Hugh Freeze hasn’t avoided controversy throughout his years as a college football coach, and it ultimately led to his resignation at Ole Miss. Now, he’s in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons once again.
Now the head coach at Liberty University, Freeze allegedly sent unsolicited direct messages to a woman named Chelsea Andrews during and after her lawsuit with the school. Andrews describes herself in her Twitter bio as “LU ‘15 Sr. Class President & Jane Doe 7,” indicating that she was a sexual assault victim in the high-profile sexual assault case against the university.
While Andrews did not share any entire message from Freeze, she shared a screenshot of her direct message inbox where you can read a message allegedly from Freeze that begins with “You Don’t even know Ian McCaw. He is the most Jesus like leader I have…” before the message cuts off.
https://twitter.com/chelsandrews/status/1545983057232027648?s=20&t=woUEAMefjG6xF_xoSn7onA
“I haven’t responded to the other DMs he’s sent over the months,” Andrews said in the Tweet. “Publicly naming so he can see that I don’t want direct contact (with) him.”
McCaw is the current athletic director at Liberty. He was hired by the school in 2016 after he resigned from Baylor University as a result of the high-profile sexual assault scandal. It appears Freeze is attempting to defend McCaw to Andrews.
When the college football world saw Freeze’s comments, they reacted with repulsion, but without all that much surprise.
this is gross. https://t.co/FuP7MOezLP
— Mike Golic Jr (@mikegolicjr) July 11, 2022
And for those needing reminding, Ian McCaw was the AD Baylor during their sexual assault/cover up scandal, and "resigned" in the wake of it… https://t.co/k4MrTREDgy
— Katie Stats (@kpondiscio) July 10, 2022
https://twitter.com/HollyAnderson/status/1546272954912210946?s=20&t=woUEAMefjG6xF_xoSn7onA
https://twitter.com/38Godfrey/status/1546238211936116738?s=20&t=woUEAMefjG6xF_xoSn7onA
This is ridiculous behavior by Freeze. I would say Liberty's lawyers have to be in shambles too, except being a lawyer for Liberty requires checking a certain amount of shame at the door https://t.co/zC0w0Ob5u7
— Alex Kirshner (@alex_kirshner) July 10, 2022
whole lotta folks have stories about weird/creepy dms and texts like this from him too https://t.co/3AK2Iquejc
— Brian Floyd (@BrianMFloyd) July 10, 2022
Hugh Freeze is known for DMing. He's done it to journalists, me included. But this is unbelievable. https://t.co/d184vbUx8A
— Jeff Schultz (@JeffSchultzATL) July 10, 2022
You can add this to the list of controversies Freeze has found himself embroiled in over the years. Under his watch, Ole Miss committed various recruiting and academic violations and he ultimately resigned when school officials learned that he had used a university cellphone to call escort services multiple times over the course of five years.
