On Friday, individual responses from Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze and former Rebels associate athletic director Barney Farrar were released. The responses, which total over 100 pages, thoroughly address the NCAA’s allegations, to which Ole Miss responded on Tuesday.
Hugh Freeze’s response to NCAA allegations released by Ole Miss
Former associate AD Barney Farrar’s response has been released, as well.
Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images
There’s a lot to unpack in Freeze’s response
First, Freeze’s response starts by emphasizing that the allegations raised against him are a result of “particular staff members.”
“These allegations do not arise because of a failure by Coach Freeze to properly educate and monitor his staff, but, if true, reflect particular staff members’ deceit or carelessness,” Freeze’s response read in part. “These choices have irreparably damaged Coach Freeze’s reputation and put him and his program at risk for penalties that could have a lifetime effect.
“As will be developed more fully in this response, Coach Freeze was not asleep at the wheel.”
And remember Farrar, the guy who looks like he could be Ole Miss’ fall guy here? He’s mentioned quite a bit. Freeze’s response says in December 2016, when he first learned of Farrar’s alleged involvement, he was “stunned.”
“Coach Freeze was interviewed by the staff and informed for the first time about [redacted] allegations. With regard to Farrar’s participation in violations, Coach Freeze was stunned and disgusted, remarking at one point, “I want to vomit.”
The Clarion-Ledger summarizes Freeze’s response to some of the other allegations, including those involving Mississippi State’s Leo Lewis:
Freeze’s response denies allegation No. 12, which accuses him of making impermissible in-person, off-campus recruiting contact with Lewis.
The response cites inconsistencies in Lewis’ interviews and details that his high school coach said it was a brief interaction.
Freeze also disputed allegation No. 20, which charged him with violating his head coach responsibility legislation, a Level I violation.
“He also agrees with the enforcement staff’s original decision to not include a Head Coach Responsibility charge in NOA1,” his response said. “No new evidence, facts, or documents have been obtained to support the addition of this charge to NOA2.”
The response explains that Freeze, among other things, held regular compliance meetings and education training for his staff and urged them to communicate with the compliance office.
Farrar’s response contests some of the allegations against him, as well
One of them alleges that the former staffer and former defensive assistant Chris Kiffin arranged for improper recruiting benefits of $2,800 in free merchandise for a couple of recruits and a family member.
“When asked whether his commentary ‘would have been limited to just recommending places,’ Farrar confirmed “that would have been it. Not only was Farrar aware of Coach Freeze’s instructions on this particular issue, there is no question that both he and Kiffin knew that they could not arrange for free apparel for prospects.”
Farrar also denies convincing prospective student-athletes to come on recruiting visits by paying for lodging and transportation, too.
“The most outrageous of [redacted] allegations are that Farrar arranged a hotel for him the weekend of the Alabama game. [Redacted] testified that he began the weekend of October 4th, 2014 in Starkville, Mississippi for Texas A&M at MSU. Then, toward the end of that game, he drove with his cousin to Oxford for Alabama at Ole Miss. [Redacted] testified that he did not give Farrar any notice that he was coming to the game. However he maintains that he still stayed at a hotel off campus. The staff accepted this story as true. Therefore, according to the staff, it is a reasonable conclusion that in the middle of the Alabama game, Farrar left the field and arranged a room for [redacted], even though this was probably the single busiest weekend of the year for hotels in Oxford and the biggest regular season game of the year for the Ole Miss football team. Common sense dictates that this is not possible.”
Farrar’s response also further mentions the allegations surrounding Lewis.
“[Redacted] is the only witness that provided any purported evidence against Coach Farrar. [Redacted] is a young man that now plays football for Ole Miss’s [redacted] rival [Redacted],” the response said. “A young man likely lured into this witch-hunt by his own head coach so he could escape NCAA charges himself, deflect his misdeeds onto Farrar and Ole Miss, and keep his eligibility to play for [Redacted].
“A young man who, undeservedly, was given immunity as the NCAA enforcement staff deliberately turned away from his own admitted violations so that it could pursue the school and the recruiter it really wanted — Ole Miss and Barney Farrar.”
Lewis still remains one of the bigger smoking guns in all of this, which was evident in Ole Miss’ initial response from Tuesday:
Lewis was given limited immunity to speak to the NCAA about whether or not he was paid by boosters to go to Ole Miss. Incidentally, there are 14 boosters referenced in the document as having ties to this scandal in some way. The school admits that it is “troubled” by the contact in the document between Lewis and the boosters but dispute the fact that there is enough evidence to say Leo was paid by two of the boosters specifically.
As you can tell, there’s still a long way to go with all of this, and these latest responses show that Freeze and Farrar aren’t exactly backing down. As my colleague Steven Godfrey pointed out earlier this week, neither Freeze nor the school appears to have shown any sign of division in public.
When Ole Miss announced the second and much more severe round of allegations in February, Freeze was sitting right next to Bjork and Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter. He’s expressed a desire for the NCAA’s process to be over, and at last week’s league meetings, he talked about his plans for keeping team morale up during a bowl-less 2017 season.
Privately, Freeze is digging in. After two New Year’s Six bowls and two wins over Alabama, Freeze, a North Mississippi native and former Memphis high school coach, has more equity among boosters than any Ole Miss coach in modern history.
What the next steps will be for Farrar and Freeze remains to be seen. The university has already self-imposed a one-year bowl ban for the 2017 season. There is also a chance that Ole Miss could revise and expand its self-imposed scholarships and bowl ban to potentially appease the committee on infractions, which will review the NCAA’s case against the Rebels likely this fall.
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