Ole' Miss fires Hugh Freeze with no buyout

[Old School]

Matt Luke will be their interim head coach. Looks like it was either him, Phil Longo, or former UK assistant Wesley McGriff.

It'll be interesting to see if he stays in that position into the season. Les Miles and Phil Fulmer are available, but after Arkansas' disaster with John L. Smith, I don't know that an SEC school is going to turn to an older former coach in a pinch like that. I think they're more likely to hire a younger long term replacement, either very soon, or after the season. I'm sure Lane Kiffin is interested. Hopefully for Ole Miss' sake that interest is not reciprocal.

Ole Miss has a pretty well regarded OL commit out of Ohio, Blaine Scott, who is now reconsidering his commitment. Kentucky was apparently interested in him previously. He'd be a nice pickup for the 2018 class. Another commit (in the 2019 class) has already bailed on the Rebels.

[Matt Dillon]

Matt Luke will be their interim head coach. Looks like it was either him, Phil Longo, or former UK assistant Wesley McGriff.

It'll be interesting to see if he stays in that position into the season. Les Miles and Phil Fulmer are available, but after Arkansas' disaster with John L. Smith, I don't know that an SEC school is going to turn to an older former coach in a pinch like that. I think they're more likely to hire a younger long term replacement, either very soon, or after the season. I'm sure Lane Kiffin is interested. Hopefully for Ole Miss' sake that interest is not reciprocal.

Ole Miss has a pretty well regarded OL commit out of Ohio, Blaine Scott, who is now reconsidering his commitment. Kentucky was apparently interested in him previously. He'd be a nice pickup for the 2018 class. Another commit (in the 2019 class) has already bailed on the Rebels.

Were it up to me, I'd go with Les Miles. In my opinion, Phil has been out of coaching too long, and Kiffin has too much baggage.

[40bill]

Strangest thing is by the reports I heard what Nutt was asking for was an apology from Ol Miss for saying he was at fault for some of the various infractions. The school refused and it was on. I kind of wonder if there hadn't been an urge to make that change....and everything that came up enabled Ol Miss to terminate with no buyout, so they jumped on it.

[Old School]

Were it up to me, I'd go with Les Miles. In my opinion, Phil has been out of coaching too long, and Kiffin has too much baggage.

Kiffin is also a grenade with a faulty fuse, waiting to explode in someone's hand, IMO. Too risky. His brother is on Ole Miss' staff, though. I don't know if the school would consider that a mark for or against him. On the upside, you'd assume they'd work well together. On the downside, I'm not sure how much of Freeze's staff they'll want to retain after this year. Maybe most or all of it, maybe none of it.

Fulmer has been out of coaching for a very long time and other than Bill Snyder, who is just unlike any other coach out there, period, I'm not sure there's anyone else on the scene today who can walk away for years and then come back and be successful. Among other things, if you're out of it for a couple of years, you might as well be away for a couple of decades when it comes to recruiting and being able to connect with kids and understand where that scene is presently. I think that is something that affected even Rick Pitino. He was at the top of the recruiting game at UK, left for the Celtics for a few years, and took years to be very good at it again, and never has reached anywhere near the success at it that he had previously - not even after winning a national championship. And the disaster that was John L. Smith is a cautionary tale about hiring older out of work head coaches to come into a situation like this. I'm sure every administrator in the SEC remembers that.

Miles is still pretty fresh and apparently connects with kids. And he'd excite a good chunk of the fan base (not certainly not everyone). Ole Miss' offense is geared toward speed and throwing the ball and that doesn't fit well with what Les Miles' teams do. If he put his trust into an OC who knew what to do with what they have, it could work. That's tough for an HC to do successfully, though.