Crooked Letters - Steven Godfrey (Ole Miss Scandal)

OBMS

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I kept thinking someone else would post it---

(Link removed due to TideFans policies. Just search "crooked letters sbnation")

The only thing I hate is that he didn't mention Ben Dogra one time.
 
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B1GTide

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Re: Crooked Letters - Steven Godfrey

Can someone sum up the content so I can decide whether or not this is worth my time reading?
 

uafanataum

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The author suggests that this is a lesson to future student athletes to not help the NCAA in future investigations. I think it is also a lesson to not take $10,000 from a university you have no intention of attending.
 

RTR91

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The only thing I hate is that he didn't mention Ben Dogra one time.
What's the story with Dogra? How's he connected with this?

This part is what so many have tried to point out to Ole Miss fans over the years, but they are so blinded by their fandom to realize it:

The NCAA’s misguided mandate of amateurism results in rampant cheating in order to succeed in college football. So the point of all of this isn’t to determine if Ole Miss was cheating. That’s a given. The point of the NCAA’s investigation could only prove whether or not Ole Miss was any good at cheating. (Spoiler: Not at all.)

“The problem at Ole Miss was that the head coach was searching his own name on Twitter every damn day,” a former staffer in the Ole Miss program said. “He became fixated on the criticism. He never got it, never understood it’s just part of the job. And most [head] coaches don’t give a s... about what’s said about them on social media because they aren’t reading it anyway.”

Rather than ignore that somewhat customary noise, Freeze made the biggest public relations gaffe of his career. In a since deleted tweet, Freeze wrote, “If you have facts about a violation, send it to compliance@olemiss.edu. If not, please do not slander these young men or insult their family.” [sic]

“Nothing will haunt us more than that stupid tweet,” a source at Ole Miss said.

Overall, Godfrey points out Ole Miss was horrible at cheating and lied to save recruiting classes. He also tries to use this story to flip the narrative into issues with the NCAA's amateurism format.
 

Its On A Slab

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I watched the 1st installment of Godfrey's 3-part documentary on SEC Country. https://www.go90.com/shows/3aUldCH6iyT

Not a lot that I didn't already know. But a validation of what most of us (who pay attention) have been seeing for decades. The bagman culture endemic to bigtime college sports.

Which is why I always chuckle when I hear team-X's fan throw rocks at team-Y, and say they are "cheaters".

It's a big mud pile and I suppose Vandy and Duke might have more of an believable argument.
 

jthomas666

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Re: Crooked Letters - Steven Godfrey

Interesting read. My only quibble is that it suggests that the NCAA's ability to look the other way to arrive at a predetermined conclusion is a recent development.
 

AlexanderFan

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Re: Crooked Letters - Steven Godfrey

Interesting read. My only quibble is that it suggests that the NCAA's ability to look the other way to arrive at a predetermined conclusion is a recent development.
"Tell everybody but Alabama"

"It's ok Cam didn't know"


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

RTR91

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Re: Crooked Letters - Steven Godfrey

Interesting read. My only quibble is that it suggests that the NCAA's ability to look the other way to arrive at a predetermined conclusion is a recent development.
It's a recent development for the fans that haven't had firsthand experience with the NCAA's investigative side.
 

uafan4life

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Re: Crooked Letters - Steven Godfrey

It's a recent development for the fans that haven't had firsthand experience with the NCAA's investigative side.
The NCAA's investigative side is quite a bit like shady, investigative journalism where they're guaranteed to "find" a story - if they don't find a real one quickly enough, they'll just invent one and report that.
 

Its On A Slab

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Re: Crooked Letters - Steven Godfrey

It's a recent development for the fans that haven't had firsthand experience with the NCAA's investigative side.
The funny thing about the Ole Miss penalty is that the NCAA was able to ignore evidence that a key witness(Leo Lewis) was lying, and evidence that he took money from other schools' boosters (State, and others).

Yet they were able to ding Ole Miss based upon Lewis's testimony, regardless.

The NCAA didn't want to admit that they had made a mess of the situation. And not being beholden to the rule of law, they get away with the travesty.
 

Tidewater

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Re: Crooked Letters - Steven Godfrey

Can someone sum up the content so I can decide whether or not this is worth my time reading?
I think he also took issue with the NCAA forcing a player to come talk about the recruiting violation (having promised him immunity from NCAA punishment) while that same player has a liable suit pending against him. The NCAA cannot protect a player from civil suits, but they made him speak to the committee anyway, knowing that what he said would cost him later. "Who was the NCAA actually trying to protect here?"
The answer is that the NCAA was trying to protect its own revenue stream.

It was an interesting read. Long though. Not sure why the language had to be pitched at the level it was.
 

OBMS

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Re: Crooked Letters - Steven Godfrey

The problem, in a nutshell, as it usually is, is that Ole Miss got away with far more than they were accused of (no proof) and the NCAA's remarks about this being a continuation of what went on in the 1990s is far more true than we would believe. Godfrey is misleading in a number of ways but the thought of the NCAA being in town because of women's basketball and track is silly. That was the way in because of where the ACT fraud led at the time. The Ole Miss law squad was called to Louisiana to hear the charges against David Saunders more than a year before they arrived in Oxford.
The profanity is supposed to show the world just how fed up he is with everything / everyone involved---from players to his own alma mater, when really it is just another Ole Miss fluff piece running air cover for the boosters and Rebel Rags.
 

RedWave

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Re: Crooked Letters - Steven Godfrey

I am one of those fans who believes in not throwing stones, blah blah blah. I will readily state that I don't think there are any completely clean programs outside of the academies and maybe the Ivy League. I don't like all of the finger pointing and trying to get rivals in trouble that we have seemed to do a lot the last few decades within our conference at all. More of an honor among thieves mentality. I don't want the NCAA poking around any more at Alabama than they have to, so I prefer them stay out of the SEC entirely.

That said, I think the NCAA did a disservice to the kid in question, and likely exposed him to the impending litigation without really warning him of that possibility. I do believe that, to an extent, he was persuaded to do so by people involved with MSU. A few other points:

1) Personally, I don't care how many escorts any coach (or person, for that matter) sleeps with. That's their business and their money. I don't appreciate his hypocrisy, though.
2) Rebel Rags might get away with a win in court, but are likely guilty as charged. And I am sure there is a store of similar repute in every major college town in America that does the exact same thing they were doing.
3) I have always felt like Ole Miss had one coming to them over the Michael Ohr thing they got away with. The Blind Side was a great movie, and I love Sandra Bullock, but I am not buying that the series of events went quite the way the movie states. They found a big talented kid, and moved him into their home in order to manipulate him into going to their college. It worked out well for him, so I am not hating on it that much. But I am not convinced that their generosity wasn't motivated by his talent. Would a 40 pound, 5' tall kid with zero natural ability in anything useful have gotten the same treatment? There is that hypocrisy thing again.
4) I had another point, but forgot it after going on my Blind Side rant.
 

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