KELLENBERGER

Kellenberger: Hugh Freeze's downfall is also Ole Miss', and everyone shares in the fallout

Hugh Kellenberger
Mississippi Clarion Ledger

Mistakes were, in fact, made.

Ole Miss is two weeks from the start of practice, 45 days from the start of the 2017 season and, thanks to a call to a hooker, now without its head coach.

Hugh Freeze resigned Thursday, although I’d guess that technical description is only to allow him to keep some small part of his dignity intact. He didn’t deserve it. A pattern of personal misconduct, discovered after an investigation into a January 2016 phone call to an escort service, meant that had Freeze not resigned, athletic director Ross Bjork would have fired him.

Mississippi Rebels head coach Hugh Freeze before a game against the LSU Tigers at Tiger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

“We simply cannot accept the conduct in his personal life,” Ole Miss Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter said.

More:Ross Bjork, Jeff Vitter explain what's next for Ole Miss after Freeze resignation

There’ll be no buyout, and Freeze is now running neck-and-neck with Art Briles for the dishonor of the most un-hireable man in football.

Yes, that’s right: Houston Nutt (whose lawyer found the phone call in a mountain of records) couldn’t beat Louisiana Tech, Vanderbilt or anyone else in the SEC by the end of his tenure. He sure as hell beat Hugh Freeze though.

But that’s not the story right now, nor is it entirely about Freeze’s indiscretions. They’re unbecoming, shameful and absolutely a fire-able offense. Freeze also has a wife and three teenage daughters, and they’re going to get the worst end of things as that last name is dragged through the mud and made into a joke. He earned it, not them, and not just by his misbehavior but by holding himself up as something more than a football coach. No man is without sin, but when you strut about as if you are then people will delight in the fall.

Here’s the thing, though: Ole Miss set itself up for this — a Fall with Matt Luke as its interim head coach, a bowl ban and an NCAA decision expected sometime midseason.

Even Thursday, Bjork tried to explain what had happened and why you heard him defending Freeze’s record of NCAA compliance. Ole Miss made the decision to tie its fate to Freeze’s years ago, and that has not changed one little bit.

They’re going to have to go in front of the Committee on Infractions and, for the sake of the university, argue that former staffer Barney Farrar was a renegade, but the guy whose personal life was deceitful and a sham acted honorably professionally. Good luck with that.

Ole Miss put its ultimate faith and its football program in the hands of a Bible-quoting, God-fearing family man that promised in 2011 to play fast, score points and win football games.

And Freeze did all of those things, so Ole Miss kept doing anything it could to keep him as its head coach. He didn’t ask for a raise after the first season, but they gave him one anyway. When Florida came calling in 2014, athletic director Ross Bjork made sure Freeze stayed in Oxford (and eventually paid him more than $5 million yearly). When the NCAA showed up in town and went about a four-year investigation that even before Thursday threatened to cripple the program, Ole Miss stood steadfastly behind Freeze.

It was the act of a middling program desperate to be something more, determined to deal with the bad if the good meant a Sugar Bowl and maybe one day a Southeastern Conference championship. Until Thursday, July 20, a day that will now live in SEC lore.

That has to be the lesson here: No man is bigger than the program. The moment you think you are — or the university treats you that way — the fall from grace has begun.

Ole Miss will have to hire another new head coach later this year, and it must find one that will do things the right way all of the time. Because Hugh Freeze didn’t, and now look what a mess of things he made.