Ole Miss apologizes for snarky tweets referencing Hugh Freeze
Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter apologized on behalf of the Ole Miss athletic department after a series of since-deleted tweets depicted the Rebels mocking Hugh Freeze, its former head coach, whose Liberty Flames lost 27-14 on Saturday.
“These tweets were unfortunate and not who we are in Ole Miss athletics,” Carter said, via ESPN. “When I found out about them, they were immediately taken down. I have spoken with [Liberty athletic director] Ian McCaw to relay my sincere apology. We will work to do better in the future.”
The two tweets poked fun at Freeze, one for a tweet during his time at Ole Miss and another for his appearance coaching a game from a hospital bed in 2019. Current Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, when asked about the tweets in his postgame press conference, said he had no knowledge of the posts but still felt remorse.
“I have no affiliation with the Ole Miss football Twitter site, even though it may sound strange, and I first learned about the tweets after my press conference when Keith Carter told me about them,” Kiffin said. “I’m completely embarrassed that anyone would put something out there like that making it look like it was a part of Ole Miss football. It was extremely disrespectful, bush league and classless, and I apologize, even though I had nothing to do with it, to Liberty and Hugh Freeze.”
Ole Miss mocks Freeze on Twitter
Freeze’s five-year tenure at Ole Miss, which saw the Rebels finish with a 39-25 record, was a bumpy ride, to say the least. Under his leadership, Ole Miss committed an array of recruiting and academic violations that resulted in the NCAA expunging 27 of Freeze’s wins. In addition to those violations, Freeze was eventually forced to resign after university officials discovered that he used a university phone to call escort services on multiple occasions.
Back in 2013, Freeze’s second year at the helm of Ole Miss, rumors began to swirl that the Rebels were offering financial incentives for players and recruits. He responded to the rumors with a tweet that picked up traction in the college football world; one that would later be used against him after Liberty’s loss at Ole Miss.
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Roughly eight years later, after the Lane Kiffin-led Rebels defeated Freeze and the Liberty Flames, Ole Miss used that same tweet in an effort to troll the program’s former head coach.
Ole Miss didn’t stop there, though. Freeze would later be hired by Liberty in 2019, where he’s been ever since. That season, he had another viral moment during a game against Louisiana. Freeze was recovering from a serious surgical procedure in which doctors fixed a potentially life-altering staph infection; rather than sit out the next game, as most head coaches would, Freeze instead coached from a hospital bed overlooking the stadium. The game’s broadcast at one point cut to Freeze, who had a hat and headset on while laying down in the hospital, and he proceeded to give the camera a thumbs up.
Again, the Rebels turned the viral moment against Freeze on Saturday, using the same image of him in the hospital bed with the score of Ole Miss’ win displayed in the corner.