OT: A closer look at Hugh Freeze

Breifcases full of cash, hand-delivered.

I could care less if Ole' Miss pulls a few of these kids as long as they keep them away from Ohio, Bama, Auburn and Florida

Chris Weber wishes he attended Ole Miss...and I'll take my first class trip to Bolivia now.

Mad Magazine lists Ole Miss at the top, then followed by Harvard and Yale.

Would you please edit the title to make it a little more informative?  I wasn't sure if Hugh Freeze had died, been accused of bribing commits, or found with CRAIG JAMES AND FIVE DEAD HOOKERS.

Would you really want to look like a good recruiter?

.

Think of the beaches, the mountains, the redwoods! 

I'd highly recommend reading Bruce Feldman's Meat Market.  It covers an entire recruiting cycle at Ole Miss under Ed Orgeron when Freeze was on the staff as tight end and then as receivers coach but was Coach O's recruiting coordinator.  There's no doubt the guy can recruit and if his first class is an indication, Ole Miss could overtake Mississippi State as the premier program in that State once again.  You can make stacks of money jokes all you want but until there is proof of actual allegations there's no reason to think foul play is involved otherwise.  If something does happen down the line, then you can I told you so and everything but for now, Ole Miss is an up and comer.  Freeze had a good record at Arkansas State, despite only being there for a short time, and his Ole Miss connections got him this job.  He's still gotta prove it on the field though!  Recruiting means nothing unless the players produce.

I think the most suspicious thing to me is him pulling kids from places that Ole Miss has no business pulling from given the local competition. If Nkemdiche, Tunsil and Treadwell were from Mississippi it might make more sense but pulling 5-star blue chip guys from Florida and Illinois in particular given the current state of Ole Miss' program seems suspicious at best.

I've seen Batman & Robin. It was awful. Mr. Freeze was in it. Therefore, nobody with the name "Freeze" can mean anything good.

Hugh was just on SVP and went on to say that Nkemdiche's brother and Treadwell's best friend were the main reason they even had a chance at those recruits. Not trying to defend but just give his side of the argument.

the same division with Alabama/Auburn/LSU/Arkansas and now TAM, there's a lot of pressure to keep up with the joneses, to the point where bending the rules seems acceptable.

I look forward to the Hugh Freeze era being expunged from the Ole Miss record books in 2016.

He looks more like a politician than a head coach and we know politicians are honest, god fearing folks!!!!!!!

Last year they had the #40 overall class. They've had 3 five star kids in the last six years, now they have 2 of the top 5 kids in the country. This year they pull the #1 offensive tackle, the #1 wide receiver, and the #1 overall prospect.

But, but, they have women there!

Have you seen there campus!

/s

So you're saying he "Blind Sided" the other coaches on National Signing Day?

keeping these guys away from Bama, FLA, tosu, etc. is great.  If it's dirty it will come out some day, but I'm all for someone else down there stepping on some toes.  And, he may be a good recruiter, but time will tell if he can coach.

He pulled in two 4* players last year, sure one of them was from Mississippi but still had two!

It is interesting, to say the least - the average Rivals star rating of his sole class at Arkansas State (as head coach anyway - he was the OC in 2010, I believe) was 2.32, but then I am not familiar enough with the Sun Belt to know if where that would stand, relatively speaking. The 2012 class at Ole Miss, however, rated a 2.95 average, and this year's signing class sits at 3.56, which is nearly 20% better than the previous year. That's something I don't know that I would ever expect at Ole Miss, a jump like that. They did get some high-profile vebal commits early, I believe, but they are behind only the traditional favorites in the SEC  for class ranking now. It's a huge jump for them.

with their state of the art football facilities and world class stadium, Ole Miss Alumni will be happy to see all the donations they have made are finally paying off in top of the chart recruits. I forgot to mention the head coach, clearly well known throughout the NCAA, he is absolutely a no brainer to commits across the country. I personally wonder why they have not landed the #1 class in the country. The South has risen again praise the lord.

Yes he was depicted in the movie as a bumbling idiot of a coach. I can see why that would attract kids.

Who saw this coming? One might say we just got "blind side"-d.

Amiright? Or amiright?

Hint: when reporters talk about a coach who is good at "closing" that's a euphemism.

"Hugh Freeze"?  Sounds like a Batman villain.

While I think it's possible that they're paying recruits, I don't find it probable. Let's break down their recruiting class. Of their 27 commits, 16 are consensus (Note: when I say consensus in this post I'm referring to the 247 composite rankings) 3-stars. Of their 7 consensus 4-stars, four (two of them Jucos) are from Mississippi, a state notorious for keeping it's talent home despite rarely having a decent instate program. Now let's look at the four 5-stars that are getting everyone's panties in a bunch. One (Tony Connor) is a local kid, Nkemdiche's brother plays for Ole Miss, and another (LaQuon Treadwell) has a good friend and former teammate (Anthony Standifer) who also currently plays for Ole Miss. So all in all, there are three highly rated players, out of 27 total commits, who don't have an immediately obvious "excuse" for choosing Ole Miss. Now considering that Freeze came in to the job with a reputation as an excellent recruiter and the fact that recruiting can be pretty momentum-based, I find the evidence for any cheating to be circumstantial at best.

you go somewhere where you can play early, be highly visible and has some players in the NFL. these guys are going to play early, often, and frequently in games against top talent. and their biggest alum has won 2 superbowls in the league's biggest city.

He looks like he's one mutated gene away from being a downs baby.

*Insert South Park "Nothing to see here" office pic here*

Girlfriend from high school attends ole miss now...says that they treat the football players real nice down there, if you catch my drift...CJK5H 'sippi style

In the world of recruiting, I'd say this is a huge outlier as far as recruiting class performance vs expectations.

Sure, MSU pulls in some 4 stars when we're down or random school X gets some better players in some years but what Ole Miss has done given both their track record of on-the-field performance and past recruiting history is just too abnormal for me to be able to accept it as is.

HOW DARE YOU MAKE SUCH ACCUSATIONS!  BRIEFCASES FULL OF CASH!?  LURING YOUNG MEN WITH SOUTHERN BELLES!?  OPTIONAL ACADEMICS!?

 CERTAINLY NOT AT AN SEC SCHOOL!  

I'm a coach in Memphis ... at the rival school of the one where Freeze coached here.  I've posted on here before, addressing unfair statements about the (Barrett) Jones family. By the way, the last (3rd) of the Jones boys (a LB) signed with Alabama today. That's 3 in a row, and I've been blessed to coach them. Considering that, I've gotten to see a lot of Hugh Freeze over the years, and have gotten sick of the lies that the movie created about the whole Michael Oher story.

Hugh Freeze is a charasmatic fellow. He's always been one. He's got an ego; he loves to win ... and will do what it takes to make it happen. Machiavellian. He loves trick plays / smoke and mirrors. He talks a big game, and he gets the best athletes he can find and then enables them to believe they can win. He's had success for that reason. 

I don't doubt, though that there are things that are way out of bounds in the recruiting here. I had friends that sat in the classes he used to teach. He flirted with the high school girls, was disloyal to players that didn't perform, humiliated guys that didn't play football, and didn't give a rip about his acadmic responsibilities (and, I don't see reason to doubt the consistency of the statements I heard). There comes a point where you just have to call the kettle black: I just don't think he's a good guy. But, because of his background, he can sure talk like it, and he'll do what it takes to get the athletes. he knows how to get the players, and generally speaking, he's able to produce with them. That's been true of most places he goes. I hate that, because I don't care for him much, and I certainly don't have a stomach for Ole Miss. I'm thankful that we have a coach in Hoke that is the anti- Hugh Freeze. 

Per Urban Dictionary -



"Money Talks, Bullshit Walks"

Means that cheap talk will get you nowhere, while money will

persuade people to do as you like.

what goes on at Ole Miss. They have a mess to clean up and until they get their own house taken care of the cheating schools will have a field day. The only good side of this is that 18 and 19 year old kids won't be able to keep their mouths shut or won't know how to keep from showing off their new found fortune.



The NCAA is so demented right now it will be 3 or 4 years before they hammer anyone. Even Miami is going to get off from all I am reading. So Ole Miss is taking the best shot they can at the most opportune time. I can't wait to find out what is going on though.

I have, vry nice school about the size of a MAC school in terms of number of students in a stunning beautiful locale in the south that has places like Baton Rouge and Tuscaloosa and Auburn and Fayetteville and Knoxville beat all to hell with the absolutely best looking and sweetest young coeds in America.....If you have never been there, never been to the Grove, and never experienced the whole Ole Miss experience, you will never get why it is a perfect fit for some athletes and students...Not everyone wants to be at a huge B1G school with 40K to 60 K students in a place like A2 or Columbus or Madison....Ole Miss, where they redshirt Miss America's!

Maybe they all just happen to love William Faulkner?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130207/hugh-fre...

Staples essentially concludes they had a unique opportunity, went for broke and got their guys. They are clearly hoping to parlay this into success on the field and in further recruiting, and if they can this kind of question will die off. And good riddance - I personally dislike the default assumption that someone is cheating when something good happens to/for them.