NCAA Sacks Ole Miss Football Team Over Violations

Rebels banned from playing in postseason again next season, lose scholarships.

Head Coach Hugh Freeze talks with Shea Patterson #20 of the Mississippi Rebels during a game against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on November 26, 2016 in Oxford, Mississippi.  (Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)
Head Coach Hugh Freeze talks with Shea Patterson #20 of the Mississippi Rebels during a game against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on November 26, 2016 in Oxford, Mississippi. (Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)

The Ole Miss football team has been blitzed with penalties from the NCAA  committee on infractions — including a ban from the playoffs again next season — sources told ESPN.  Friday’s punitive ruling, which includes scholarship deductions, comes on top of the preemptive steps the university took after reports emerged accusing school boosters of doling out payments to prize recruits, including Mississippi State linebacker Leo Lewis. Rebels coach Hugh Freeze, who already resigned for off-field issues in July, was hit with a two-game suspension for “failing to monitor his staff.”

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