Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze resigns; escort-service calls cited

[BDKJMU]

Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze resigns; escort-service calls cited

Ole Miss football coach Hugh Freeze resigned effective immediately on Thursday night, with the Rebels' athletic director telling ESPN that school officials found a pattern that included phone calls to a number associated with a female escort service.

Assistant head coach Matt Luke, in his sixth season as co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach, was named interim head coach.....

....Freeze, who had about $2 million left on his contract for this year, $5 million next year and $5.15 million for the 2019 season, will not be paid going forward. Bjork said Freeze would have been fired had he not resigned....

...ESPN asked Freeze about the alleged phone call last week, and he denied purposely calling an escort service.

"We call the wrong numbers all the time," Freeze said.

According to emails obtained by USA Today, Nutt's attorney, Thomas Mars, sent an email to Ole Miss general counsel Lee Tyner, which referenced a "phone call Coach Freeze made that would be highly embarrassing for all of you and extremely difficult to explain."

USA Today reported Freeze resigned only hours after the university said it would provide a statement regarding the phone call. The report said the call was made on Jan. 19, 2016, to a Detroit 313 area code number and lasted only one minute. The USA Today report said the number is associated with websites that advertise a female escort business based in Tampa, Florida...

Hugh Freeze, 47, had a 39-25 record in six seasons with the Rebels, including a 19-21 mark against SEC foes. After going 10-3 in 2015, Ole Miss slipped to 5-7 this past season. Logan Bowles/USA TODAY Sports
In six seasons, Freeze guided the Rebels to unprecedented heights, but his success was also sullied by an ongoing NCAA investigation. In February, the school self-imposed a one-year bowl ban for the 2017 season after it received a new NCAA notice of allegations that accused the school of lack of institutional control and Freeze of failure to monitor his coaching staff.

The notice of allegations included eight new alleged rules violations and the lack of institutional control charge. The NCAA has now accused the Rebels of 21 rules violations by current or former members of their football coaching staff. Ole Miss agreed to forfeit its share of SEC postseason revenues for this coming season, which could be as much as $7.8 million, after it had already self-imposed a double-digit reduction in scholarships for football in May 2016 as part of its response to an NCAA notice of allegations it received in January 2016.

Among other charges, the NCAA accused the Rebels of providing improper benefits, including cash payments and merchandise, to prospects, as well as lodging and meals to recruits and their families. Freeze probably faced a multigame suspension this coming season if he were found guilty of failing to monitor his staff.

The Rebels are expected to appear before the NCAA Committee on Infractions in Indianapolis later this summer, possibly in September.

Last week, Nutt, sued Freeze and Ole Miss in federal court, accusing them of orchestrating a smear campaign against him.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Oxford, alleges that Freeze and other school officials created a "false narrative" in an effort to place primary blame on Nutt for the NCAA's ongoing investigation.

According to the complaint, Nutt seeks damages to cover "lost wages, emotional distress, embarrassment, attorney's fees and punitive damages."

The suit leveled its harshest allegations at Freeze, alleging that he conducted off-the-record conversations with sports journalists as part of a "smear campaign."

The lawsuit says that it "is common knowledge among sports journalists that Coach Freeze does not take kindly to criticism." It also characterizes Freeze as "consistently exhibiting behaviors that are massively defensive," "going to extraordinary lengths through social media and otherwise to promote his self-image as a deeply spiritual Godly man who's done nothing wrong and is being persecuted," and "attempting to cultivate personal relationships with sports journalists for the purpose of promoting his self-image through positive news stories."...
http://www.espn.co.uk/college-football/ ... alls-cited

[Skjellyfetti]

Hotty toddy
Gosh amighty
Hookers, 'cruits, and weed

[Ivytalk]

Hotty toddy
Gosh amighty
Hookers, 'cruits, and weed

Did you make that up, or did you see it on the Ole Miss board?

[Col Hogan]

"We call the wrong numbers all the time"

[JohnStOnge]

If prostitution was legal like it should be this wouldn't be a problem.

[Ivytalk]

If prostitution was legal like it should be this wouldn't be a problem.

Hey, John, maybe you should turn this into your personal crusade. Legalize cathouses in Loozianna. Don't leave Baton Rouge until you've accomplished this. You've pushed the Trump thing as far as you can. Time to move on to hookers and blow.

[AZGrizFan]

Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze resigns; escort-service calls cited

Ole Miss football coach Hugh Freeze resigned effective immediately on Thursday night, with the Rebels' athletic director telling ESPN that school officials found a pattern that included phone calls to a number associated with a female escort service.

...ESPN asked Freeze about the alleged phone call last week, and he denied purposely calling an escort service.

USA Today reported Freeze resigned only hours after the university said it would provide a statement regarding the phone call. The report said the call was made on Jan. 19, 2016, to a Detroit 313 area code number and lasted only one minute. The USA Today report said the number is associated with websites that advertise a female escort business based in Tampa, Florida...

Hugh Freeze, 47, had a 39-25 record in six seasons with the Rebels, including a 19-21 mark against SEC foes. After going 10-3 in 2015, Ole Miss slipped to 5-7 this past season. Logan Bowles/USA TODAY Sports
In six seasons, Freeze guided the Rebels to unprecedented heights, but his success was also sullied by an ongoing NCAA investigation. In February, the school self-imposed a one-year bowl ban for the 2017 season after it received a new NCAA notice of allegations that accused the school of lack of institutional control and Freeze of failure to monitor his coaching staff.

The notice of allegations included eight new alleged rules violations and the lack of institutional control charge. The NCAA has now accused the Rebels of 21 rules violations by current or former members of their football coaching staff. Ole Miss agreed to forfeit its share of SEC postseason revenues for this coming season, which could be as much as $7.8 million, after it had already self-imposed a double-digit reduction in scholarships for football in May 2016 as part of its response to an NCAA notice of allegations it received in January 2016.

Among other charges, the NCAA accused the Rebels of providing improper benefits, including cash payments and merchandise, to prospects, as well as lodging and meals to recruits and their families. Freeze probably faced a multigame suspension this coming season if he were found guilty of failing to monitor his staff.

The Rebels are expected to appear before the NCAA Committee on Infractions in Indianapolis later this summer, possibly in September.

Last week, Nutt, sued Freeze and Ole Miss in federal court, accusing them of orchestrating a smear campaign against him.

All those violations and he gets canned for an escort service phone call? Which the University was given the heads up about by Nutt's attorney? And NUTT is claiming a smear campaign against HIM??

This is rich....

[kalm]

If prostitution was legal like it should be this wouldn't be a problem.

This. Judging over things like hookers and weed is juvenile.

[Skjellyfetti]

Opposition research.

Phone call was originally uncovered by a Mississippi State fan with a bulldog tattoo on his hand.

Just a normal SEC offseason.

The man who helped take down Ole Miss football coach Hugh Freeze is a lifelong Mississippi State fan who attended his first Bulldogs game 37 years ago and has the university's logo tattooed on his left hand.

But he insists he never set out to bring down the Rebels and their coach.

It just kind of happened that way.

When Steve Robertson was sifting through Freeze's phone records on July 5 as part of his research for an upcoming book he's writing, he discovered phone calls he expected to see. There were mostly calls to recruits and assistant coaches.

But when Robertson saw a phone number with a 313 area code, he was stunned by what he discovered in a Google search. A call made on Jan. 19, 2016, lasting one minute, was made to a number connected with several advertisements for female escorts. Robertson then asked his wife to read him the telephone number again to make sure it was correct. The escort service ads came up again.

Robertson called Thomas Mars, an attorney who is representing former Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt in his defamation lawsuit against Ole Miss. Mars had been introduced to Robertson through a third party he found while doing online research into Nutt's case. They've since developed a close working relationship, talking on the phone several times a day and sharing what they found in their investigations.

"He asked me to fill in some blanks," Robertson said.

When Robertson told Mars to enter the phone number in Google, Mars was silent for nearly a minute before yelling an expletive in excitement.

Ole Miss had unwittingly provided information that would lead to Freeze's resignation.

http://www.espn.com/college-football/st ... ogs-writer

[Gil Dobie]

If prostitution was legal like it should be this wouldn't be a problem.

This. Judging over things like hookers and weed is juvenile.

True, but was he using the hookers to recruit, and were the hookers available to all students per NCAA rules.

[kalm]

This. Judging over things like hookers and weed is juvenile.

True, but was he using the hookers to recruit, and were the hookers available to all students per NCAA rules.

Ah...good point!

[Skjellyfetti]

Smart enough to use burner phones to cover his tracks with recruits... but, not with hookers.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/burner-pho ... 1505832124