Ole Miss avoids death penalty, but not penalties

Ole Miss has avoided the feared ‘death penalty’ from the NCAA for its payment of recruits, but it hasn’t avoided damage.

The NCAA has said that Matt Luke’s team will be hit by another bowl ban in 2019, and also any senior player that wants to transfer from Oxford will be able to do so without needing to wait out a year to play again.

Also, Ole Miss has been given a scholarship reduction of 13 over a few years – which shouldn’t hit the Rebels’ depth chart as badly as it could have done.

The Rebels will also be hit with financial penalties, and all of Ole Miss’ staff will be given show-cause penalties, except for Luke.

The most pointless of the NCAA penalties was the ‘vacation of all regular-season and postseason wins in which ineligible student-athletes competed’, which hurts nothing except school pride. The fans will still remember being there…and so will the players.

It added: “The panel noted that the case was the result of a culture at the university where rules violations were acceptable in the football program and reminiscent of similar Ole Miss infractions cases in the past.”

“This is now the third case over three decades that has involved the boosters and football program,” the panel said in its decision. “Even the head coach acknowledged that upon coming to Mississippi, he was surprised by the ‘craziness’ of boosters trying to insert themselves into his program.”