Freeze holds tongue over lawsuit
Ole Miss coach vows school will weather adversity
George Schroeder @GeorgeSchroeder USA TODAY Sports
No comment. Essentially, that was Mississippi coach Hugh Freeze’s answer Thursday to questions about the latest twist related to the NCAA investigation at the school.
Former Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt filed a civil lawsuit against the university and its athletic foundation Wednesday, alleging a coordinated campaign to defame his character.
“I would absolutely love to share all my opinion on it,” Freeze said, “but unfortunately it’s a legal case and I can’t comment.”
The suit alleged Freeze, athletics director Ross Bjork and media relations director Kyle Campbell tried to spin, in off-the-record conversations with media members, a “false narrative” that most of the NCAA trouble related to Ole Miss football had occurred during Nutt’s tenure at the school (from 2008 to 2011)
“The intent to which it came from, you’d have to ask Houston and his team,” Nutt said. “I can’t comment on it. … I thought the timing was, uh, questionable.”
The timing appeared intentional. Given the NCAA issues, Freeze’s appearance at SEC media days was already going to be interesting — much like it was a year earlier.
Ole Miss, which already had self-imposed a bowl ban for the 2017 season, faces a hearing before the NCAA’s committee on infractions in the next few months. The NCAA’s enforcement staff alleges 21 violations related to the football program. Several allegations occurred while Nutt was coach. But most of the alleged misdeeds related to members of Freeze’s staff.
Freeze faces a potential suspension under NCAA rules that hold head coaches responsible for rule-breaking in their programs. But he said he believed the Ole Miss administration has “been unwavering in their support of me.” He said the school had not set up contingency plans for the possibility of a suspension. And he said the eventual resolution, which appears to be months away, would be “a day we will rejoice greatly in.”
As he started his interview session, Freeze appeared to read a statement saying Ole Miss had “taken responsibility for the mistakes we have made” and taken “meaningful action,” including scholarship reductions and a selfimposed bowl ban for the 2017 season.
“I will not be answering any questions that are related to our case,” he said, “but you are sure welcome to read our response (to the NCAA).”
From there, Freeze’s opening statement ran on for more than 15 minutes. It was essentially a speech — eventually, he ran down the Rebels’ depth chart — which left very little time for questions from reporters gathered in the ballroom.
“Adversity is something that we’re familiar with,” he said. “It’s kind of been around us for a while now. I will be glad for the day when I can stand here and it’s not.”
Nutt’s lawsuit used phone records in an attempt to show Freeze, Bjork and Campbell spoke with local and national reporters to create misleading reports in January 2016 — after the school had received a Notice of Allegations from the NCAA, and just before national signing day for recruits — that the violations had largely occurred under Nutt’s watch.
According to the suit: “During the 10 days leading up to the crucial weekend recruiting event, Coach Freeze initiated ‘off the record’ conversations with numerous sports journalists for the specific purpose of creating multiple false and misleading news stories, Tweets and other social media comments supporting the above-referenced false narrative, i.e., that the NCAA’s focus was on the former football coaching staff and Houston Nutt in particular.”
Freeze was asked about his approach to managing the “drama.”
“We obviously created it in and around our program,” Freeze said. “… We’ve got to be responsible for the areas in which we were deficient when we didn’t react or act properly, whether it was staff or boosters. We have to own that. Me being in the position I am, I have to stand there and look people in the eyes and take that. I’ve been doing that for several years now. I’ll certainly be glad when it’s over, but in the meantime I’ve been charged with leading us through this time.”
Freeze acknowledged the bowl ban could present motivational challenges — though he suggested he could throw caution to the wind and “might go for it on fourth down a whole lot more” — but also an opportunity.
“For a lot of people that watch — whether they like us, whether they don’t like us, whether they believe in us, whether they don’t believe in us, whatever their choice is,” he said, “we have an opportunity to model the proper way to handle a difficult circumstance while choosing to see how blessed we are with the things that we still have.”
Ole Miss quarterback Shea Patterson, a sophomore, called the self-imposed penalties “devastating,” but said the Rebels would work to make the season meaningful regardless.
“We all came here to win a national championship,” Patterson said. “But I think it has brought us all closer together. Adversity tends to crumble people apart or it brings guys together. … I think we are going to take that chip on our shoulder going into the season.”