The highest drama of SEC Media Days was saved for the last of the 14 coaches to appear on Thursday.
That;s when embattled Hugh Freeze of Ole Miss faced the media — in addition to facing nearly two dozen NCAA allegations over recruiting violations.
His appearence in Hoover, Alabama, came less than 24 hours after Freeze and other university officials became defendants in a defamation of character and breach of contract lawsuit filed on by former Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt.. Nutt alleges Freeze and the Ole Miss administration enlisted the media in “a deceitful strategy” to claim most of the violations occurred when Nutt was the coach from 2008-2011.
Freeze said he would “absolutely love to share my opinion on it.”
“Unfortunately it’s a legal case and I can’t comment.”
Freeze clearly wanted to talk about football so he delivered a 16-minute opening statement about his team while pointing out he couldn’t talk specifics about a long-running NCAA investigation. Predictably all but two of the nine questions he fielded from the podium after that dealt in some fashion with the off-the-field issues facing his program.
That came as no surprise, of course.
“I mean, we obviously have created it in and around our program,” Freeze said Thursday at Southeastern Conference media days. “The length of it, we can sit here and debate all of that. But you can’t. We’ve got to be responsible for the areas which we were deficient in, that we didn’t either react or act properly, or whether it was staff or whether it was boosters.
“So we have to own that. And me being in the position I am, I’ve got to stand and look people in the eyes and take that.”
Freeze said he has had the “unwavering” support of the Ole Miss administration.
The Rebels are coming off the first losing season of his five-year tenure and must replace six starters on offense and five on defense. But not many really wanted to hear it.
“Seems like every year I’ve stood here, with the exception of my first, that there’s other things that I have to talk about other than our kids,” he said.
“That’s the least likely thing I enjoy doing. We look forward to our meeting with the (NCAA) committee on infractions so we can put this behind us. Until then, I will continue to cooperate and not to be answering any questions that are specifically related to our case.”
