Written by Dennis Dodd at CBS Sports.com
There’s now an obvious reason Ole Miss decided to release information about the NCAA’s latest notice of allegations on its own terms through a YouTube filter earlier this year.
The truth hurts. That would be the entire unvarnished (NCAA’s version of the) truth contained in the 30-page amended notice of allegations released by the school on Tuesday.
What Ole Miss attempted to antiseptically gloss over in February in its own videotaped spin is worse than anyone thought.
Now we know why Ole Miss lawyers summarily denied the media’s Freedom of Information Act requests for the amended notice. It wanted to control the message for as long as possible.
Well, here’s another notice for Ole Miss: Time’s up.
Test score fraud? Ten former or current staffers — including head man Hugh Freeze — called out by name amidst 21 sordid allegations that could end up chopping Ole Miss football off at the knees? Boosters run amok with checkbooks a-blazin’?
Yup, it’s all in there and more. There were eight new allegations added to the 13 original sins released in 2016. To be fair, Ole Miss makes some compelling arguments in defense of Freeze and its compliance procedures. But we already knew the school was going all in on its current coach.
What we didn’t know is that the NCAA would fight back with some interesting language of its own. It cited Freeze for violation of head coach responsibility legislation in 11 of the 21 total allegations.
Never mind what we already know: Because of those allegations, Freeze could be the first FBS coach suspended for all or part of a season resulting from a new rule that is less than four years old.
The NCAA added Freeze could also be slapped with a show-cause order, which could follow him beyond employment at Ole Miss. A show-cause is the NCAA’s version of a Scarlet Letter that potentially makes any coach unhireable.
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