Pod Fodder with Edward Aschoff
Members of the athletic department and fans alike of Ole Miss had visions of a metaphoric grand inaugural ball announcing the football program’s arrival into the upper echelon of college football during the first round of last Thursday’s National Football League Draft, but instead they found themselves facing what had to have felt like a sting operation.
Minutes prior to the commencement of the event, Laremy Tunsil’s twitter account reportedly was hacked, a event that began an embarrassing evening not only for Tunsil but also Ole Miss people alike.
Edward Aschoff of ESPN joined today’s Oxford Exxon Podcast to discuss the events of last Thursday night and the work that those events have subsequently provided him.
“If any NFL team didn’t know about that, they didn’t do their homework,” Aschoff said of the video. “Everything that happens in college from a, I guess, substance abuse, if you want to say that, realm, every NFL team that looked at Laremy Tunsil, should have known about this whether it came out three weeks ago or three years ago.”
While the video damaged primarily Tunsil, specifically his draft stock, the events that would happen seconds after the Miami Dolphins selected him with the 13th-overall pick were the most damaging to the Ole Miss football program’s public perception.
“That’s not the big deal in the grand scheme of things, it’s that he’s walking to the stage and his instagram explodes with alleged text messages between him and a staff member of him allegedly asking for money, and then he admits to it,”Aschoff said. “Who knows if he was flustered, if he knew what question was being asked, and now we have an entirely new situation with an Ole Miss program that was just now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with its previous NCAA investigation and now might possible see a new one. But, there’s so many tentacles and just so much going on in and around the program with people out side of the state (and) with Laremy Tunsil still not saying anything, and this is not going away any time soon.”
Speculation ran wild about the identity of the alleged attacker. Backstage in the green room, whispers that Tunsil’s stepfather, Lindsey Miller, was the culprit began to swirl so much that Deion Sanders of the NFL Network asked Tunsil if he believed that Miller was behind the attacks during the televised interview that immediately followed the former Ole Miss standout’s drafting.
“For (Miller) without saying too much as of now, it was the first time that I saw sympathy in his words and what he was saying about Laremy,” Aschoff said. “He was very adamant on draft night that he wasn’t involved, that it wasn’t him. Whether he knows exactly who did it or not, you could tell that from the way that he spoke about Laremy throughout all of the drama that has happened with them, he felt sorry for him in a sense. Unless he’s just an incredibly good con artist, he legitimately seemed to be upset with what was happening with Laremy, now.”
The night would become worse for Tunsil when he spoke to reporters at a press conference well after his other media commitments.
“Listening to that press conference, you almost feel bad for him in the sense that he was bombarded with all of these questions that you didn’t expect on the biggest night of his life, Aschoff said. “A, You have to be a grownup and an adult and answer those questions and try to maneuver your way through them. I just felt like he was incredibly flustered and was sweating bullets. I think he was so uncomfortable and was just speaking, and I’m not saying that he was not admitting to taking money, or what not, but just seeing him in that situation was just so uncomfortable. It was unbearable to watch, really.”
“I think that Laremy was trying to be honest with everything that he was being asked. I’ve talked to a couple of people who say he didn’t know about the instagram pictures (of the allegedly direct message between Tunsil and John Miller) that were put up, but then someone, ‘Did you take money from a coach?’, and he says ‘I’d have to say (yeah) I did.’ That’s pretty concrete.”
Following Tunsil’s comments, reports began to surface that the exchange of funds was legal under an opportunity fund. However, other reporters, such as Andy Staples and others, have noted that the fund is only limited to use for payments that a scholarship doesn’t cover. Rent and utilities would fall outside of appropriate usage.
“There’s so many different elements to this, and I hate bringing these up because it sounds a little naïve, but at the same time we can’t rule out that he was talking about grant money or scholarship money, or maybe something that we don’t know,” Aschoff said.
“I wonder if it’s because (the opportunity fund)’s a confusing kind of fund. You have to dive into the fine print to figure out, ‘Can you use it for this?’. Emergency funds, ok well could emergency funds be used for utilities for your parents? From my understanding, it’s not, but I could see someone whether they’re related to Ole Miss or not, looking at that and saying, ‘Well, this is a possibility.’ We’ve looked at other funds that student athletes can get, and again you still have to file that with the SEC or even the NCAA in some instances, so there’s got to be some sort of paperwork there.”
Following Tunsil’s statements on draft night, Ole Miss launched an “aggressive investigation” into their validity.
“Talking with people inside the program, they want clarification from Laremy, and I think it’s smart if you’re Ole Miss to dive into everything that Laremy Tunsil put his hands on while he was in Oxford,” Aschoff said. “Instagram, Twitter, I know those have been deleted, but they’ve got to go through everything that they can to see if there’s anything else, to see if there’s anything that Laremy hasn’t told them that maybe they’re going to find out sooner rather than later. That’s where I think there’s, I don’t want to say confusion, but maybe some fear there, for a lack of a better term, of what they might not know.”
“If this is nothing new, then Ole Miss has nothing more to say,” Aschoff said. “I think that they will just wait for Laremy and just wait for the NCAA, and if the NCAA comes back and says, ‘This is nothing new. We’ve already dealt with the seven-game suspension, with the loaner cars. We know that he was involved with agents and blah, blah, blah. He took impermissible benefits. This is stuff that we saw,’ then Ole Miss can just say that this is just part of the last investigation.”
Throughout the entire process since receiving the notice of allegations, Ole Miss has been very quiet publicly about not only the letter but also its response to the letter.
“If you’re Ole Miss, I don’t think there’s anything public that you need to say as of right now,” Aschoff said. “You’ve got people behind closed doors working on this already on what you hope is the same investigation or the same material from that investigation. There’s no point really in saying anything, especially if Laremy Tunsil isn’t saying anything. Certainly, if Laremy’s not going to say anything and Ole Miss doesn’t feel like it needs to say anything, and the NCAA isn’t commenting right now anyway, (then) being quiet isn’t necessarily the worst thing.”
“Public opinion, people are going to destroy them, but when you’re thinking about your program and what you need to do for the future, I don’t necessarily think you need to say much. The day is going to come when they’re going to have to say something, or hey, if the NCAA never says anything again, then there is no point in saying anything.”
Aschoff believes that Ole Miss’ public relations strategy is pretty simple whether media, fans, or anyone else agrees.
“The only people that they care about winning over are recruits.” Aschoff said. “I don’t see a ton of recruits, unless this becomes some huge NCAA investigation that blows up into something catastrophic for the university, I doubt that a lot of big name recruits are going to look and say, ‘Well, we can’t go to Ole Miss.’ I’m not naïve. I understand what players’ interests are, and if they feel like Ole Miss is doing by the book as much as they can like any other program, this isn’t something that is certainly going to destroy them.”
As of the moment of publication, the name of the alleged hacker has not been released. The Dolphins feel confident that they have the name, a fact that would logically allow one to presume that Tunsil’s camp is aware of the name as well, yet not much public action has occurred.
“Laremy hasn’t talked about it a lot,” Aschoff said. “He said he’s upset about it, but he hasn’t been very adamant about ‘Let’s go after this,’ and for whatever reason and I can’t speak for him, there’s got to be some concern there if the wrong person leaked this.”
“If the wrong person released this information and there’s more to it, that’s when I think there’s a lot more fear on the Ole Miss side.”