Sources: Ole Miss verifies Tunsil texts as real

12:47 PM ET

Ole Miss officials have determined that a text message conversation published to Miami Dolphins rookie Laremy Tunsil’s Instagram account during the NFL draft did happen last year, sources told ESPN’s Outside the Lines, but the school is still looking into whether the messages were altered before they were published.

In the conversations, which allegedly occurred in February and April 2015, Tunsil asked Ole Miss assistant athletic director John Miller for money to pay rent and his mother’s $305 utility bill. Miller responds to Tunsil’s request by replying, “See Barney next week,” an apparent reference to Ole Miss assistant athletic director for high school and junior college relations Barney Farrar.

Farrar told ESPN’s Joe Schad last month that he has not given Tunsil money and that Tunsil did not ask him for money. According to Farrar’s Ole Miss biography, he “plays a vital role in recruiting, which has helped Ole Miss land three straight top-15 signing classes.”

On April 28, Tunsil spoke at a news conference after his draft selection in Chicago and admitted taking money from an Ole Miss coach. He has refused to address the allegations in two subsequent news conferences in Miami.

The text messages were posted to the since-deleted Instagram account @kingtunsil in the second social-media incident of the evening. Before he was drafted by the Dolphins with the 13th overall pick, a video was posted on Tunsil’s Twitter account of him smoking a substance from a bong while wearing a gas mask.

The Rebels received an NCAA notice of allegations in late January but have released few details about the investigation. The sources said Ole Miss officials expect to respond to the NCAA later this month.

Ole Miss officials have verified the text message conversation posted to Laremy Tunsil’s Instagram account during last month’s NFL draft, sources told Outside the Lines. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

Meanwhile, Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze’s attorneys on Wednesday asked a Mississippi judge not to require him to be deposed in a civil suit filed against Tunsil by his stepfather.

Lindsey Miller, Tunsil’s estranged stepfather, sued Tunsil for assault and battery, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress on April 26, two days before the first round of the draft.

Freeze’s attorneys requested a protective order prohibiting Miller’s attorneys from deposing Freeze. If the court rules that Freeze can be deposed, his attorneys requested that the deposition be completed through written questions and that it focus only on an alleged physical altercation between Miller and Tunsil that occurred on June 28, 2015.

Freeze’s attorneys, J. Cal Mayo Jr. and Kate Embry of Oxford, Mississippi, also asked …

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