Ole Miss can take solace that in the fact that their news dump was blown off most front pages in the state by far more important news dumps from elsewhere in the country but the Rebels still made plenty of noise on Friday.
First, the school released the names of the vast majority of the boosters involved in the school’s on-going NCAA infractions case. Ole Miss has previously redacted most of the names in the two Notices of Allegations sent to the school by the enforcement staff. Following a court case related to the matter and numerous squabbles with various parties, the state ethics commission eventually told the university to release the names.
Per the Jackson Clarion-Ledger:
“Those names were revealed Friday when the university released its two Notice of Allegations and published all but two of the booster names. There were 14 boosters involved included in the Notice of Allegations and they were tied to more than half of Ole Miss’ 15 Level I violations. The football program itself faces 21 alleged violations.”
While the release of such information alone would have made for a busy Friday, there was still plenty more to check off in Oxford.
The school also announced the hiring of a new offensive line coach in Jack Bicknell Jr. to fill the vacancy left when Matt Luke was promoted to head coach in the wake of Hugh Freeze’s resignation. Bicknell has been coaching offensive line in the NFL since 2009 with four different franchises but is no stranger to the college game having been the former head coach at Louisiana Tech. He also had two stints as a coach at Boston College in addition to a stop at New Hampshire.
Perhaps most notably, Bicknell played for the Eagles back in the mid-80’s under his father of the same name and is best known for being the center for Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie.