Is Deadspin Releasing the Goods on Ole Miss Feb. 21st?

Last Saturday I told y’all about an e-mail I got regarding Deadspin releasing a story about Ole Miss giving out impermissible benefits to football players. On Wednesday, IBN Sports Wrap tweeted similar information…

On Monday, the person who e-mailed me the original story sent me a follow up e-mail to say that the story would be entitled “Is Ole Miss the New SMU?” This is the exact title IBN tweeted. In this e-mail he also stated that Deadspin had informed him that the story would be released on Febraury 21st.

Who is IBN? I don’t really know. I’ve heard the name “Incarcerated Bob” a few times but I don’t know much else. From what I’ve gathered he’s a degenerate gambler and has said he has the goods on Ole Miss for a while now. Apparently Ole Miss found a way to have him temporarily suspended from twitter at one point in the last year for his accusations. He has 125,000 followers if that means anything to you. That’s quite a bit.

Based on his tweets (because he didn’t respond to my request for more info) he is giving/selling his dirt on OM to Deadspin because he doesn’t want to be involved anymore….

So what are the chances this story is real? Well at first I said 1%. Now I’ll say 2%.

Initially when I heard about the IBN tweet I figured he received the same e-mail I did. For it to be entitled the exact same thing is curious. But then he claims that he is the one who gave the info to Deadspin. In the e-mail I received it was a lawyer who worked with OM compliance who was the informant.

I responded to the “whistleblower” who sent me the e-mail and referenced the IBN tweet, but have not gotten a response.

• UPDATE: (2/17, 11:15 AM) – the “whistleblower” claims IBN “is a liar”. He also says Ole Miss will be notified of the story later this week, likely Wednesday.

Is Incarcerated Bob is the one who sent me the e-mail? Why would he send little ole me an e-mail is my first response to that. What would be the use in that? The only way this hypothesis could be correct is if he truly feared there would be trouble if he reported anything on his website so he wanted to use M&WN. That is hard to believe considering his website is filled with gambling, propaganda and gossip.

It’s interesting that in the initial e-mail the “whistleblower” said the guy he worked for at Ole Miss compliance was named “Bob” – or more likely that was the pseudonym he was using.

So what’s the verdict?

1. IBN received the same, or a similar e-mail that I got. They firmed up their story and got him to believe it enough to tweet it. And either they asked him to take credit for revealing info to Deadspin or he did that on his own.
2. This is a long con. It’s the greatest troll ever where this OM fan has been feeding IBN false info and he’s been taking the bait and he’s still doing so…from the same source – the person who e-mailed me.
3. There is actually something to this.

I still am not buying it. The initial e-mail was littered with stuff that was designed to make me bite. It played on the rumors floated around MSU message boards for months, and it was all too good to be true. There have been some MSU fans who have been skeptical about it….wondering if it might be true. I don’t believe it, but I guess we’ll find out next Friday.

But even if someone hammered Ole Miss – even if all the allegations and rumors of them cheating are true, I wouldn’t jump up and down too much. First off there is no guarantee, even with full evidence, that the NCAA would be able to competently complete an investigation landing them on probation. Secondly, if they did go down they’d find a way to bring us down with them.

I jab Ole Miss a lot…and that’s likely why they sent the e-mail to me and not FWtCT or any other MSU site. I’ll rag on them all day long – especially when we have the Egg, but if I released damning evidence for NCAA violations I would basically be making my school a target. And I have zero confidence in MSU compliance to handle such a situation.

If Ole Miss is cheating, let their infrastructure fall on itself. If it’s more than just typical cheating, i.e. $100 handshakes, if it’s massive cheating to secure elite athletes that will eventually break them. Once you start paying players (illegally) they start owning you. They start telling you what they’re going to do. That’s not good for building a winning program, and it will eventually backfire.

I’d rather just let them be. If they are cheating it will come back around. If they aren’t then that’s fine too. We are establishing a winning program and making strides towards getting even better. It might be possible we can co-exist as successful programs. I’d rather see that than taking each other down and reliving 2004-2006.

In conclusion, I don’t think Deadspin has anything on Ole Miss. Don’t give your hopes up, and don’t waste any more time on what they may or may not be doing behind closed doors. On the off chance something does come out, we need to make sure all our doors are locked because they won’t sit idle in the ditch unless we’re lying there beside them.