The NCAA, on the scent

Pat Forde reports that the Ole Miss investigation is growing.

The NCAA’s protracted investigation of Mississippi has taken a new twist within the last month – investigators have interviewed players at two or more rival Southeastern Conference schools about their recruitment by the Rebels, multiple sources told Yahoo Sports.

NCAA Enforcement representatives have visited Auburn and Mississippi State, and perhaps at least one more SEC Western Division school, this summer to speak with players who were recruited by Ole Miss. The players were granted immunity from potential NCAA sanctions in exchange for truthful accounts of their recruitment, sources said.

Those interviews indicate that the NCAA investigation has expanded beyond the spring focus on former All-American offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil.

Generally speaking, you don’t want to see the word “immunity” in a context like that.

Expanding investigations is what the NCAA likes to do.  I’m starting to think this won’t end well for ol’ Hugh.

Keep calm and carry on.

The most remarkable thing about Smart’s post-practice presser yesterday is how unremarkable it was.

Pretty much everything he said there could have been said a week or two weeks ago.  With the same delivery.  From that alone, you’d never know his first game as a head coach is coming up in a week.

Yeah, I think he’s doing a little soft selling there.  No doubt they’re still knee-deep in player evaluation — it’s a first-time staff with a bunch of players signed by others, after all — but I’m skeptical they’ve been that casual about game planning for North Carolina.

Oh, and speaking of game planning, for those of you who think there’s some strategic reason to keep Gene Chizik guessing about who Georgia’s starting quarterback will be, Kirby shot that down.

Subterfuge could always be a reason for not announcing a starter. North Carolina would have plenty of film on Lambert, but much less on the other two. But Smart seemed to downplay that as a strategy, as none are dual-threat quarterbacks.

“I don’t know if that’s a big deal or not,” Smart said. “I think it’s different when you have truly distinct quarterbacks to get ready for.”

So much for that theory.

What I do think you can say is that the man does an excellent job of not showing his cards.

 

Thursday morning buffet

A few morsels to start your day…

• In case you need one, here’s an amusing introduction to college football.
• ESPN asked some SEC players to name which away stadiums were the most hostile for opposing teams.  Nobody mentioned Sanford.
• “No one else has a Jonas (Jennings)“.
• Count Bruce Feldman as someone else who’s not getting on the Gus Bus.
• If you’re looking for a free CFB preview, SB Nation’s got you covered.  It’s a worthwhile resource just for Bill Connelly’s contribution.
• Georgia is 16th in the current Massey College Football Ranking Composite.  Look closely, though, and you’ll see the Dawgs are all over the map in rankings.
• The most favorable of those 43 is Brian Fremeau’s FEI (6th).  In his 2016 game projections, he has Georgia only having one game with less than a 50% chance to win — Ole Miss.

Don’t get even. Get mad.

Pat Dye says Auburn’s coaches didn’t like each other last year.  But that’s all in the past now.

Meanwhile, Kirk Herbstreit says the key to Auburn’s success this season will be that the defense is pissed off.

I’m really looking forward to the coming soap opera on the Plains.

 

“I’m tired of people who don’t know who you are and they think you’re an asshole.”

Two thoughts on that:  first, Charlie Weis must be tired of a whole lot of folks, and second, just because they don’t know who you are, Charlie, doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

Today, in when smart coaches do dumb things

Larry Fedora’s got a big game coming up on national TV against an SEC opponent, but I guess he’s got enough spare time on his hands to deal with the inevitable backlash from hiring Tim Beckman, who, when we last checked in on him, was getting bounced from Illinois for mistreating some of his players.

At least that’s what everyone else says.  Fedora’s got the real poop.

“I don’t believe everything I read, all right,” Fedora said, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. “I know Tim. I know his side of the story, also. So I was comfortable with it. If I wouldn’t have been, obviously I wouldn’t have brought him. I wouldn’t have allowed him to be in our program.”

He continued: “I know (criticism is) going to happen, and then a couple of days from now it won’t be news. I mean, I promise you, I didn’t see anywhere where the NCAA said that he should be banished from the game of football. You know?

“I mean, the guy didn’t win enough games. That’s all it was.”

You gotta love it — “I hired him, so that’s proof in and of itself he didn’t do anything bad.”

How many of Kirby Smart’s opposing coaches already have non-game distractions to deal with this season?