MSU News and Notes | Wednesday, August 29, 2012

3 days! And honestly less than that, considering you'll have football tomorrow night to tide you over.

• Weather.com is currently showing a 40% chance of rain Saturday in Starkville with a high of 87° and 78% humidity. Translation: ERMAGERHD MA HAIR IS FRIZZERH
• So there's now proof of involvement of a booster related to last week's breaking news that State was working with the NCAA on a "recruiting irregularity." Michael Wardlaw of BulldawgJunction.com, who went on Head-to-Head radio last week and talked about his information on the subject, told the guys he was being told the situation involved impermissible benefits exchanged between a rogue (not ROUGE) booster and Will Redmond, a current MSU football player from Memphis. Later that day Matthew Stevens added to that stating that a source told him the incident under investigation involved a Ford Mustang purchased for/by Will Redmond prior to his signing with State. Here's an update from Wardlaw yesterday:
  

Documents from MSU confirm the University disassociated themselves with a booster. The booster declined to be interviewed by NCAA.

— TheJunction (@TheJunction) August 28, 2012

• Michael went on to say that many think the booster interviewing with the NCAA would have worked in State's favor. My guess is that the thought process behind that is that the booster's testimony would only further support the fact that State was completely unaware of the situation until after it happened, aka they didn't get the booster to give Redmond the benefits.
  

• Even more info from this Clarion-Ledger blog entry states that through an open records request, media received a copy of a letter from MSU to an unidentified (through redaction) booster, notifying the individual that they would no longer be allowed to contribute financial gifts to the university's athletic programs, as well as receive benefits that are not available to the general public. That letter was dated July 13th, according to Marcello's update. The update also stated that the individual had refused "multiple times" to interview with the NCAA, and also that he'd asked for a refund on a recent donation. BUTTHURTMUCH, sir? I mean I guess I can understand asking for the refund, but come on man. This all came about because of something stupid that YOU did, not of someone else's accord. Sheesh.
  
• Here is the letter obtained by the media from a lawyer on behalf of MSU to the unidentified booster. Not going to lie, when I opened it and the first thing I saw was BOND, I jumped to conclusions #CamNewtonFlashbacks
• Emails! There are emails too. Yeah so if you can't tell I started putting together this post right in the middle of the onslaught of documentation release. Here you go, via Matthew Stevens:

• Man, and to think I thought this would be a slow news day!
• We tweeted this out yesterday, but we've been told by a source with knowledge of the endzone management plan that #HailState will be going back in the endzones for the Jackson State game. The trendsetting hashtag design will go in the north endzone for sure, with it possibly in the south endzone as well. We were also told that the design could possibly change each week. Here's to hoping for maroon and white checkerboard for the UT game, you guys.
• I don't know about you guys, but everytime someone mentions Isaac, I immediately think of this (NSFW):

Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps (2/9) Movie CLIP - The Klumps Eat Out (2000) HD (via movieclips)

• The SEC announced earlier this week that they will now allow expanded instant replay inside SEC stadiums this fall. The ruling will allow stadium scoreboards to show replays of plays while they are under review, between the time the review is announced and before the ruling is announced. The move is basically geared towards eliminating fans from having to hit Twitter and other social media sites to find out if the call was the right one or not from fans watching at home.
• Wondering what it's like on the coast as Isaac rolls in? Our own Justin Sutton is keeping you updated via some app called Tout.
• Fred Smoot wrote something over at 24/7 and does it really matter what it's about? It's Smoot, go read it ($ link).
• The Baltimore Ravens cut former MSU OL Addison Lawrence Tuesday. They apparently also cut Cam Newton's dad, as well.

That's all I have for today folks. As always, leave all the good links you come across that I missed in the comments. Thanks, and have a good hump day!