Here are some of the more colorful vignettes offered up in Ole Miss' response letter to the NCAA.

How Chris Vaughn and David Saunders fudged signees' ACT scores.

This is certainly Ole Miss' most egregious offense, not least because a monetary value can't be attached to the impermissible benefit. The response letter staunchly disavows that anyone else in the athletics department knew about Vaughn's and Saunders' coordinated efforts to falsify ACT scores in 2010. They acted alone, according to the university, full stop.

Apparently, Vaughn and Saunders told Student-Athletes 9, 10 and 11 to sit for the ACT on a specific day in June 2010 at Wayne County High School in Waynesboro, Miss. The student-athletes were instructed not to bubble in any answers to questions they didn't know. Then, the proctor for the exam that day enters the conspiracy:

Saunders arranged for Student‐Athlete 9, Student‐Athlete 10 and Student‐Athlete 11 to take the June 2010 ACT exam at Wayne County and arranged for the then ACT testing supervisor at Wayne County to complete and/or alter their exam answer sheets in such a manner that they received fraudulent exam scores.

This is how you get three badly needed recruits eligible for the upcoming football season. Interestingly, footnote 33 of the document reveals that the university still to this day has no idea who exactly was the exam proctor that altered the three answer sheets. Ole Miss also disputes the extent to which Saunders was directly involved.

The University unequivocally believes that Saunders was involved in (and likely spearheaded) the academic fraud but, in fairness, cannot agree with the specific allegation that he directed the testing coordinator to complete and/or alter answer sheets. Neither the University nor the enforcement staff has ever been able to determine who actually altered or completed the answer sheets.

Presumably this proctor is a high school administrator or instructor in the Wayne County public schools system, and he or she is walking around with three very large breaches of ethical conduct in their head, and nobody but Saunders or Vaughn might know who they are. Amazing.

That plus paying players? They are in deep shyt.

So Southern Miss going to get hit with penalties since the NCAA going to be highly upset with Ole Miss...

That doesn't make a lot of sense.

The kids still ended up with 18s or so.

If some other person is filling in right answers and these two filled in the simple ones you'd expect them to get unusually higher scores.

(06-19-2016 10:55 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  That doesn't make a lot of sense.

The kids still ended up with 18s or so.

If some other person is filling in right answers and these two filled in the simple ones you'd expect them to get unusually higher scores.

What would be the point of going beyond the minimum ACT they needed to get in? If you score too high, you run the risk of being flagged.

(06-19-2016 11:24 AM)Wolfman Wrote:  

(06-19-2016 10:55 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  That doesn't make a lot of sense.

The kids still ended up with 18s or so.

If some other person is filling in right answers and these two filled in the simple ones you'd expect them to get unusually higher scores.

What would be the point of going beyond the minimum ACT they needed to get in? If you score too high, you run the risk of being flagged.

That's the point. But it's a pretty complicated effort in the time this guy would have to look at these kids exams. They have both answered and unanswered questions to look at and even if you are a proctor the tests are sealed when picked up.

There had to be more to this.

I would have expected an effort like the one described to end up with higher scores.

(06-19-2016 11:44 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  ....I would have expected an effort like the one described to end up with higher scores.

Ole Miss admitted a lineman a few years back whose mother publicly stated that he barely read 3rd-grade level. As the other poster said, getting them in was what mattered - why raise suspicions?

For the future, not to worry. Ole Miss's new leader is a by-the-books kind of guy; he'll deal with any problems swiftly.

(06-19-2016 10:39 AM)Maize Wrote:  So Southern Miss going to get hit with penalties since the NCAA going to be highly upset with Ole Miss...

Norfolk State got hit, and have wins taken away from them from 2009, 2010 and 2011 season, and were stripped of the MEAC Championship in football for 2011. Several sports were hit.

(06-19-2016 12:24 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(06-19-2016 10:39 AM)Maize Wrote:  So Southern Miss going to get hit with penalties since the NCAA going to be highly upset with Ole Miss...

Norfolk State got hit, and have wins taken away from them from 2009, 2010 and 2011 season, and were stripped of the MEAC Championship in football for 2011. Several sports were hit.

Norfolk and Ole Piss are two different animals in the eyes of NCAss.

Cheers!

(06-19-2016 12:07 PM)Gray Avenger Wrote:  

(06-19-2016 11:44 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  ....I would have expected an effort like the one described to end up with higher scores.

Ole Miss admitted a lineman a few years back whose mother publicly stated that he barely read 3rd-grade level. As the other poster said, getting them in was what mattered - why raise suspicions?

What I'm saying is that the effort involved in getting this done points to there being a deeper conspiracy.

If I'm looking for a perfectly average score, to avoid suspicion, from you on a test it's a much more difficult task to achieve if I ask you to take the test and then go through calculate up what you got right and add in what else may be needed than it is for you to simply leave the test blank and let me fill in what's needed.

It's not a difficult concept to understand.

If this group is saying they took the test and then got a little extra help that seems odd and it seems to me that there is more to this.

(06-19-2016 11:44 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(06-19-2016 11:24 AM)Wolfman Wrote:  

(06-19-2016 10:55 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  That doesn't make a lot of sense.

The kids still ended up with 18s or so.

If some other person is filling in right answers and these two filled in the simple ones you'd expect them to get unusually higher scores.

What would be the point of going beyond the minimum ACT they needed to get in? If you score too high, you run the risk of being flagged.

That's the point. But it's a pretty complicated effort in the time this guy would have to look at these kids exams. They have both answered and unanswered questions to look at and even if you are a proctor the tests are sealed when picked up.

There had to be more to this.

I would have expected an effort like the one described to end up with higher scores.

And maybe it would have, if the guy filling in the answers wasn't an Ole Miss grad.

(06-19-2016 05:49 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  And maybe it would have, if the guy filling in the answers wasn't an Ole Miss grad.

Ole Miss grad or not, (1) he was picked for his willingness to conspire to cheat, not for his prowess at taking ACT tests ... there's no reason to think he did much better than average when he took the tests himself and (2) the students likely got some of the ones that they filled in wrong, though they believed they knew the answer.