Just days before the start of fall practice, Hugh Freeze has resigned as Ole Miss Rebels head football coach. The move is effective immediately.
ANNOUNCEMENT | Hugh Freeze has resigned effective immediately. Matt Luke interim head coach. Press conference live at 7:30 PM CT on ESPNews.
— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) July 20, 2017
Freeze had been caught in the middle of an NCAA investigation into recruiting. Ole Miss is facing 21 accusations from the NCAA about improper recruiting. That includes the dreaded Lack of institutional control and failure to monitor," which could result in increased penalties against Freeze.
However, that is not the reason behind Freeze's resignation. USA Today reports that Freeze made a phone call from a university phone given to him to a number tied to an escort service. That report came out minutes before Ole Miss's release. Freeze is married with multiple children and has claimed it was a mis-dial.
At an Ole Miss press conference, the school announced that found a "pattern of conduct not consistent with Ole Miss." That certainly sounds like Freeze didn't call an escort service (or something similar, like affairs) more than once. Ole Miss stressed Freeze's firing was not related to the NCAA Investigation.
The knowledge of the phone call came about as a result of Houston Nutt's lawsuit against Ole Miss. It appears that Nutt's attorney was the one who discovered it.
USA Today reports the call was made on Jan. 19, 2016, to a Detroit number. That number is connected to an escort service and lasted roughly one minute. In emails between Nutt's lawyer and Lee Tyner, the school's general counsel, Tyner claimed "the call to the Detroit number that lasted one minute (or less) appears to be a misdial," and has nothing to do with the on-going investigation into recruiting violations.
Freeze did not make another call to that number, or another Detroit numbers, in the days Nutt's lawyer requested phone records for. Yahoo Sports reports the Ole Miss AD Ross Bjork told them the school looked over 39,000 calls with no other issues, but that was on Friday. Yahoo speculates Ole Miss might have found troubling information as they looked at more records and that appears to be what happened.
Nutt is currently suing Ole Miss, claiming the schools tried to pin the NCAA infractions on him by by telling reporters in "off the record" conversations that most of the violations came during the Nutt era. Nine of the 13 violations the school was facing at the time came during the Freeze Era.
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Interim coach Matt Luke has been at Ole Miss for 10 years. He's served as the Co-Offensive coordinator for the last six.
This is a developing story. Refresh for updates.
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