Hugh Freeze Resigns

[lionheartkc 6,150]

13 hours ago, Tigerbelle said:

I think Ole Miss would've stood behind him for the long run if those phone calls had not surfaced. 

That is where I'm unsure. Their actions, to me, scream of an organization who's back is against a wall and knows they have lost the fight. Otherwise, something that clearly has been labeled a personal moral issue, not one that is connected to the compliance issues or even his ability to do his job, would be something they would brush off as no ones business. Instead, they pounced on the first chink in his armor which tells me that they are desperate to minimize the damage coming in any way they can.

[McLoofus 35,182]

26 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

That is where I'm unsure. Their actions, to me, scream of an organization who's back is against a wall and knows they have lost the fight. Otherwise, something that clearly has been labeled a personal moral issue, not one that is connected to the compliance issues or even his ability to do his job, would be something they would brush off as no ones business. Instead, they pounced on the first chink in his armor which tells me that they are desperate to minimize the damage coming in any way they can.

You sure? Whatever he did, it was bad enough that he *really* doesn't want it getting out. Not to mention, he evidently presented himself to his employer to be someone very, very different than who he actually is. I mean, moral turpitude ended up being a pretty big problem for Joe Paterno and Bobby Petrino. Those guys, to my knowledge, ran/run squeaky clean programs. (Louisville clearly sees no use for moral high ground when it comes to hiring coaches, but Arkansas had to draw a line somewhere.) 

Maybe Freeze is just a scumbag and Ole Miss doesn't want a scumbag to be their head coach? Especially since all of the problems- the legitimacy, severity, and ultimate consequences of which are heavily disputed by intelligent people on this board who are a lot closer to the Ole Miss program than the rest of us- that placed their backs against the wall happened while he was the head coach? I mean, aren't all these allegations about his program the first, second, third, etc. chinks in his armor? 

 

[lionheartkc 6,150]

24 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

You sure? Whatever he did, it was bad enough that he *really* doesn't want it getting out. Not to mention, he evidently presented himself to his employer to be someone very, very different than who he actually is. I mean, moral turpitude ended up being a pretty big problem for Joe Paterno and Bobby Petrino. Those guys, to my knowledge, ran/run squeaky clean programs. (Louisville clearly sees no use for moral high ground when it comes to hiring coaches, but Arkansas had to draw a line somewhere.) 

Maybe Freeze is just a scumbag and Ole Miss doesn't want a scumbag to be their head coach? Especially since all of the problems- the legitimacy, severity, and ultimate consequences of which are heavily disputed by intelligent people on this board who are a lot closer to the Ole Miss program than the rest of us- that placed their backs against the wall happened while he was the head coach? I mean, aren't all these allegations about his program the first, second, third, etc. chinks in his armor? 

I think what he did is bad enough on a personal level that he doesn't want his family to have to deal with it, but I doubt very much it is something that would garner a "scumbag" label except from those who like to persecute anyone who offends their morals. If it were JoePa cover-up level, then the media would refuse to back off. As for Petrino, if he had just been cheating on his wife it would have probably slid by... the fact that he did it with a staffer and then tried to cover it up with his bosses is what signed his pink slip. I mean, let's face it, if schools are going to fire people for cheating on their spouses, sadly, we'd have a lot more unemployed educators and coaches. If he did something as heinous as has been floated around on some of these forums, he'd be doing a lot more than looking for a new job.

The problem with Ole Miss in this scenario (not unlike Baylor), is that the stink, when it comes to the NCAA investigation, rises FAR above the head coach. There's a very good chance that the allegations against his program derive from actions that were signed off on by those above him who are now struggling to save their jobs, and when their talking point of "Hugh is a saint" was laid to rest, he lost his value to their cause.

In any case, as always, I refuse to buy into character assassination without hard proof, and I just shake my head in disbelief while the sports media and fans rake a single person across the coals while giving those above him a free pass.

[McLoofus 35,182]

12 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

In any case, as always, I refuse to buy into character assassination without hard proof, and I just shake my head in disbelief while the sports media and fans rake a single person across the coals while giving those above him a free pass.

But the admins don't get the same benefit of the doubt?

I mean, we know for sure that Hugh Freeze is a liar and a fraud in some key areas of his life. Do we know that about anyone else involved?

Why is it any better to say this or that probably didn't happen than to say it probably did, when neither side has any credible info? 

[lionheartkc 6,150]

5 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

But the admins don't get the same benefit of the doubt?

I mean, we know for sure that Hugh Freeze is a liar and a fraud in some key areas of his life. Do we know that about anyone else involved?

Why is it any better to say this or that probably didn't happen than to say it probably did, when neither side has any credible info? 

The NCAA has already sited administration involvement in several of the issues. The report at Baylor did the same thing.  In both cases, several of the people sited still have jobs while the coaches don't. I'm not saying the coaches should still have jobs, I'm saying the administration shouldn't be able to get a free pass by sacrificing the coaches. 

As for Freeze... dang Loof, did he sleep with your wife or something? It seems like you are ready to burn the man at the stake. Here's what we are sure of about Freeze... He had a 1 minute call to an escort service and he did something, what we don't know, that was embarrassing enough to him that he chose to walk away from his position as head coach rather than be fired or fight being fired.  That's it... that's all we know. We don't even know that he personally lied about anything. In fact, the only way you can call him a fraud is if you are certain that he personally bought into the talking points that the university decided to portray when they tried to pass their problems off on Nutt. Do you know that to be the case, because I don't.

As to why it's better... I have to say, it makes me sad that you of all people would ask that. You should NEVER assume someone did something without hard evidence. I could trot out example after example of people who's lives were ruined because someone decided they probably did something and went public with it, only to be wrong but find out too late to prevent the damage done. Character assassination is one of the lowest forms of human interaction and those who participate in it are the real scumbags.

[McLoofus 35,182]

51 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

You should NEVER assume someone did something without hard evidence.

When a guy turns down at least $5 million and publicly humiliates his family and an entire university- that's hard evidence- then yeah, I'm going to assume he did something. And when he does it after holding *himself* up as a paragon of virtue- the man has done his fair share of preaching- then yeah, I'm going to call him a fraud.

Thing is, I'm not that interested in the specifics on Freeze's misconduct. Like some others, I'm a little concerned that Gus's coaching buddies keep being involved in these scandals., but my main interest is in the conversation around it. Either it should be okay to make assumptions in these conversations or not. If we can't make assumptions about Freeze, then we shouldn't be able to make assumptions about the admins or anyone else.  

[lionheartkc 6,150]

3 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

I'm a little concerned that Gus's coaching buddies keep being involved in these scandals

I'm 100% with you on this. Maybe even more than a little concerned. I just hope he's the one of his crew that isn't hiding skeletons. You can bet the REC is turning over every rock to find something. At the same time, I still believe both of his friends are being vilified far more than they should be in order to protect others... especially Briles. 

3 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

If we can't make assumptions about Freeze, then we shouldn't be able to make assumptions about the admins or anyone else.  

No one is making assumptions about the admins.  The NCAA has already implicated members of the administration in violations.

4 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

When a guy turns down at least $5 million and publicly humiliates his family and an entire university- that's hard evidence

No one turned down any money.  If he didn't quit, they were going to fire with cause, which means to get any money, he was going to have to fight it in court. His actions show an attempt to lessen the public humiliation of his family, not the opposite. If he had decided to fight being terminated and let the details of the situation come out, that would be humiliating to a much more significant level. Finally, for the record, hard evidence is facts that prove that he did something specific. None of that exists outside of the NCAA violations, which are not what he's being crucified for. If we were trying him for something, based on what is publicly known, every judge on the bench would throw the case out.

So, yes... Hugh Freeze broke NCAA rules, along with a lot of others at Ole Miss. Yes... Huge Freeze also did something else that he was embarrassed enough about that he chose to quit his job rather then fight being fired. Do those two things make Huge Freeze an inherently bad person? No. Is he a bad person? Maybe, but there's no way for us to know at this point. If, at some point, we get the whole story (ala Petrino), then I welcome you to pass judgement. Until then, I don't get how you can.

[Tigerbelle 5,299]

3 hours ago, lionheartkc said:

That is where I'm unsure. Their actions, to me, scream of an organization who's back is against a wall and knows they have lost the fight. Otherwise, something that clearly has been labeled a personal moral issue, not one that is connected to the compliance issues or even his ability to do his job, would be something they would brush off as no ones business. Instead, they pounced on the first chink in his armor which tells me that they are desperate to minimize the damage coming in any way they can.

The problem is that the phone calls were part of the lawsuit and that was bound to come out into the public arena. Obviously the troubling behavior is something salacious and that's what Ole Miss is concerned about. I'm convinced that Freeze was not running a rogue cheating operation that Ole Miss Admin knew nothing about. Football was not the only sport involved after all.  Freeze has always said veiled things about bammer, and I believe this was sort of a dare to NCAA. Ole Miss and bammer are 166 miles apart and recruit from the same areas and Freeze knew what bammer was doing for recruits. The phone calls were incidental to the whole recruiting/NCAA thing. No one had any idea that stuff was going on until recently.

Just IMHO from reading between the lines for the last 5 years....

[lionheartkc 6,150]

5 minutes ago, Tigerbelle said:

The problem is that the phone calls were part of the lawsuit and that was bound to come out into the public arena. Obviously the troubling behavior is something salacious and that's what Ole Miss is concerned about. I'm convinced that Freeze was not running a rogue cheating operation that Ole Miss Admin knew nothing about. Football was not the only sport involved after all.  Freeze has always said veiled things about bammer, and I believe this was sort of a dare to NCAA. Ole Miss and bammer are 166 miles apart and recruit from the same areas and Freeze knew what bammer was doing for recruits. The phone calls were incidental to the whole recruiting/NCAA thing. No one had any idea that stuff was going on until recently.

Just IMHO from reading between the lines for the last 5 years....

Yea... I just don't have enough information to come to a logical conclusion. I do wonder if the one blip on his university phone lead the school to look at other phone records (like hotel phones) that he didn't think would come out, or even lead them down a path that didn't involve phone calls at all. That's what makes this so tough to wrap one's head around.  The information available is so vague that it could lead down nearly any path. People read about one salacious phone call and automatically decide that it's the smoking gun, when it could have just been the catalyst to lead to something entirely different.

I'm 100% with you that Freeze is no mastermind when it comes to the NCAA issues. The documentation from the NCAA makes that pretty blatantly obvious.

I will say this, if his goal was to stick it to bama, then he's an idiot. As long as Emmert is running the NCAA, that's just beating your head against a wall covered in nails.

[Tiger 8,826]

Should've just spent the cash on a burner phone and he could have had conference calls with as many escort services as he wanted. Sloppy work, Hugh.

[Tigerbelle 5,299]

On ‎7‎/‎26‎/‎2017 at 1:06 PM, lionheartkc said:

Yea... I just don't have enough information to come to a logical conclusion. I do wonder if the one blip on his university phone lead the school to look at other phone records (like hotel phones) that he didn't think would come out, or even lead them down a path that didn't involve phone calls at all. That's what makes this so tough to wrap one's head around.  The information available is so vague that it could lead down nearly any path. People read about one salacious phone call and automatically decide that it's the smoking gun, when it could have just been the catalyst to lead to something entirely different.

I'm 100% with you that Freeze is no mastermind when it comes to the NCAA issues. The documentation from the NCAA makes that pretty blatantly obvious.

I will say this, if his goal was to stick it to bama, then he's an idiot. As long as Emmert is running the NCAA, that's just beating your head against a wall covered in nails.

I do think Freeze wanted to stick it to bammer,Saban and the NCAA. He was trying to say that what was good for bammer was good for everyone else in the SEC. He was showing that in order to compete head to head with the updykes other teams have to recruit dirty just like the nicatator does. He was pretty successful against bammer on the field but he had to do it by cheating, and I believe that was what the whole thing was about. I'm sure he and Ole Miss are very well aware of the Emmert favoritism. Freeze and Ole Miss were sick of how bammer recruited and just decided to beat lil' nickster at his own game. But now the phone thing just derailed their whole scheme. They did not account for Houston Nutt. They should've just thrown him some dollars to shut him up. I will really miss seeing the bammers lose to Ole Miss and Hugh Freeze.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

1 minute ago, Tigerbelle said:

I do think Freeze wanted to stick it to bammer,Saban and the NCAA. He was trying to say that what was good for bammer was good for everyone else in the SEC. He was showing that in order to compete head to head with the updykes other teams have to recruit dirty just like the nicatator does. He was pretty successful against bammer on the field but he had to do it by cheating, and I believe that was what the whole thing was about. I'm sure he and Ole Miss are very well aware of the Emmert favoritism. Freeze and Ole Miss were sick of how bammer recruited and just decided to beat lil' nickster at his own game. But now the phone thing just derailed their whole scheme. They did not account for Houston Nutt. They should've just thrown him some dollars to shut him up. I will really miss seeing the bammers lose to Ole Miss and Hugh Freeze.

They were naive if they thought they would win that battle. The NCAA answers to no one, so showing them that they are playing favorites with bama is the equivalent of spitting in the wind. Phone calls or not, that was a path to nowhere. The NCAA was/is going to hammer them and bama isn't going to even get a second glance. 

Now, once Emmert moves on, the whole playing field changes and someone with the right evidence can totally lay out the Ole Miss didn't do anything worse than bama case and something might come of it, but it looks like Freeze put a huge dent in his career for no gain that he or anyone anytime soon will see.

If you want to beat Saban, you have to do it Gus's way... play clean across the board and build a team that is just better than bama. If he can complete what he has been putting the pieces in place for, we could own bama for the next several years and it will implode. In fact, if that happens, one of the unwashed might get desperate and do something stupid and public enough that the NCAA can't sweep it under the rug.

[AU64 10,122]

Freeze behaved stupidly and the OM program is corrupt in several sports....no matter what bama does or does not do.....using that as an explanation for all the stuff OM did is pretty weak IMO.     Keesler spelled it out chapter and verse a couple times.

OM has no defense....and that old ....."the other guys do  it".... sounds like a guilty school kid trying to explain something to his mother....and at this point, to give them a little bit of credit, I've not seen OM use that defense....at least they are smart enough not to try that.  Shoot, they had enough problems just trying to handle Miss State. ...and I doubt bama was their major target.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

21 minutes ago, AU64 said:

OM has no defense....and that old ....."the other guys do  it".... sounds like a guilty school kid trying to explain something to his mother....and at this point, to give them a little bit of credit, I've not seen OM use that defense....at least they are smart enough not to try that.  Shoot, they had enough problems just trying to handle Miss State. ...and I doubt bama was their major target.

To @Tigerbelle's credit, they haven't used it as an excuse, but prior to being caught, Freeze flirted with the idea that he was beating bama with their own game, publicly, more than once.

[AU64 10,122]

29 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

To @Tigerbelle's credit, they haven't used it as an excuse, but prior to being caught, Freeze flirted with the idea that he was beating bama with their own game, publicly, more than once.

Guess we are left to parse and interpret the words....."with their own game"..... 

[lionheartkc 6,150]

10 minutes ago, AU64 said:

Guess we are left to parse and interpret the words....."with their own game"..... 

Yup... just like all of the other vague and out of context phrases we have been presented with over the past week or so.

[keesler 5,924]

Every program worth a crap in recruiting has to skirt the rules and provide inducements in today's recruiting environment, period.

Ole Miss faces Lack of Institutional Control and Failure to Monitor because they accumulated nearly two dozen Level 1 infractions just in football alone.  

Those allegations are directly related to a totally inept and incompetent Compliance Department, an utterly asinine a egotistical Athletic Department where at the very core of the AD a staffer facilitated Boosters to recruits and players.  The former Head Coach watched the whole operation unfold for years and can now hold the honor of being a narcissistic idiot with no moral compass.

Blame the NCAA, Emmertt, Saban, Mullen, Lindsey Miller, Lewis, Houston Nutt all you want if it makes you feel better.  But mark it down, there is a Crucifixion headed OleMiss' way in a few months.  At the end of the day, that "Institution" had zero control as evidenced by having THREE programs on probation at the same time, serving NCAA sanctions with Academic Fraud stamped on their foreheads. 

 

 

[Tigerbelle 5,299]

7 hours ago, AU64 said:

Freeze behaved stupidly and the OM program is corrupt in several sports....no matter what bama does or does not do.....using that as an explanation for all the stuff OM did is pretty weak IMO.     Keesler spelled it out chapter and verse a couple times.

OM has no defense....and that old ....."the other guys do  it".... sounds like a guilty school kid trying to explain something to his mother....and at this point, to give them a little bit of credit, I've not seen OM use that defense....at least they are smart enough not to try that.  Shoot, they had enough problems just trying to handle Miss State. ...and I doubt bama was their major target.

Where did anyone say it was an excuse? Having a theory on why something happened is NOT an excuse. Hugh Freeze made many comments about bammer and the nickster over the years and there was a developing rivalry. Maybe you missed that. Also no one said Ole Miss would ever come right out and admit anything. Where are you getting that idea? But it's also ridiculous to think that there were many violations across several sports and the Administration never noticed it.  There's no way that happened. Someone besides the coaches had to at least suspect there might be some cheating happening.....especially in football. 

And since when is Keesler an expert? He doesn't even grasp the REC, it's history, and the effect it has on football in the SEC. He just has an opinion like everybody else.

 

[Tigerbelle 5,299]

6 hours ago, AU64 said:

Guess we are left to parse and interpret the words....."with their own game"..... 

Freeze left little doubt what he meant. In fact...IIRC....it was discussed here maybe a year or two ago. There was speculation that he'd get in trouble for it.

 

[Tigerbelle 5,299]

4 hours ago, keesler said:

Every program worth a crap in recruiting has to skirt the rules and provide inducements in today's recruiting environment, period.

Ole Miss faces Lack of Institutional Control and Failure to Monitor because they accumulated nearly two dozen Level 1 infractions just in football alone.  

Those allegations are directly related to a totally inept and incompetent Compliance Department, an utterly asinine a egotistical Athletic Department where at the very core of the AD a staffer facilitated Boosters to recruits and players.  The former Head Coach watched the whole operation unfold for years and can now hold the honor of being a narcissistic idiot with no moral compass.

Blame the NCAA, Emmertt, Saban, Mullen, Lindsey Miller, Lewis, Houston Nutt all you want if it makes you feel better.  But mark it down, there is a Crucifixion headed OleMiss' way in a few months.  At the end of the day, that "Institution" had zero control as evidenced by having THREE programs on probation at the same time, serving NCAA sanctions with Academic Fraud stamped on their foreheads. 

 

 

Where are you people getting this "blame someone else" from? Reading comprehension is your friend. No one excuses Ole Miss. But it's a discussion board so discussing why Ole Miss took such a path is part of the story. And it's a compelling part of it given all the remarks Freeze made over the years.

 If you don't want to discuss it then don't. 

 

[Tigerbelle 5,299]

7 hours ago, lionheartkc said:

They were naive if they thought they would win that battle. The NCAA answers to no one, so showing them that they are playing favorites with bama is the equivalent of spitting in the wind. Phone calls or not, that was a path to nowhere. The NCAA was/is going to hammer them and bama isn't going to even get a second glance. 

Now, once Emmert moves on, the whole playing field changes and someone with the right evidence can totally lay out the Ole Miss didn't do anything worse than bama case and something might come of it, but it looks like Freeze put a huge dent in his career for no gain that he or anyone anytime soon will see.

If you want to beat Saban, you have to do it Gus's way... play clean across the board and build a team that is just better than bama. If he can complete what he has been putting the pieces in place for, we could own bama for the next several years and it will implode. In fact, if that happens, one of the unwashed might get desperate and do something stupid and public enough that the NCAA can't sweep it under the rug.

Look at what Gus has been through with the fans though......raising hell because he's not doing it fast enough.......constantly wanting him fired. Some fan bases don't want that slow progress.  That's why I say the nickster has been a disaster for college football in every way possible. 

[AU64 10,122]

Sorry Bellle but you can say all you want about NS and the bammers but the problems at OM are comprehensive and systematic.... not exclusive to football.  Contrary to AU, Ole Miss fans were not demanding that the rebel bears beat bama....just be respectable and beat State.

 Some things predate Freeze but in general the whole program went outlaw when he and his AD made their push.   For OM, you might as well blame Mullens and MSU since they are the big rival..not bama.

[keesler 5,924]

1 hour ago, AU64 said:

Sorry Bellle but you can say all you want about NS and the bammers but the problems at OM are comprehensive and systematic.... not exclusive to football.  Contrary to AU, Ole Miss fans were not demanding that the rebel bears beat bama....just be respectable and beat State.

 Some things predate Freeze but in general the whole program went outlaw when he and his AD made their push.   For OM, you might as well blame Mullens and MSU since they are the big rival..not bama.

Ole Miss is rotten down to the core.   Once the Ole Miss brass goes before the Committee on Infractions for the THIRD time in 2 yrs, the NCAA may just decide to spray RoundUp on athletics altogether. 

[DAG 33,983]

11 hours ago, Tigerbelle said:

Look at what Gus has been through with the fans though......raising hell because he's not doing it fast enough.......constantly wanting him fired. Some fan bases don't want that slow progress.  That's why I say the nickster has been a disaster for college football in every way possible. 

CGM has himself to blame not NS. NS is starting to become the scapegoat for a lot of ppl downfallings. 

Now back to regular programming .

[DAG 33,983]

19 hours ago, Tigerbelle said:

I do think Freeze wanted to stick it to bammer,Saban and the NCAA. He was trying to say that what was good for bammer was good for everyone else in the SEC. He was showing that in order to compete head to head with the updykes other teams have to recruit dirty just like the nicatator does. He was pretty successful against bammer on the field but he had to do it by cheating, and I believe that was what the whole thing was about. I'm sure he and Ole Miss are very well aware of the Emmert favoritism. Freeze and Ole Miss were sick of how bammer recruited and just decided to beat lil' nickster at his own game. But now the phone thing just derailed their whole scheme. They did not account for Houston Nutt. They should've just thrown him some dollars to shut him up. I will really miss seeing the bammers lose to Ole Miss and Hugh Freeze.

This is all over the place . Houston Nutt will became an enemy of Ole Miss when the administration including Hugh tried to throw him under the bus. Ole Miss knew what they were doing it and ole Hugh made a huge mistake to the benefit of Houston Nutt's defense team. They were indeed the one who really put the gasoline to the flame . Hugh Freeze is a hypocrite , he got caught up and the ole miss brand is to blame for where they are now . No amount of money would've stopped Nutt from going after them after they were seeking to go after his character .