OXFORD, Miss. (AP) _ Mississippi football coach Hugh Freeze resigned Thursday
after university officials found a “pattern of personal misconduct” that
started with the school’s investigation into a call to an escort service. Freeze
was the head coach at Arkansas State in 2011 before going to Ole Miss.
Freeze’s resignation brings a stunning end to a five-year tenure that saw a
Sugar Bowl victory, but also a wide-ranging NCAA investigation into rules
violations. His ultimate downfall came after school officials investigated
Freeze’s phone records and found misconduct.
Athletic director Ross Bjork says the school’s investigation started last week
after an outside Freedom of Information request revealed a concerning phone call
that lasted less than a minute. The school then looked into the rest of his
phone records and found more problems.
Freeze’s university cell phone records obtained by The Associated Press show a
1-minute call made on Jan. 19, 2016, to a Detroit-based number. An internet
search shows the number linked to a site that offers various escort services.
Freeze replaced Houston Nutt as Mississippi’s football
coach when he took the job, and now Nutt is at least partially responsible for
Freeze’s stunning downfall. Nutt recently filed a civil lawsuit against Ole
Miss, where he coached from 2008 to ’11. The suit unearthed the phone records
that eventually revealed Freeze’s university-issued cellphone had dialed an
escort service on at least one occasion in 2016.
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