The Ole Miss football program is likely in some hot water when it comes to the NCAA. Just when the penalties for academic and booster impropriety come down is anyone’s guess at this point, but one had to imagine they’ll arrive sooner rather than later.
It also is apparently the reason why Ole Miss didn’t exactly live up to its standards on the recruiting trail.
That’s how head coach Hugh Freeze saw things, seeing fit to call the class “a penalty” when speaking to the media on National Signing Day.
Freeze on 2017 recruiting class: "This recruiting class: It was a penalty." Not sure that's a ringing endorsement.
— David Brandt (@davidbrandtAP) February 1, 2017
Ole Miss comes in at the No. 33 ranking in the 247Sports composite team rankings on National Signing Day, a far cry from the top 10 classes they have become known to sign under Freeze.
The coach attempted to clarify what he meant about the class being “a penalty,” but it didn’t really help matters much.
Full Freeze quote (more context) "We've suffered penalties. This recruiting class: It was a penalty. To be under the cloud we're under."
— David Brandt (@davidbrandtAP) February 1, 2017
Ole Miss has been in the mix for some top 5-star players in the past and won them a lot as well. However, the 2017 signing class is devoid of those players and is also largely devoid of the big names that the Rebels fans are used to seeing.
Instead, of the 23 players signed today, just two of them were 4-star players.
Ole Miss is in the most competitive division in college football, and that No. 33 ranking puts the Rebels 6th in a seven-team division.
With the specter of NCAA sanctions looming or not, Ole Miss only has itself to blame for this “weak” class, as Freeze sees it. After all, they are the ones who allegedly made some of the most boneheaded 1980’s-esque moves on the recruiting trail.
That didn’t stop Freeze from calling out schools for alleged “negative recruiting” against him.
Freeze admits that recruiting has been difficult because of "rhetoric" and the looming NCAA cloud: "It was ugly. I didn't enjoy it."
— David Brandt (@davidbrandtAP) February 1, 2017
Hugh Freeze: Negative recruiting by other schools got “pretty ugly” during this recruiting cycle.
"I won’t forget who they are.” #OleMiss
— Davis Potter (@DavisEPotter) February 1, 2017
Cars, extra help with classes, and a whole lot more are just some of the 1980s-esque SMU violations allegedly perpetrated by Ole Miss. That’s why you’re in the position you’re in, not because the NCAA is screwing you with a lengthy investigative period.
Alas, what is done is done, and Freeze will just have to take this “penalty” of a class and try to make in to a winner — you know, what a coach’s job is in the first place.
