Re: Auburn will be a first class wreck
If this is true from the article, then I believe the most likely time line is that the May 17th Transcript had the 76 (probable shown as a C) and JR enrolls at AU, the teacher changes the grades and the school sends another transcript showing a D, on June 18, Auburn ask about the different transcript.. IF this was the case, it would seem that Auburn would be in trouble for practicing a player they knew to be ineligible..
That's a pretty easy one to defend. They had one transcript that showed him to be eligible and another that showed him to be ineligible. They didn't have much exposure until they knew which was correct. Remember, two counselors actually changed his grade. Lynch, who retired at the end of the year, did it the first time. They didn't discover the second change (made by Starks-Sykes) until the NCAA came sniffing around in August.
The most likely scenario is that at least initially the compliance office was/is totally in the dark. The AU boots on the ground in Memphis had Lynch make the change letting Robinson enrolled in Auburn with the falsified transcript. Based on statements by previous posters, he probably enrolled with an unofficial one with a stamped official one to follow. All would have been fine, but the silly old teacher stumbled upon the change and fixed it (probably assuming he'd made a typo) on either 5/17 or 5/18.
Somewhere between the day he enrolled and mid-June the AU compliance department gets the second, official transcript. Thanks to the teacher's alert observation, they don't match so the compliance office calls the school to see which one is correct. The compliance department also tells the staff that there's a potential problem with Robinson's transcripts.
Well crap. The only problem now is that Lynch has retired so she can't make the change again. Enter Starks-Sykes. She makes the second change so that he again qualifies. Once again, the world's a happy place.
Until August, when the NCAA shows up in Memphis asking about Robinson. The principal pulls the records for an issue he thought was resolved in June and sees a second change. Even worse, the NCAA sees the same thing. Now the jig's up. There's no alternative but to declare him ineligible.
I can't help but believe that the NCAA's going to be visiting the plains again very soon and AU might have some real exposure here. It is quite unlike Cam. Everyone involved in Camgate was shady. Here there's an electronic paper trail. Further unlike Cam, both the principal and teacher at Wooddale High seem to be people of integrity, and Mississippi State's not going to go down alone. They'll be singing too.