grant eligibility to players including Shea Patterson, but I thought I'd share for those interested.
In case there was any uncertainty, Ole Miss appealed the NCAA's infractions report stemming from the January 22, 2016 notice of allegations on a number of fronts on February 14 of this year. There is no mention of the transfers, which is not surprising, however one thing of note is that Ole Miss is arguing heavily against the ordered dissasociation between the university and Rebal Rags, essentially a quasi "M Den" type of store. It's argument directly lines up with Rebal Rags argument. That case is currently pending at the Mississippi supreme court.
Rebal Rags original suit centered on defamation, civil conspiracy, and commercial disparagement against two former recruits at the time and a parent (Leo Lewis, Kobe Jones, and Lindsey Miller), who informed the NCAA that they had received hundreds of dollars in free merchandise from Rebal Rags in an effort to secure their committments.
The business's main argument is that the three witnesses interviewed by the NCAA and who's testimony they relied on is not credible because Rebal Rags has no documentation of the (illegal) sale or gift of merchandise it gave to the recruits, and because no other recruits admitted they had illegally accepted merchandise. What might be interesting is that Rebal Rags just modified its suit to also file against the NCAA and the NCAA investigator, Mike Sheridan. Just to be clear in case anyone is skimming, the business, not the university, filed against the NCAA and the NCAA's investigator.
While witnesses are usually seen as fairly credible when they volunteer evidence that partially implicates themselves, this is the state of Mississippi involving an out of state institution attempting to prevent a business association between two well respected Mississippi institutions. The last thing the NCAA wants to do is appear to have overreached if things might not go their way, so they might end up giving on this point in removing the dissasociation, which could more than likely be wrapped up with Rebal Rags agreeing to drop the suit against the witnesses. The NCAA should have a secondary reason to want to have the defamation/disparagement suit dropped against the three individuals, as it cannot readily conduct interviews with witnesses if those witnesses believe they will be targeted as a result of their whistle-blowing.
Cliffnotes version as requested:
It is possible that the NCAA settles one penalty against Ole Miss and its business partner for the above reasons, but isn't happy with the business partner's tactics or the university's participation in them. I don't know if that makes the NCAA more likely to give and take with granting immediate eligibility for the transfers even if Ole Miss objects, but I thought I'd share. (Ole Miss hasn't yet submitted their response to the request for eligibility waiver).
February 21st, 2018 at 4:53 PM ^
I really don't think Ole Miss will have much to say about the appeals. The NCAA will probably prefer they don't offer a defense. The more egregious the circumstances here, the narrower a precedent it will set.
One reason to look upon this as a slam dunk for immediate eligibility is that there are no issues to cite against it, only suggestions that the NCAA is so incompetent that their rulings can't be predicted. It's really not true. The NCAA is wary of bad PR and of defending their rules in court when they don't need to.
February 21st, 2018 at 12:05 PM ^
Just remember that all Ole Miss transactions were probably undertaken using their version of Bitcoin, but essentially untraceable.
February 21st, 2018 at 12:47 PM ^
Good concept but low chances of seceding
February 21st, 2018 at 1:03 PM ^
thats funny right there
February 21st, 2018 at 12:05 PM ^
basketfull of fuckery in the cesspool state.
February 21st, 2018 at 12:23 PM ^
in Mississippi - beautiful state and the people are friendly as hell but the summer weather is awful.
February 21st, 2018 at 12:07 PM ^
I think you're reaching a bit on your speculation that this will impact the transfers.
February 21st, 2018 at 12:10 PM ^
Did you catch the part about Rebel Rags, a local merchandise emporium... Nevermind, I don't see it either.
February 21st, 2018 at 12:24 PM ^
So let me see if I get this straight. This business says that they should be innocent because they have no record of doing anything illegal??? That's like a chop shop saying they have no record of stolen cars being torn apart and sold as pieces. What a dumb argument!
February 21st, 2018 at 12:38 PM ^
But I bet they'll claim to keep really good records.
February 21st, 2018 at 12:42 PM ^
The business isn't pleading innocent because it isn't a defendant and this isn't a criminal case. The business is suing the recruits and mom. I think the argument is that the defendants were commiting libel or slander (depending on whether in writing or oral) because they lied about getting free shit, and they lied with an intent to hurt Rebel Rags. Of course, the truth is a complete defense, so RR has to argue that the statements were false. To support that, it says, "We have no knowledge of giving out free shit," which then forces the defendants to show that they did, in fact, get shit for free or else admit that they lied.
February 21st, 2018 at 3:17 PM ^
IMNAL, but I'm wondering if they're doing this in the hopes that they are unable to hire counsel. This could make them withdraw their statements in exchange for the lawsuit being dropped.
It probably never makes it to court.
February 21st, 2018 at 3:46 PM ^
They may well prefer it if the defendants couldn't afford counsel or a long litigation process, but that would also mean that they could never collect on any remedy (can't afford an atty = can't afford to pay on the claim). This sort of suit, to me, sounds silly on the surface--unlikely to win, and more likely to make RR look bad than help in any way. So my guess is that you're right--the ultimate goal is to get them to withdraw their statements or, better yet, make them look bad so that the statements are given no weight.
RR has one big asset--connections with Ole Miss. That connection is threatened by the NCAA and its investigation. RR has no standing to get involved in the NCAA's actions, so limited options. My guess is that there's no actionable claim against the NCAA at this point (no final sanctions or showing of harm yet). RR can, however, point to harm from the recruits' statements. They have only one button to push, so they're pushing it. I have no inside information on any of this, so no idea if this strategy makes sense.
February 21st, 2018 at 12:50 PM ^
Yes,the business has been acting as a bag man for Ole Miss, but the bag man has no records, therefore the students must be lying.
February 21st, 2018 at 1:02 PM ^
It's a dumb argument & likely a loser, but it's probably framed in a more intelligent manner in the briefings & oral arguments.
I'm not going to investigate the required elements of Mississippi law for the causes of action, but their points about the lack of records probably relates to some type of burden of proof argument. Basically saying that the testimony of the two or three recruits in question are not enough to reach some required threshold without other corroborating evidence, and they're saying there is none. And as a result, the NCAA investigators launching allegations and looking into the Rebel Rags part of the allegations and/or the individual recruits accusing RR of doing these misdeeds is egregious/without merit & therefore liable for defamation or commercial disparigament or whatever other theories they filed under in their original complaint.
Probably a loser argument, but it's likely that they'd hire competent attorneys to at least dress it up to make it look as plausible as possible.
February 21st, 2018 at 12:35 PM ^
to move their asses a little faster for once and decide if Patterson is going to be eligible next season or not. My liver depends on it.
February 21st, 2018 at 1:02 PM ^
from Patterson and Michigan. Or from the other five players. None have been submitted yet.
February 21st, 2018 at 1:21 PM ^
February 21st, 2018 at 1:29 PM ^
The NCAA sent the players' appeals to Ole Miss for their response. That's what is currently being waited on. After that the NCAA makes its decision, and frankly hopefully its the same decision for all of the players.
February 21st, 2018 at 12:59 PM ^
Sam Webb said this morning that his confidence that Patterson will be eligible this year is at an "all time high." He said that he doesn't see how the NCAA could find that Ole Miss didn't lie to its recruits (including Patterson) about the nature of the NCAA investigation.
February 21st, 2018 at 2:07 PM ^
It sounds like the most plugged in people are very optimistic which is awesome. But does anybody know what the exact burden of proof or elements need to be for a favorable NCAA ruling here? Preponderance of the evidence since it's a civil administrative issue?
And what exactly the breadth of facts that have to be proved?
Do the petitioners need to prove that it was orchestrated by the school formally or somehow systematic (rather than Ole Miss pinning it on one or two people "going rogue")? Are there any facts that cut against the case? Or is there risk that the submitted proof will be enough to release some but not all of the petitioners?
I mean, unless there's smoking gun email BETWEEN Ole Miss officials/coaches saying essentially, "Holy shit, we need to save this class! Quick, let's devise a strategy & spin plan to systematically feed these kids so we don't lose them all!", along with follow-up proven communicatoins with all the petitioners showing that they in fact executed that strategy, isn't there a risk that a skepic could shoot down the petitioners by saying that the evidence is asking the adjudicants to read between the lines too much & make favorable assumptions since the dots haven't been connected sufficiently? i.e., "it wasn't Ole Miss systematically, it was just one or two guys going rogue", or "one or two recruits misinterpreted what they were told by Ole Miss & conveyed inaccurate information to the rest of the class, thus it wasn't Ole Miss itself but just a bad game of 'telephone' inadvertently perpetuated by the recruits themselves."?
On that score, my understanding is that Ole Miss isn't intending to file any kind of objection to the petitioners. Does that mean that when they present their case to the NCAA, there won't be any "adverse party" situation where somebody is standing there proactively undermining the petitioner's case? Basically meaning that if whoever is ruling on the decision were inclined to read the petitions w/ a skeptical eye, that they'd be doing it without the benefit of somebody else spoon-feeding them any counter-arguments or adverse evidence?
February 21st, 2018 at 4:30 PM ^
It's not like the NCAA is a court of law. They are more like a sleazy politician that operates in their own interest with an eye on somebody else's money. This is why they so frequently fuck things up without caring or without censure.
February 21st, 2018 at 4:43 PM ^
The standard is whether it makes the NCAA look good or not, or whether its the easiest path given all of the AD complaints, or whether it keeps the NCAA feeling that it is in charge without rocking the boat too much, as well as how much is the news aware of this decision and actual evidence surrounding it. If you can gleam a bright line test out of that, you have your answer.
February 21st, 2018 at 4:47 PM ^
We don't know whether they do intend to file any kind of objection to the petitioners, at least not as far as I've been able to glean anywhere. Ole Miss is formulating a response, which could be a non-response, or it may be more accurate to say they simply haven't responded yet to some undisclosed deadline within the next week or two.
February 21st, 2018 at 1:10 PM ^
Sam's gut vs the Magic 8 ball....... the suspense is killing me.
February 21st, 2018 at 1:52 PM ^
If these players are ruled ineligble there will most likely be a lawsuit from the players involved. Does anyone think the NCAA or Ole Miss want anything to do with discovery or a real investigation in said lawsuit? Remember, Houston Nutt's lawsuit is why Hugh Freeze is out of work in the first place.
February 21st, 2018 at 10:19 PM ^
Perhaps, but do you think it would get settled in time to matter?
February 21st, 2018 at 2:57 PM ^
February 21st, 2018 at 2:57 PM ^
Bees on the what now?