Ole Miss

[keesler 5,924]

On 7/12/2017 at 4:25 PM, aufan57 said:

Houston Nutt suing Ole Miss and its Athletic Foundation

http://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/houston-nutt-files-lawsuit-against-ole-miss-and-its-athletics-foundation/

Here is a direct link to the lawsuit. Interesting read.

https://www.scribd.com/document/353605519/Houston-Nutt-s-lawsuit-against-Ole-Miss#from_embed

That Nutt lawsuit obviously unearthed some nasty stuff.  Freeze and his hankypanky gets revealed, resulting in his resignation.  Just last week at Media Days he literally praised the OM Administration for standing by him and supporting him.  LOL

[AlaskanFAN 1,666]

Only unemployed coach right now itching to get back into coaching and would love to get back into the SEC .............Les Miles!!

[gravejd 3,270]

15 minutes ago, AlaskanFAN said:

Only unemployed coach right now itching to get back into coaching and would love to get back into the SEC .............Les Miles!!

Would be an interesting hire but i'd be surprised if they don't go with another spread guy. I think they are smart enough to know they can't compete in the SEC without a high flying offense. 

[JFDTiger80 790]

2 hours ago, AlaskanFAN said:

Only unemployed coach right now itching to get back into coaching and would love to get back into the SEC .............Les Miles!!

With the NCAA very likely coming down really hard on Ole Miss, I doubt Les Miles would take the job. You have to recruit really well in the SEC and if they get nailed with a big hit on the numbers they are allowed to take, it is almost impossible for their program not to take a hit for quite a while. I think it will be a hard job to fill. 

[AUwent 3,748]

How much of the blow will likely be reduced by the self-imposed bowl ban? That definitely helped Miami.

Very random, but I also wonder if the Penn State scandal took some of the punishment off of Miami. Think about it--suddenly, what the U did didn't look so bad in comparison.

[doc4aday 1,887]

I am going out on a limb with regard to OM coach after this season......

1. Luke will not get the job with OM going 4-8 or worse this season so he will be out of the loop.

2. Look for either Dave Aranda DC at  LSU to get the job. LSU will have a very good defense, but will do no better than 8-5.

3. If Aranda does not get the job, look for Neal Brown to get the gig.  just some late night sleepless thoughts!

[AUld fAUx@ 2,584]

SIAP, but new info to me (Re: the Nutt suit):

'The wording of Nutt’s non-disparagement clause has been central to the defamation lawsuit he filed last month against Ole Miss and its athletics foundation, alleging top school officials including former football coach Hugh Freeze and athletics director Ross Bjork concocted a misinformation campaign in 2016 to suggest the majority of the school’s NCAA violations occurred under Nutt’s watch.

The wording also underscores why Ole Miss refused to apologize to Nutt or engage in settlement talks.

“Outside of any obligation, legal or otherwise, to reveal the terms of this Agreement to third parties, the University agrees not to release or disclose information related to this agreement,” the clause reads. “The University further agrees to direct members of the control groups for the Foundation and for UM not to make any statement relative to Nutt’s tenure as an employee that may damage or harm Nutt’s reputation as a football coach.”'

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaafb/ole-miss-officials-were-told-not-to-harm-houston-nutts-reputation-as-football-coach/ar-AApTZ1Y?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

 

[RunInRed 16,407]

A little more on the "pattern" of behavior here ...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hugh-freezes-ouster-at-ole-miss-linked-to-multiple-recruiting-trips-1502896100

[lionheartkc 6,150]

7 minutes ago, RunInRed said:

A little more on the "pattern" of behavior here ...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hugh-freezes-ouster-at-ole-miss-linked-to-multiple-recruiting-trips-1502896100

Subscription required

[ausburn 159]

https://www.seccountry.com/mississippi/wall-street-journal-report-inappropriate-hugh-freeze-phone-calls-linked-multiple-recruiting-trips

1 hour ago, lionheartkc said:

Subscription required

 

[lionheartkc 6,150]

So, reading between the lines, they fired him for using school funded transportation for booty calls and wrote them off as recruiting trips. That makes a lot more sense than firing him for being a letch.

[RunInRed 16,407]

On the morning of Jan. 19, 2016, University of Mississippi football coach Hugh Freeze tweeted a quote: “Look not back on yesterday—so full of failure & regret; Look ahead & seek God’s way—all sin confessed u must forget.”

Later that day, the coach flew to Tampa, Fla., as part of a recruiting trip using the school plane, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. A few hours after the plane touched down at 5:30 p.m. in Tampa, his school phone registered a call to a number linked to a female escort service in that city, according to phone records reviewed by the Journal.

The call that day was part of a “pattern of misconduct” Ole Miss officials said they uncovered last month. Freeze, the high-profile coach who in the last five seasons turned the program around by bringing in highly sought-after recruits, resigned July 20 after the school confronted him with its findings stemming from that Jan. 19, 2016, call. The university said he would have been fired for violating a “moral turpitude” clause in his contract if he had not resigned.

Although school officials had previously declined to characterize the alleged misconduct, Ole Miss athletic director Ross Bjork said in response to questions from the Journal about Freeze’s travel that the university’s investigation uncovered “calls of a similar nature” over the course of several years, often matching up with travel logs showing the coach’s use of the school plane. The school said it examined his travel logs from peak recruiting times—often November, December and January—when Freeze would travel out of state, using the school plane and other public resources.

“When we say pattern, we are describing other phone numbers that when you Google them pull up similar type websites, services, however you would describe them,” Bjork said. “We took action swiftly.”

When the school presented its findings to Freeze, the coach admitted his misconduct and agreed to resign, school officials said.

W.G. Watkins, Freeze’s lawyer, declined to comment. Freeze couldn’t be reached for comment and has not publicly addressed the circumstances of his resignation.

Freeze’s stunning departure ended a roller-coaster tenure as coach that included as many wins on the field as questions off the field. The Ole Miss football program has been under investigation by the NCAA for a litany of alleged rules violations related to recruiting, and the school had already imposed a ban on postseason play for this season.

hroughout the NCAA’s investigation, Ole Miss officials stood by Freeze, who endeared himself within Oxford, Miss., as a pious man who restored the program to glory. He beat Alabama twice in the last three years, giving the sport’s superpower its only losses in those regular seasons.

Even before Freeze got the head post at a big-time, SEC program, Freeze was a national figure. While coaching in high school, one of his players was Michael Oher, star of the best-selling book turned hit movie “The Blind Side.” Oher went to play at Ole Miss, where Freeze became an assistant. Later, Freeze became head coach at Arkansas State and then Ole Miss.

The conduct that led to Freeze’s sudden departure was unrelated to the NCAA investigation, the school said, though the circumstances that brought the phone call to light intertwine the situations. School officials were first notified of the Jan. 19, 2016, call by Thomas Mars, the attorney for former Ole Miss football coach Houston Nutt, who has been embroiled in a legal battle with the school. Nutt alleged in a civil lawsuit last month that Freeze and other Ole Miss officials wrongfully blamed him for the alleged NCAA violations. In trying to prove that there was an orchestrated campaign against Nutt, the lawyer filed a public-records request for Freeze’s phone logs, which turned up the call to the escort service from his phone.

Nutt’s lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge last week on jurisdictional grounds. Mars said in a statement that he plans to refile the lawsuit in state court, and that the revised complaint may add additional defendants and includes “recently-discovered evidence that should put to rest any question about the merits of Houston Nutt’s case.” Ole Miss has said Nutt’s lawsuit is without merit.

The flight records reviewed by the Journal show Freeze crisscrossing the country on recruiting trips and other business on the school plane, at a rate of $1,375 per hour. The records show Freeze took at least 103 trips on the plane over about five and a half years.

On the night of the Jan. 19 call to the number linked to the escort service, Freeze was in Tampa on a five-day, 13-stop recruiting trip, according to the flight records. The flights for the trip cost more than $26,000, which was paid by the state university. Six members of the Ole Miss football staff accompanied Freeze on the plane at points in the trip.

The trip came just two weeks before National Signing Day, when Freeze inked one of the country’s most heralded recruiting classes. Two weeks earlier, on Jan. 1, 2016, the Rebels walloped Oklahoma State in the Sugar Bowl to cap off their best season in more than a decade.

The travels began on Jan. 17 and took Freeze through parts of Texas, then back to Mississippi before continuing to Louisiana and Florida. On Jan. 19, according to the flight manifests, Freeze and staff members flew from New Orleans to Orlando and then Melbourne, Fla.

After that, the plane landed in Tampa at 5:30 p.m. and was the last flight of the day. The call that cost Freeze his job—the number is listed on multiple websites advertising a female escort service—lasted about a minute. The number has since been disconnected.

When Mars confronted Ole Miss about the call after reviewing Freeze’s phone records, school officials said, they initially attributed it to a misdial because it was the only call to that specific number on his university-issued phone among the batch Mars requested. The school said its investigation--which included the assistance of outside counsel and members in the athletic department—uncovered the similar calls on other trips.

In those instances, the records inspected by the school showed multiple calls to and from Freeze’s phone from each of the “services” that raised red flags, Bjork said.

The alleged behavior “did not meet our expectations,” Bjork said. “He could not be our coach.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hugh-freezes-ouster-at-ole-miss-linked-to-multiple-recruiting-trips-1502896100

[Barnacle 9,064]

16 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

So, reading between the lines, they fired him for using school funded transportation for booty calls and wrote them off as recruiting trips. That makes a lot more sense than firing him for being a letch.

It sounds to me that the trips were legitimately for recruiting, but that he was looking for company whenever he and his staff would make those trips. This would be in line with what I've heard about him through some people that I know. This behavior was well known to the staff. 

[lionheartkc 6,150]

5 minutes ago, Barnacle said:

It sounds to me that the trips were legitimately for recruiting, but that he was looking for company whenever he and his staff would make those trips. This would be in line with what I've heard about him through some people that I know. This behavior was well known to the staff. 

Yea... I think what you will find there argument to be is that he scheduled time for inappropriate, non-school related activities, at the cost of the tax payers (for transportation, lodging, etc), when he was supposed to be recruiting. That's a lot more of a legitimate firing offense than "he was cheating on his wife". I guess they could try to play the illegal nature of escort services angle, but then they would have to prove he was actually committing the illegal acts.

[Barnacle 9,064]

8 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

Yea... I think what you will find there argument to be is that he scheduled time for inappropriate, non-school related activities, at the cost of the tax payers (for transportation, lodging, etc), when he was supposed to be recruiting. That's a lot more of a legitimate firing offense than "he was cheating on his wife". I guess they could try to play the illegal nature of escort services angle, but then they would have to prove he was actually committing the illegal acts.

I think you're dead on. 

What I've heard is that is was well known that he was having affairs, and because he "preached" otherwise, a lot of people did not like him. More than anything he may have done in recruiting, that kind of information has been the most disappointing to me. I genuinely liked Freeze and I bought what he was selling. 

[lionheartkc 6,150]

2 minutes ago, Barnacle said:

I think you're dead on. 

What I've heard is that is was well known that he was having affairs, and because he "preached" otherwise, a lot of people did not like him. More than anything he may have done in recruiting, that kind of information has been the most disappointing to me. I genuinely liked Freeze and I bought what he was selling. 

Yea... it's sad how many people in the public eye have secret lives that are secret because they are ashamed of them. It's so easy to get off the path when money isn't a concern.

Like many others, I have to wonder what Gus is thinking with one of his buddies being outed as far less than what he claimed to be and another tied up in a huge scandal that he may not be as culpable for, but might have been able to do something about if he was more focused on what was happening instead of just winning.

[Barnacle 9,064]

3 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

Yea... it's sad how many people in the public eye have secret lives that are secret because they are ashamed of them. It's so easy to get off the path when money isn't a concern.

Like many others, I have to wonder what Gus is thinking with one of his buddies being outed as far less than what he claimed to be and another tied up in a huge scandal that he may not be as culpable for, but might have been able to do something about if he was more focused on what was happening instead of just winning.

That's a good question. I wouldn't be surprised if Gus, and other head coaches respond with some empathy. These are hard jobs. Sure, they get paid a lot of money. Okay, I get that. Being a road-worker is a hard job. I get that too. But, these guys all have an extraordinary amount of stress. When you've got that kind of stress, with the kinds of expectations that these guys have placed on them, the hours they work, plus the all the attention and money - people are going to break. People are going to do some questionable things, unhealthy things. It shouldn't surprise us that these kinds of behaviors are hidden below the surfaces some of these men put up. 

That doesn't excuse the behavior. I don't think it makes it any less reprehensible. But, I do think it makes it at least a little bit more understandable. Should we feel sorry for them? No, we shouldn't. But, if I'm Gus I'm probably thinking, "I can see how that happens. I can see how coaches end up with these problems. How do I guard against falling into the same traps? How am I managing my stress, expectations, fame, power, influence, etc.?" 

If its a friend, I'm probably picking up the phone to talk to him about all of it. That's just me. 

[AUld fAUx@ 2,584]

1 hour ago, RunInRed said:

 

"...The conduct that led to Freeze’s sudden departure was unrelated to the NCAA investigation, the school said, though the circumstances that brought the phone call to light intertwine the situations. School officials were first notified of the Jan. 19, 2016, call by Thomas Mars, the attorney for former Ole Miss football coach Houston Nutt, who has been embroiled in a legal battle with the school. Nutt alleged in a civil lawsuit last month that Freeze and other Ole Miss officials wrongfully blamed him for the alleged NCAA violations. In trying to prove that there was an orchestrated campaign against Nutt, the lawyer filed a public-records request for Freeze’s phone logs, which turned up the call to the escort service from his phone..."

 

This goes far to defog my old bifocaled eyes, and clarifies some (tangentially?) entangled issues.

Many Thanks.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

1 hour ago, Barnacle said:

That's a good question. I wouldn't be surprised if Gus, and other head coaches respond with some empathy. These are hard jobs. Sure, they get paid a lot of money. Okay, I get that. Being a road-worker is a hard job. I get that too. But, these guys all have an extraordinary amount of stress. When you've got that kind of stress, with the kinds of expectations that these guys have placed on them, the hours they work, plus the all the attention and money - people are going to break. People are going to do some questionable things, unhealthy things. It shouldn't surprise us that these kinds of behaviors are hidden below the surfaces some of these men put up. 

That doesn't excuse the behavior. I don't think it makes it any less reprehensible. But, I do think it makes it at least a little bit more understandable. Should we feel sorry for them? No, we shouldn't. But, if I'm Gus I'm probably thinking, "I can see how that happens. I can see how coaches end up with these problems. How do I guard against falling into the same traps? How am I managing my stress, expectations, fame, power, influence, etc.?" 

If its a friend, I'm probably picking up the phone to talk to him about all of it. That's just me. 

While I agree with everything you say, the point I'm getting at is, by most accounts, these are Gus's two closest friends in coaching circles. Having two separate people that you deeply respect get hung out to dry in such a short period of time has got to be a hard thing for anyone to wrap their head around. If I were in Gus's position, it would make me question a lot of things.

[Barnacle 9,064]

Just now, lionheartkc said:

While I agree with everything you say, the point I'm getting at is, by most accounts, these are Gus's two closest friends in coaching circles. Having two separate people that you deeply respect get hung out to dry in such a short period of time has got to be a hard thing for anyone to wrap their head around. If I were in Gus's position, it would make me question a lot of things.

I would too. I guess that's what I meant when I said I'd be asking myself how did this happen to these guys, and what does that say about me? How do I avoid the same pit falls?

[lionheartkc 6,150]

1 minute ago, Barnacle said:

I would too. I guess that's what I meant when I said I'd be asking myself how did this happen to these guys, and what does that say about me? How do I avoid the same pit falls?

And add to that "Who else in my circle may not be who I think they are?" 

[Barnacle 9,064]

Just now, lionheartkc said:

And add to that "Who else in my circle may not be who I think they are?" 

Sure. You think you know someone...

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Gus had at least heard about what was happening with Freeze. If it was as well known on the Ole Miss staff as I have heard, I would imagine that rumors to that effect had at least been making the rounds. 

[lionheartkc 6,150]

1 minute ago, Barnacle said:

Sure. You think you know someone...

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Gus had at least heard about what was happening with Freeze. If it was as well known on the Ole Miss staff as I have heard, I would imagine that rumors to that effect had at least been making the rounds. 

Yea, I think the surprise to Gus was more the blatant cheating in recruiting and not the personal life stuff. You have to admit, if he knew what was going down in Oxford, he probably would have had a less public relationship to protect his own school from talk. I'm sure the Baylor thing was as big of a shock to him as everyone else.

[Barnacle 9,064]

1 minute ago, lionheartkc said:

Yea, I think the surprise to Gus was more the blatant cheating in recruiting and not the personal life stuff. You have to admit, if he knew what was going down in Oxford, he probably would have had a less public relationship to protect his own school from talk. I'm sure the Baylor thing was as big of a shock to him as everyone else.

Agree on Baylor. Not sure about Ole Miss though. He might have convinced himself that Freeze wasn't involved, or something else to that effect, but certainly he knew that something was going on. Recruits talk. Players talk. Assistant coaches talk. I don't know how you insulate yourself from stuff like that when you are so heavily involved in the recruiting process, and you are going after some of the same players. 

[AlaskanFAN 1,666]

Article out now saying Freeze's "recruiting trips" and phone calls linked to "escort services" coincide. Byork says he used the Ole Miss jet and university monies to go on recruiting trips in November, December, January and phone calls on his University phone matching escort services in those areas match same time lines. These trips happened over several years apparently. 

http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/news/hugh-freeze-escort-services-ole-miss-football-coach-resignation-ross-bjork/14dpmalv43kmy14x9uptm1zxt3