2011-12 has been the Year of the Disciplinarian when it comes to SEC hoops.  Anthony Grant, Tony Barbee and Cuonzo Martin have all benched key performers down the stretch… Grant and Martin while fighting for NCAA Tournament bids.

Andy Kennedy is fighting like Hell for a tourney bid, too.  He needs one.  But already this season he’s dismissed two players including leading scorer Dundrecous Nelson for being busted with marijuana.  Now Kennedy has handed out a suspension to freshman guard Jelan Kendrick.  Kendrick will not play in the SEC tourney, a tourney in which Ole Miss desperately needs to play well.

Kendrick was not with the Rebels during warm-ups before last Saturday’s win over Alabama.  Witnesses told The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal that he had walked out of the gym before returning to the UM bench midway through the first half. 

Kennedy said that move was a coach’s decision.  But he’s now added this suspension for “conduct detrimental to the team.”  Interesting.

The former McDonald’s All-American in high school was also involved in an altercation with Reginald Buckner after a loss to Vanderbilt last month.  And reportedly, Kendrick was no model citizen at Memphis before transferring to Oxford and becoming eligible in December.

He is averaging 20 minutes and five points per game playing primarily as the backup to starting point guard Jarvis Summers.

Kudos to Kennedy for handing out this suspension on the eve of an important tournament.  But, then again, maybe Kennedy shouldn’t have welcomed a known troublemaker onto his team to begin with, eh?

Hugh Freeze is hoping to avoid the cold-shoulder from the Ole Miss football team.  The new Rebel coach tells The Jackson Clarion-Ledger that he knows he won’t win over everybody, but he hopes to reach the vast majority of players:


“At the end of the day, you hope 80% of your team has chosen to buy in.  that’s the buy-in principle.  And your 20%, you hope they’re not negative influences.  If you can ever get a team that’s about 90% or so to buy in, I think you got a special group.  But that’s always a challenge.”


Freeze was a head coach for one season at Arkansas State.  He’ll be asking his team to buy-in on faith, not on a long, distinguished resume.  His players, therefore, will likely want to see some early positive results before they buy-in completely.

On signing day, Dan Mullen told a Mississippi State video crew that he doesn’t just preach values, he lives it every day in his program.  Ole Miss fans — familiar with Mullen’s many shots at the Rebels over the years — took his comments to be a thinly-veiled reference to new UM coach Hugh Freeze, a man who speaks often of his faith.

Asked about Mullen’s remarks by The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Freeze took the high road… as Houston Nutt often tried to do before him:

“I’m sure that all of us express our faith in different ways.  I have said from Day One that I’m far from perfect and do not claim to be and certainly don’t judge others.  I have said from Day One also that I have great respect for what he’s done there.  I give credit where credit’s due.  I look forward to trying to increase our momentum against them, but whether or not he meant that toward me — I don’t know why he would, because I will never.  I’m not going to talk about something I don’t know, Number One, and have no reason to think anything about me.

We’re not going to enter into negative recruiting.  It’s just not what we’re going to do. … Will we be 100% in that?  Probably not as a whole staff, but I don’t think that’s going to be the practice we adhere to…

I look forward to talking with him.  I do.  I know how we feel about that rivalry and I certainly understand it and I get it.  I’ve lived here.  But at the end of the day, I don’t know that it has to be a rift between the coaching staff because of it.  I’m going to want to beat them as bad as we can and he’d going to want to do the same, but I still think you can have a professional relationship.  I hope.

I don’t think he in any way in recruiting tried to do anything that was hurtful towards me personally or say anything about me.  And I know I didn’t him.”

Mullen is a needler.  He’s got a touch of Spurrier and a dash of Kiffin about him.  (Cue the “he’s a sweetheart” emails from MSU fans.)

We’ll see how long it take for MSU’s coach to get under the skin of UM’s new head man.

(Sidenote — Because MSU fans are already yelping we’ve changed the word “faith” above to “values.”  Mullen was referring to preaching about values, not preaching about faith.  This changes nothing, of course, as Rebel fans still took it as a shot at Freeze who is vocal about his faith, values, beliefs, etc.  And UM fans taking Mullen’s comment as an insult was what led the reporter from The JCL to ask Freeze his thoughts on the remark… and that’s what led us to post it here.

Here’s a link to the web clip.)

The Ole Miss basketball team hosts Florida tonight in the first of three Thursday-Saturday turnarounds in the next month.  But if you want Andy Kennedy to get onboard the Complain Train, you’re out of luck:


“I don’t put a lot of thoguht in that because I don’t really have anything to do with.  We all realize that we’re in a big business.  SEC men’s basketball is a high-dollar business.  And the reason that it is on a lot of fronts, is because of television revenue.

So television affords you the opportunity to get in those windows and those windows are Thursday and Saturday.  If they choose you to fit those windows, then we’ll do the best we can to do just that.”


Kudos to Kennedy.  Unlike other coaches who’ve chosen to gripe about the league’s schedule right in the middle of the season — when nothing can be done about it — the Rebels’ coach is biting his tongue.

You can be sure that Kennedy isn’t pleased that his team got the worst of the Thursday-Saturday turnarounds.  And if he’s still around for this year’s SEC Meetings in Destin, we hope he voices any complaints he might have before the next batch of schedules is put together.

But for now, Mississippi’s coach is refusing to create negative press for the league office and he’s not teaching his players that it’s not okay to make excuses.  Good for him.

Yesterday, Ole Miss officially announced the hirings of three assistants for its football program:


* Former Rebel player Grant Heard will follow Hugh Freeze from Arkansas State where he was the Red Wolves’ passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach.  In Oxford, he’ll be the receivers coach.

* Paul Jackson has been hired as UM’s new strength and conditioning coach.  Jackson is moving just up the road from Hattiesburg where he handled the same duties at Southern Miss last season.  From 2007 to 2010 he served on LSU’s strength staff.

* Finally, Mississippi has officially hired Wesley McGriff to be the team’s co-defensive coordinator and cornerbacks coach.  McGriff comes to Ole Miss from Vanderbilt.

* It’s also been reported that a fourth coach — Dan Werner — will be taking over as UM’s quaterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator.  Werner worked with Freeze on Ed Orgeron’s Ole Miss staff.  Werner comes to Ole Miss from a private high school where he has been serving as head coach.


Which brings us to the Vandy part of this story.  James Franklin got a lot of people believing on Nashville’s West End this year and nothing that’s happened since the end of the season should change that.  In fact, Vanderbilt’s starting to look like a real, live, honest-to-God SEC football program.

What do I mean by that?  McGriff is the second assistant coach Vandy has lost this year.  Chris Beatty left the Dores’ program to become a co-offensive coordinator at Illinois last week.

Also, Franklin himself has become a bit controversial.  He’s had postgame dust-ups with Georgia and Tennessee assistants (blame whoever you like).  He’s had at least one exiting player accuse him via Twitter of running players off his team.  And today there’s a bit more buzz.

Running back prospect I’Tavius Mathers has re-upped his commitment to Ole Miss because he “just felt like (Vandy’s coaches) weren’t being completely honest with me” regarding playing time.  The player’s father added: “He wanted to go to Vanderbilt.  But they were playing around with him on his playing time.  They were not being honest with me in what they wanted to do.”

So while Ole Miss is adding assistants and a top running back recruit, Vanderbilt is adding street cred.  Franklin has Vandy making the kind of headlines normally associated with the other 11 programs in the SEC.  And that’s a step in the right direction if you’re a Commodore fan.

With back to the wall career-wise, Andy Kennedy has dismissed two members of the Ole Miss basketball team… including the squad’s leading scorer.  Dundrecous Nelson was arrested at his home and charged with possession of drug paraphernalia just hours after the Rebels beat SMU on Wednesday night.  The arresting officer said he found eight cigarillos of marijuana in the apartment when he entered.  He also said he’d been in the same apartment on another occasion and let Nelson off with a warning.  Freshman Jamal Jones and two women were in the apartment with Nelson on Wednesday.  And that was all Kennedy needed to hear. 

Kennedy dismissed Nelson and Jones for a violation of team rules:


“When you see guys that have to be dismissed for things that are just poor decision that they make at very influential times of their life, it’s hurtful.  It’s hurtful to me as their coach.  It’s hurtful for me as a guy who brought them into our extended family.  I’m terribly disappointed.”


This is a body blow for Kennedy. 

In his sixth season in Oxford, most believe the coach will need to reach the the NCAA Tournament to save his job.  Two weeks ago, leading rebounder Murphy Holloway suffered the dreaded, slow-to-heal high ankle sprain.  Now Nelson — who was averaging 11.6 points per game — is gone.  All from a team that ranks fifth in the SEC in rebounding and just 10th in scoring.

Ole Miss opens SEC play tomorrow afternoon at LSU.

The end could be near for Ole Miss’ Andy Kennedy.  The fates seem to be aligned against him.

With his team showing promise midway through its non-conference slate, leading rebounder Murphy Holloway went down with a high ankle sprain.  A three-game losing streak followed.

That streak was snapped on Tuesday night with a 50-48 homecourt win over SMU.  But it’s now been learned that after the game, sophomore Rebel guard Dundrecous Nelson was arrested at his home and charged with possession of drug paraphernalia.  Nelson is UM’s leading scorer at 11.6 points-per-game.

Kennedy said he learned of the arrest yesterday afternoon and he is currently doing his “due diligence” on the issue.

Minus his leading rebounder and scorer, it’s doubtful Kennedy can rally his team to the point of earning an NCAA Tournament bid.  Heading into the season, the feeling in Oxford was that only an invitation to the Big Dance would save his job.

Houston Nutt made $2.76 million last year in his final season at Ole Miss.  The man who replaced him can actually make more than that.  If he earns a heckuva lot of incentive bonuses.

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Ole Miss officials have further outlined the salary structure for the new Revel football coach.  At Freeze’s introductory presser UM chancellor Dan Jones said the coach’s base salary would be $1.5 million with bonus opportunities that could bring that total in “excess” of $2.5 million.

Now UM spokesperson Kyle Campbell has revealed to The Clarion-Ledger’s Hugh Kellenberger that Freeze has “an opportunity to earn more than $1,400,000 in incentive payments.”  He also said the incentives “are based upon performance on the field and in the classroom.”

Do a bit of math — $1.5 million base salary plus > than $1.4 million in incentive bonuses — and you find that Freeze could make between $2.9 and $3 million next season for the Rebels.  Nice numbers.  But we suspect the majority of those bonuses will be awfully darn hard to hit. 

Talk to a hundred Ole Miss fans today and fifty will tell you new head coach Hugh Freeze is the perfect man for the job in Oxford. 

The other fifty will say the Rebels should have aimed higher. 

At a time when the Ole Miss fanbase desperately needed some healing, the school’s new hire has only added to the feeling of consternation.  That’s not Freeze’s fault, of course.  If you could move up the ranks from high school coaching to SEC assistant coaching to NAIA head coaching to low-level FBS head coaching to SEC head coaching in an eight-year span, you’d do it, too.

And Freeze has done well at every step.  You don’t rise like that without winning over a lot of people — a lot of skeptics — along the way.

But are there enough accomplishments on the coach’s short resume to make you believe Freeze is the man to lead Mississippi to its first SEC title since 1963?  That he’s got a better shot of reaching Atlanta than Houston Nutt, Ed Orgeron, David Cutcliffe or Tommy Tuberville had?

The answer, of course, is no.  And for that reason, we understand why the half of the UM fanbase that wanted Mike Leach or another more proven commodity as head coach are disappointed.  “A guy who could’ve at least guaranteed some fun on fall Saturdays wasn’t given a look… but a guy who was coaching girls basketball in 2004 was?”  Yeah, we hear ya.

Yesterday, Freeze was greeted warmly on the Ole Miss campus.  At his opening press conference he thrilled the 1,500 souls who showed up to hear him by announcing, “It’s good to get back to the University of Mississippi.”  Take that, Dan Mullen.

Freeze won the press conference, as they say.  But Nutt won his press conference with his folksy charm four years ago.  Introductory press conferences only go so far.

In the end, Freeze will be judged only by the number of wins he records.  And if that number is less than the number of wins put up by Leach at Washington State — fair or not — the UM fans who are scratching their heads today will be wagging their tongues in the years to come.


Other notes from Freeze’s grand unveiling:

* Mike Glenn, the FedEx executive who led the Ole Miss search committee alongside Archie Manning says Freeze was the #1 choice all along.  “I know leadership when I see it.”

* The search committee told UM chancellor Dan Jones that Freeze “is the best fit for Ole Miss.”

* Freeze — who’ll make $1.5 million per year with bonuses that could bring the package to $2.5 — said yesterday:  “If you want to walk into our offices and meeting rooms after about a week that we’ve been together and ask them what is our ‘it’ here, their answer will be real simple.  Offensively our ‘it’ will be to be a fundamentally efficient scoring machine.  That’s it.  That’s simple.  If you walk into our defensive room and ask our kids what is our ‘it,’ our defense will say, everyone of them will say, it is to relentlessly pursue the football and knock the ever-loving stink out of the ball-carrier.  That’s how it is.”

* Freeze wouldn’t say the words “Mullen” or “Mississippi State,” but he did say of the Egg Bowl:  “It’s not big, it’s paramount.  I have great respect for the job he’s done there and certainly take nothing away from that job, but being raised here, I have a quite good understanding of what that means.  The administration doesn’t have to tall me that. … Again, great respect for what they’ve done, but it’s about regaining the momentum.”

* Regarding his quick ascent in the coaching world, Freeze said:  “It’s a God thing to go from high school to here.  The time I spent here then left, that was devastating for me because of my love for this place.  My whole aspiration was to find a way to get back.”

* Freeze cried openly as he met with his Arkansas State team before leaving.  After a 10-minute talk, his ex-team gave him a standing ovation as he left the room.  That’s pretty impressive in its own right.

* The Rebels’ new coach made it clear that Ole Miss is his dream job:  “This is a destination place for me.  It is not a stop along the path.  It is where I want to live, it’s where I want to be, it’s where I want to retire.  This is home to me.”

* Some UM fans summed up their backing of Freeze’s hire with three words: “I trust Archie.”

* Freeze calls coaching his “ministry” and this long-time Jackson writer says that if the new guy “coaches as well as he preaches” then the Rebs got a winner.

* Freeze’s next big job?  Connecting with Ole Miss’ recruits.

Ready for a pun?  I started to headline this post: “Ole Miss To Announce Hiring Freeze.”

Hugh Freeze of Arkansas State will be introduced today at 3pm ET as the Rebels’ next head football coach.  As the school put it in a press release:

“A Mississippi native, inspirational leader and one of the nation’s top rising coaches, Hugh Freeze was the first choice to return championships to Ole Miss Football and will be introduced as the Rebels’ 37th head coach today…”

The whole “first choice” part might not be exactly true as a few reports have claimed Southern Miss’ Larry Fedora — who’s being listed in connection with several higher-profile jobs, including Texas A&M — turned down overtures from Archie Manning’s search committee.

Freeze may well turn out to be the right choice for the job, but he certainly isn’t the splashy choice.

Fedora has turned Southern Miss into arguably the best program in the state of Mississippi.  He’s also lived in the state for four years and knows every dusty Delta backroad when it comes to recruiting inside the Magnolia State.

Mike Leach and Rich Rodriguez were available for pursuit as well.  Manning and crew decided to look elsewhere.  Now Freeze will be held up to the successes (or failures) that Leach and Rodriguez have at Washington State and Arizona respectively.

Also, we do not believe Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart — despite several reports to the contrary — was ever given a serious look by the UM search committee.

If Fedora, Leach, Rodriguez and/or Smart flourish elsewhere while Freeze becomes the umpteenth UM coach to flame out by The Grove, it might just put a tiny dent in ol’ #18′s halo.

We have no problem with Manning and crew deciding not to pursue an assistant like Smart.  The Rebel program needs a proven head coach at this point.  Unfortunately, Freeze is hardly proven.

As you’re sure to hear time and again in the coming weeks, months and years, Freeze was coaching high school football and girls’ basketball in 2004 at Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis.  His star player there was Michael Oher of “The Blind Side” fame.

Ed Orgeron plucked Freeze from the high school ranks — and landed Oher, too — when he made the coach an assistant AD for football external affairs in 2005.  In 2006 he became Orgeron’s recruitng coordinator and tight ends coach.  He then became the team’s receivers coach as well.

When Orgeron was ousted in 2007, Freeze headed to NAIA Lambuth University as head coach.  He went 20-5 at Lambuth in 2008 and 2009.

In 2010, he moved to Arkansas State as offensive coordinator.  The team finished 4-8 and head coach Steve Roberts was replaced by Freeze last offseason.  In his first year as head coach of the Red Wolves, Freeze led the team to a 10-2 record and a Sun Belt Conference title.

While his rise has been impressive, it’s hard to ignore the fact that this is a mighty big gamble or Ole Miss.  Freeze may eventually prove that he was indeed the best choice the UM search committee could make.  But there’s not much on the resume — at least not on the BCS level — to suggest that will be the case.  It’s a long way from coaching girls basketball to competing with Nick Saban, Les Miles and Bobby Petrino in the toughest division in college football.

Archie Manning released a video on UM’s official website today announcing the hire.

The Jackson Clarion-Ledger has more here.

The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal has more here and here.