As Auburn brings Freeze back to the SEC, don't forget about the mess he made at Ole Miss

quote:

---

Back up to January of 2016, Ole Miss was about to get slammed by the NCAA with 15 Level I violations in the program. Freeze knew it would be bad because he was in the middle of it, eventually hit with a “lack of institutional control” charge and given a one-year “show-cause” penalty.

At the time, however, the details were still secret. Freeze was concerned that if the depth of the violations and likely sanctions became public, some of his players might transfer. After all, Ole Miss was about to take on a two-year postseason ban, not to mention a loss of scholarships.

Further, members of the Rebels recruiting class might get nervous and switch their verbal commitments before signing binding letters of intent.

Freeze knew the program couldn’t risk his players, recruits or their families from knowing the truth of what was coming.

So Ole Miss chose to deceive them. The athletic department orchestrated a massive misinformation campaign by repeatedly supplying the media with off-the-record lies about what was at the heart of the NCAA case.

The school kept telling anyone with a keyboard or a microphone that most of the major violations occurred under former coach Houston Nutt, and not Freeze. As such, the story went, the Rebels would be able to avoid significant sanctions.

This was not true, though. The vast majority of the violations came under Freeze, not Nutt. Freeze knew the truth. So did Ole Miss.

Still, the plan went forward. Part of it was in the media and part of it was Freeze reportedly lying directly to players and recruits and their families who asked him about it. He stared right into their eyes and told him the lie.

The goal was obvious: trick everyone who believed in Hugh Freeze, who trusted Hugh Freeze, who gave their blood, sweat and tears to Hugh Freeze until, when the truth came out later via the NCAA infractions report, it was either too late or too hard to transfer. Remember this was before the NCAA had its more forgiving transfer portal program.

This was about trapping them. It’s a brutal and cutthroat thing to do to your own players and their parents, but hey, that’s the choice Hugh Freeze and Ole Miss made.

It certainly worked. By the time the NCAA report became public, signing day had come and gone. A lot of guys were stuck. Players that sought transfers were then hit with significant restrictions preventing where they could go. (Ole Miss eventually relented under immense media pressure). The hurt feelings lingered.

“We expected them to be about truth and honesty, and we got the exact opposite,” Shawn Jefferson, whose son, Van, was a leading receiver for the team in 2017, told Yahoo Sports back at the time. Van Jefferson now plays for the Los Angeles Rams.

---