Be Careful what you Believe about how Leo Lewis Fared in the Ole Miss COI Hearing Today

Will today continue to be a bad year for #sources? If recent history provides any clues about what might happen, then #sources will continue to stay on the struggle bus.

If you’re unsure of what all of this means, let me give you a refresher. Ole Miss will have their hearing before the Committee on Infractions to determine their fate. Mississippi St. Bulldogs Inside Linebacker Leo Lewis was given limited immunity to help the NCAA Enforcement Staff build their case against the Ole Miss Rebels. Leo Lewis has been requested to appear. While it is not mandatory for Lewis to appear, doing so would put his limited immunity at risk, which would in turn put his eligibility at risk. For those reasons, you can just about guarantee Leo Lewis will be attending this hearing.

I don’t know what sanctions Ole Miss will receive in the hearing. I think it is unwise to ever make predictions about sanctions the COI will hand down. They have never been known for their consistency, so I don't know why anyone would ever make such predictions. But even if they were consistent, I would not concern myself with how the Rebels will do. My only concern is what happens with Leo Lewis.

There have been plenty of stories written about the involvement of Leo Lewis in this case. I have said all along, I don’t think there is any danger to Leo Lewis or Mississippi State based on the NCAA Enforcement Staff’s response to Ole Miss.

But there are plenty of people on the opposite side of the Egg Bowl Rivalry who don’t share those sentiments. And those same people have been wrong at just about every turn in this story because they continue to rely on #sources who have been giving them at best misleading information and at worst, flat out false information. That’s an important detail to remember when those same people start writing their stories and recording their podcasts today.

The COI Hearing is confidential. There will not be any reporters in the room. The only people attending the hearing will be the involved parties. Since no one else will be in the room, anyone writing a story or giving any opinion on how it went will have to rely on #sources who were in the room. A ruling will not be handed down today, and it could be weeks or months before it is. But this will not stop people from writing about how the hearing went for Ole Miss and for Leo Lewis.

If the usual suspects (mainly the Rebel Spirit on Scout, but also the Rebel Grove to a lesser extent) continue to take the path they have up until this point, then we can expect them to rely on their #sources who have continually led them astray to tell us Ole Miss will be fine and Leo Lewis is a dead man walking along with the entire Mississippi State Football program.

Does that mean we should ignore anyone who has bad news for Mississippi State fans? No, it just means you should consider where the information is coming from. If the people saying things look bad for Leo Lewis and the Bulldogs have been correct in their reporting throughout this story, then I would be concerned. But if it is the same people who have been wrong so often in this story, then don’t give it a second thought.

Basically, do what the reporters who have been reporting should have done, and just vet the information for reliability. If you do, you’ll have a good idea about how things went for Leo Lewis does today.