Former Ole Miss football head coach, Houston Dale Nutt, filed a defamation lawsuit against the Ole Miss Athletics Foundation. Nutt was fired after the 2011 season and replaced by Hugh Freeze.
The filing of the lawsuit has many claiming this will be the end of Hugh Freeze, which is laughable at best. Seriously, if there was ever a time for a Donald J. Trump fake news gif, it is now. Hugh Freeze may be fired one day, but it will not be because of this lawsuit. The link to the lawsuit can be found below.
Houston Dale Nutt, Jr vs Ole Miss Athletics Foundation
Houston filed the lawsuit against the entire athletic foundation; however, his main target is undoubtedly Hugh Freeze. The lawsuit sites a breach of contract from the firing of Houston Nutt by Ole Miss.
Nutt claims Coach Freeze conspired with journalists to provide false information to the public. This false information was allegedly meant to place the majority of the blame for NCAA violations on Nutt and his staff, not coach freeze.
The biggest issue here is that Coach Freeze has never publicly stated the majority of the violations were related to Houston Nutt. Journalists reported most of the football violations were related to Nutt’s staff, yes. However, the journalists cite off the record and unnamed sources. The lawsuit alleges this was Coach Freeze or someone else higher up in the athletic department.
Nutt’s lawsuit also alleges that Coach Freeze held private, off the record phone calls with journalists to feed them the false and defamatory information. Houston claims Ole Miss making false statements about him is the reason he can’t get a head coaching job.
Why Nutt Can’t Find A Gig
Ole Miss Rebels Football
Look, Nutt has had success at multiple universities in his career. I’ll be the first to admit that his first season in Oxford was downright magical. I mean they shocked the world by essentially dismantling Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl and were even a preseason top-10 team to start his second season.
From there, it goes downhill. Ole Miss didn’t meet expectations in Nutt’s second season. A top 10 preseason team that would lose to a far less talented MSU team in the egg bowl and limp into another Cotton Bowl. I still don’t know how they won that Cotton Bowl.
Houston Dale Nutt, man that name suits him, actually cited the two cotton bowl victories in his lawsuit. We all know what happens next. Nutt’s rebel team won a whopping ONE conference game the next two seasons. The lone win was a 42-35 shootout in Oxford over an equally pitiful Kentucky Squad.
What were the losses over those 2 years? Jacksonville State (49-48 2OT) and Louisiana Tech (27-7 on homecoming) at home. In 2011, Ole Miss lost to Vanderbilt, Kentucky, and Mississippi State by a combined score of 91-23.
Wait, There Were Wins?
So, who did they manage to beat during this time? Ole Miss defeated Fresno State twice (shows just how terrible they were). Ole Miss defeated Southern Illinois, Tulane, and UL-Lafayette once a piece during the span. Oh, they also beat themselves in a Grove Bowl, which we will claim as a win just to put a Power-5 win on the board. (I’m kidding as considering that Ole Miss team a power-5 team is a stretch of epic proportions).
Houston is a major reason the NCAA capped scholarships as he was on the verge of having a farm system in Oxford.
Nutt claims the NOA doesn’t mention him and it doesn’t. However, it does mention several members of his coaching staff. The journalists always maintained the allegations from his days were from his staff, not him. He actually has that in common with Freeze, no major violations have been committed by either. However, Freeze was somehow charged with failure to monitor his program for isolated events.
Nutt Is Not Responsible?
Nutt’s staff did contribute to the most damning allegation against the football program. Academic Fraud. Two of his staff members were setting up faux ACT testing centers, that is a very serious allegation. Also, Ole Miss deserves to be punished for it and any other discretion that is proven to be true. Yes, you could make a case the institution had no control. I would call this a stretch, but I may be slightly biased here. Anyways, back to ole Dale Jr, no not that Dale.
Reporting his staff members committed these violations and not him is not a smear campaign, I don’t care who you are. I fully believe Nutt had no idea of the academic violations going on at the time.
Nutt claims he left the Ole Miss football program in good standing, which is actually Fake News. Nutt’s final record of 24-26 is not the worst we’ve experienced, cough Ed Orgeron, but it is also misleading. His win column is very front heavy, he was 18-8 in his first 2 seasons. During the final 2 traumatic seasons he lost 18 games and only won 6 times!
Comparing Nutt vs Freeze
Best:
Nutt (18-8, 2 first round draft picks, 2 Cotton bowl wins)
Freeze (19-7, 3 first round draft picks, Sugar Bowl win and Peach bowl loss)
When it comes to their highs, the only plus Nutt has is he won both bowl games, albeit against lesser opponents. Freeze had a better record, more first-round draft picks, and his staff also recruited most of the key contributors. Nutt’s key contributors were mainly leftovers from Ed Orgeron. Yes, Nutt did find a way to make Coach O’s team into a winner.
Worst:
Nutt (6-18, 0 first-round draft picks, no bowl games)
Freeze (12-13, 1 first-round draft pick, 1 bowl win)
Freeze’s low hasn’t reached rock bottom like Nutt. He has had only one losing season and you can make an argument they should have won 3 of the games they lost, which is not the case for Nutt. Nutt’s lows were unbearably bad and should be grounds for a counter-suit from Ole Miss fans.
So Nutt claims he left Ole Miss in good standing? He is either lying or delusional. Ole Miss was in shambles, on and off the field. The program was in an academic and behavior nightmare, coupled with a serious talent drain. Let us not forget Senquez Golson was admittedly a heathen before Freeze arrived. It came to an ultimatum from Freeze before Golson got his act together. So we have established Nutt’s claim of leaving Ole Miss in good standing is, oh you know what it is.
Nutt Grasps At Straws
Houston Nutt gave some coaching advice to Les Miles after LSU fired him. The advice was to get back into the game quickly. Nutt agreed with his wife to take some time off to spend with his family after being fired by Ole Miss. Of course, I won’t fault him for that, I probably would too. However, Nutt told CBS Sports Radio’s The DA Show that his break took him off the radar.
His break could have hampered his job search, but he seems to be in the business of deflecting blame. Nutt was paid by two SEC programs to not coach, that sticks. He also was an older guy, so smaller programs were more likely to go with younger coaches. Everyone wants to find the next big thing. Nutt said this himself to The DA Show.
So if in September Nutt thought his time off cost him his job, why does he now feel Ole Miss started a smear campaign THREE years after his firing that is preventing him from finding a job?The answer is quite simple. Nutt is in denial and does not want to take responsibility for his shortcomings as a head coach. Quick recap, he quite literally drove the Ole Miss football program off a cliff after being run out of Fayetteville.
Nutt’s Lack Of Accountability
Nutt inherited a pretty damn good team in Oxford and did nothing to build on that, he actually made them very much worse. Of course, knowing this makes it hard to think any smaller school would hire him,after spending years out of the game, to build their program into a success.
Nutt seems only interested in being a head coach. History has shown us that after failing as a head coach it is best to take a step back and be an assistant before pursuing another head coaching gig. Good examples would be Will Muschamp and Lane Kiffin as both spent time as a coordinator before becoming a head coach again.
Another common trait they share is youth in comparison to Nutt. The business model they used may not have worked for Nutt. He was already in the twilight of his career, so why would any small program risk it when they have such a small margin for error?
Had Ole Miss began smearing him from the beginning, he would have a point. However, this is not what happened. So to conclude, Nutt’s lawsuit will not signal the end for Freeze or even Ross Bjork as both have achieved unprecedented success in Oxford.