Didn't sound like Freeze was too clueless...back then

Simmons is slated to announce any minute, and by this time, the room is as crowded as it has been all day. Farrar, whose ties in the state have been invaluable for the Rebels, has been the point man in Simmons' recruitment. But Farrar is beginning to get a sick feeling about this one. He can't reach anybody who's connected to the kid.
"It's the first time I haven't been able to get anybody on the phone there," says Farrar, rubbing his chin nervously.
Several kids at Noxubee County High School come to the podium first. The wait for Farrar is excruciating. He's in and out of the room.
The feeling among Ole Miss' coaches is that it's either them or Alabama for Simmons, who finally strolls to the podium just past 11:30. Everybody in the room is glued to the television, and it's hard to hear anybody even breathing.
There's a glitch in the feed just as he's about to announce, which might have been a bad omen for Ole Miss. The picture returns just in time to see Simmons put a Mississippi State cap onto his head.
Somebody in the room exclaims, "What? Mississippi State?" And then it's the quietest it has been all day, and within minutes, the room looks like a ghost town.
The grind of recruiting is real, and often times, last impressions are all anybody remembers.
Freeze reminds his staff it's the body of work that matters and not to dwell on the ones that got away. Farrar, who has been on the phone trying to find out what happened, is taking the Simmons news especially hard. Freeze looks at his trusty assistant, whose eyes are moist, and tells him that he loves him and not to sweat it.
"Barney, I know how much you poured into it," Freeze says. "Dude, if I doubted that, it would be a bad feeling. You gave your heart and soul to it for two-and-a-half years. I know you did. If everybody put into recruiting what you did, we'd be better off. None of us, including me, put into it what you do. We don't sign A.J. Brown without you. So do not beat yourself up over that one. We're going to have a danged top-five class, and where we didn't hit, we've got to try and fix it."