Hugh Freeze’s Ole Miss is in deep NCAA trouble. The institution now has a list of 21 allegations against the Rebels, with the eight additions this week leading to Ole Miss adding a 2017 bowl ban onto its existing list of self-imposed sanctions. And the NCAA has yet to add on its own sanctions.
16 bizarre moments from Ole Miss’ NCAA timeline, in a 3-minute read
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If you’d like the chronological timeline, back to before this really reached the public eye, here’s a short version and here’s a long version.
Below, we’ll arrange things a little differently.
- 2013: Ole Miss signed a top-10 recruiting class, which ranked as one of the most sudden turnarounds in the decade-plus history of Signing Day rankings. This led to whispers, especially after the late additions of a surprise five-star or two who weren’t following their older brother to Oxford, as No. 1 recruit Robert Nkemdiche did.
- 2016: Star left tackle Laremy Tunsil, a member of that famed recruiting class, had his NFL draft night ruined by an anonymous saboteur, including a gas mask bong video and screenshots appearing to show Tunsil asking a school official for money to pay bills. That night, Tunsil seemed to acknowledge taking money from coaches. This ends up giving the NCAA more to dig into, but 2017’s new allegations don’t directly concern any of this.
- 2013: In response to whispers, Freeze publicly challenged the haters to send Ole Miss compliance evidence of cheating, calling such talk “slander.” He later said he regretted that.
- 2012: But it wasn’t actually the signing class that first drew the NCAA’s attention. It was the firing of a women’s basketball coach.
- 2017: After the NCAA updated its list of allegations, SEC rivals already began scouting Ole Miss’ roster for potential transfers ... while also hoping the investigation won’t sprawl throughout the conference.
- 2010: The previous coaching staff allegedly tried to fix ACT scores in order to help three players qualify, with all three later competing while ineligible.
- 2010-2015: Various other stuff! There’s kind of a lot on the NCAA’s full list of allegations.
- 2016: This is a standard any time the NCAA empties out its receipt drawer, but trying to calculate dollar amounts and correlated punishments for alleged impermissible benefits feels like playing The Price is Right in another language.
- 2016: Nkemdiche finished his Ole Miss career by falling out of a window and later implying that the marijuana in the hotel room belonged to Tunsil. The Nkemdiche brothers’ time in Oxford produced a lot of news.
- 2014-2015: Ole Miss boosters gave a recruit at least $13,000, the NCAA alleges, but he signed elsewhere. Here’s where you remember the NCAA asked some SEC West rival players to snitch on Ole Miss.
- 2016: New Jersey governor and Donald Trump stuntman Chris Christie announced he would’ve barged into the NFL draft and arrested Tunsil on sight.
- 2015: Tunsil’s former stepfather, a constant character in this drama, complained about having to spend 12 hours at a time meeting with the NCAA at the Oxford McDonald’s. The McDonald’s blamed it on the Wendy’s 2.5 miles away.
- One bulk entry for the various times recruits who either did or didn’t sign with Ole Miss flashed cash online and then deleted their posts. That includes five-star Ole Miss signee Laquon Treadwell, for instance, who appeared to possess all of $305, and at least one former Rebel commit who flipped to a rival. As you can imagine, players who picked other schools over Ole Miss are currently being hollered at by Rebel fans online.
- 2016: Former coach Houston Nutt celebrated the fact that most of the NCAA’s original 13 allegations concerned Freeze’s staff. ACT-fixing, though!
- 2015: Some Ole Miss fans on Twitter got a rumor website to publish some obviously fake documents on Tunsil, spreading much joy online.
- 2017: A Mississippi state rep who happens to be a former Rebel attempted to make the state the boss of the NCAA, surely for reasons unrelated to these allegations.
