The Commercial Appeal

Freeze gets second chance, becomes Liberty coach

- Blake Toppmeyer Knoxville News Sentinel USA TODAY NETWORK - TENNESSEE

Hugh Freeze, the former Mississipp­i coach who led the Rebels to great heights before seeing his tenure end amid NCAA scandal and calls to escorts, is getting a second chance in college football. It comes courtesy of Liberty. With that, scratch another name off Tennessee's list of possible candidates to fill its offensive coordinato­r vacancy. Vols coach Jeremy Pruitt met with Freeze last week, according to multiple reports. Freeze also was linked to OC openings at Auburn and Florida State.

“I was on this whirlwind tour to other colleges looking at becoming an offensive coordinato­r at different places. I had three straight days of travel, travel, travel," Freeze said Friday during a news conference at Liberty.

He wound up as a head coach at a program preparing for its second season in the FBS.

Liberty, located in Lynchburg, Va., announced the hire of Freeze on Friday.

"In hiring Coach Freeze," Liberty athletic director Ian McCaw said, "we’re bringing in someone who has experience­d success everywhere he’s been. … That success certainly has been on the football field, but what really has impressed us the most with him is, he’s a man of great faith. He’s a great family man, and he’s somebody that really pours into his student-athletes.”

Earlier this week, Kansas filled its offensive coordinato­r position with Auburn's Chip Lindsey, another person on Pruitt's radar.

The focus in UT's search has shifted to Houston offensive coordinato­r Kendal Briles, who will interview for the job, according to multiple reports.

This is Freeze’s first college job since he resigned in shame prior to the 2017 season after a pattern of inappropri­ate conduct was revealed.

Had Freeze not resigned, Ole Miss would have fired him “for moral turpitude,” Rebels athletic director Ross Bjork said at the time, after the university found “a pattern” of conduct on Freeze’s university-issued cell phone that “was troubling.”

Later that year, Ole Miss got hit with NCAA sanctions for violations tied to a years-long recruiting scandal, the majority of which occurred under Freeze's watch.

The university had stood by Freeze throughout the NCAA investigat­ion, but the revelation­s of illicit phone calls did him in.

“I’ve made decisions that hurt a lot of people," Freeze said Friday. "I don’t ever want to experience that again.”

On the field, Freeze made the Rebels a force in the SEC.

Ole Miss was ranked as high as No. 3 in the AP poll in 2014 and again in the following season. The Rebels made New Year’s Six bowls in each of those seasons, culminatin­g the 2015 season with a Sugar Bowl victory that gave them a 10-3 record.

It marked the program’s first 10-win season since 2003. Notably, Freeze’s Rebels beat Nick Saban’s Alabama squads in 2014 and in ’15.

Ole Miss made bowl games in four of five seasons under Freeze. He compiled a 39-25 record at Ole Miss after going 10-2 in a single season at Arkansas State.

Liberty's job opened Monday after Turner Gill announced his retirement.

 ?? CHRISTOPHE­R HANEWINCKE­L, USA TODAY SPORTS ?? Former Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze.
CHRISTOPHE­R HANEWINCKE­L, USA TODAY SPORTS Former Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze.

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