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Hugh Freeze is the new coach of the Auburn Tigers. However, he does come with a controversial past.
Freeze coached the Ole Miss Rebels until resigning in 2017 after the school conducted an investigation and found “a pattern of personal misconduct” by the coach.
According to reports, Freeze was found to have made at least 12 phone calls to an escort service using a university phone.
"While Coach Freeze served our university well in many regards during his tenure, we simply cannot accept the conduct in his personal life that we have discovered," Ole Miss chancellor Jeffrey Vitter said in a news conference.
However, Freeze told ESPN that he denied all those allegations, saying people call wrong numbers all the time.
After he was introduced as Liberty's new coach, Freeze also spoke on the incident, saying he is focused on teaching young men and coaching.
“I believe in teaching young men on our team all of the lessons of when I got it right and when I got it wrong and what the consequences are,” Freeze said.
Are there any other incidents involving Hugh Freeze?
Although Hugh Freeze resigned due to allegedly calling escort services multiple times, that was not the only scandal involving him as the Ole Miss coach.
Under Freeze, Ole Miss was charged with numerous recruiting violations by the NCAA, four of which were Level 1 violations. A level 1 violation, according to the NCAA, signifies a serious threat to the integrity of the sport and includes paying recruits and booster involvement in recruiting with member knowledge.
The investigation started after offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil admitted he took money from one of Freeze's assistants. In the end, the NCAA punished the Ole Miss football team for the recruiting and academic violations committed under both Houston Nutt and Freeze. The NCAA ruled that Freeze failed to monitor his staff and did not report violations.
The punishment for the violations on Freezen and Ole Miss was that the school had to vacate 33 wins from 2010 to 2016. As a result, 27 of Freeze's wins were stripped from the books. His record at Ole Miss is 12–25 after the wins were stripped.
Ultimately, Hugh Freeze is back in the SEC as the coach of the Auburn Tigers.
