Hotty Toddy And A Sweet Tease – The Rebels Without A Cause
One of the most interesting – and least talked about – factors in the demise of former Ole Miss football coach Hugh Freeze is the role a small group of reporters played in making it happen.
They are the ones covering the story, too.
It’s the seven college football writers whom Freeze contacted “off the record” to slam previous coach Houston Nutt in regards to the school’s investigation of NCAA rules violations. It was Nutt’s attorney going over phone records that uncovered the phone call to the escort service that led to Freeze’s abrupt resignation.
Frankly, I don’t think those writers did their journalism jobs. What I can gather is that they reported – either in stories or Tweets – exactly what Ole Miss and Freeze wanted them to, which was to take the blame off Freeze and put it onto Nutt.
These are just my opinions, mind you, as observed from a distance, but I know for one had I been contacted by Freeze, I would have immediately gone into my “suspicious sports writer” mode and asked a few questions.
I would have wanted to know about the timing. Why are you calling me now, on the eve of National Signing Day?
Why are you – and Ole Miss – throwing Nutt under the bus?
And most of all, if this is what your internal investigation has uncovered, why are you doing the equivalent of hiding behind a curtain – “psst, over here!” – rather than holding a press conference announcing it to everyone?
That would have been my story, not some post about “insiders say most Ole Miss violations occurred under Nutt” or whatever may have reported (I have to confess I don’t actually follow Ole Miss football in February but from what I can gather this is generally what was reported after Freeze’s phone calls to the writers).
The irony is that by not asking these things and digging deeper, the reporters actually may have contributed to the “Freeze out” that will have Ole Miss football spiraling back to the, well, days of the two-win season under Nutt.
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