Jackson Jambalaya

Former Ole Miss Head Football Coach Houston Nutt sued the university, IHL, and the Ole Miss Athletic Foundation today in U.S. District Court in Oxford for breach of contract.  However, the lawsuit focuses on alleged defamation of the former head coach by Ole Miss.  Mr. Nutt also accused Head Football Coach Freeze of smearing him through "off the record" conversations with journalists.  


Nutt charged Ole Miss tried to place most of othe blame for its NCAA problems on him when the opposite was true in reality:

14.   On January 30, 2016, in its first public statement since receiving the NOA, Ole Miss posted a statement online by AD Bjork, which included the following language: “ . . . and in football, with many of the allegations dating back to the former football staff in 2010 and the withholding and reinstatement process around Laremy Tunsil in fall of 2015.” (emphasis added). AD Bjork and other members of the Ole Miss Control Group approved the foregoing statement in advance knowing that the statement was false and misleading.

15. Based on further investigation conducted in 2016, the NCAA  prepared  and  delivered a 30-page amended NOA to Chancellor Vitter in early February 2017. The amended NOA, a copy of which appears on the official Ole Miss website, contains 48 references to “Freeze.” Houston Nutt’s name does not appear anywhere in this 30-page document.

16. Consistent with the tactics it used to prevent journalists from seeing the first NOA, Ole Miss declined multiple FOI requests for the amended NOA and did not release it to the public
until the University submitted its response in early June 2017...

The complaint then directs its fire towards the Mr. Bjork and Coach Freeze:

 19.... For instance, AD Bjork knew or was reckless in not knowing that between January 21 and 31, 2016, Coach Freeze had initiated one-on-one conversations with numerous sports journalists1 and at least four highly-rated recruiting prospects and that those conversations violated various policies of the NCAA, SEC, and the University, including the NCAA’s rules on confidentiality.

20. AD Bjork further knew that in each of the conversations referenced above, Coach Freeze had knowingly lied to the journalists and recruiting prospects by saying that the NCAA’s investigation had little, if anything, to do with him or his coaching staff and was instead focused on alleged rules violations by Coach Nutt’s staff. In some of these conversations, Coach Freeze falsely stated that most, if not all, of the NCAA’s allegations involved “Houston Nutt” and his staff. At the time Coach Freeze made these statements, he was fully aware that they were patently false, yet he continued to make such statements, severely damaging Coach Nutt’s reputation.

21. Of the 13 allegations in the initial NOA involving the football program, only two of them allegedly occurred when Houston Nutt was the head football coach....

Thus, even if one could interpret the NOA to mean that four of the alleged violations occurred when Coach Nutt was at Ole Miss (which is undeniably false), 69% of the allegations in the NOA would have still occurred on Coach Freeze’s watch. Not including the 2013-14 allegations (which would be two years after Coach Nutt left Ole Miss), roughly 85% of the allegations violations occurred while Coach Freeze was the head coach.....

 28. Determined to deflect and delay the potential  damage  from  the  NCAA investigation,  and  with  the knowledge and  tacit  approval  of certain  members of the Ole Miss Control Group, Coach Freeze, AD Bjork, and Campbell reached an agreement in 2014 to carry out a carefully orchestrated misinformation campaign, the specific purpose of which was to mislead the media, Ole Miss boosters, and potential recruiting prospects about the true nature of the matters that were being investigated by the NCAA.

29. This deceitful strategy involved having Coach Freeze, AD Bjork,  and  other  members of the Ole Miss Athletics Department tell sports journalists “off the record” that the “majority,” “most,” or “almost all” of the NCAA’s allegations were aimed at Coach Nutt and his staff and that the NCAA’s charges had little, if anything, to do with Coach Freeze. As further alleged below, Coach Freeze personally carried out this part of the strategy at various times from 2014 to 2017, reaching new heights when Coach Freeze courted the entire 2016 recruiting class under false and misleading pretenses.

The complaint also accuses Ole Miss of launching a pre-emptive strike of sorts through the national media by manipulating a reporter:

30. On October 2, 2014, citing multiple unnamed sources, a nationally-known sports journalist, referred to herein as Journalist #1, broke the story about the scope of the NCAA’s investigation of Ole Miss. In this news story, Journalist #1 wrote that one source “with knowledge of the probe” said “the current football staff of head coach Hugh Freeze is not believed to be implicated in any major violations, and that much of the football inquiry dates back to actions by a previous Ole Miss staff.”2 It is now clear that Journalist # 1’s unnamed sources gave him false and misleading information. The sources who lied to Journalist #1 before he wrote this story did so for the purpose of creating a false public narrative that would deflect the heat created by the NCAA investigation from Coach Freeze to Coach Nutt.

The lawsuit is probably referring to Yahoo Sports.  Yahoo Sports published on October 2, 2014:

The University of Mississippi athletic program is under investigation by the NCAA for potential rules violations in multiple sports.

Athletic director Ross Bjork confirmed to Yahoo Sports on Wednesday that Ole Miss “is working with the NCAA” in an ongoing investigation. Bjork said the school has not received a Notice of Allegations from the NCAA, nor does it have a date set for a hearing before the NCAA Committee on Infractions. He declined further comment.

Multiple sources told Yahoo Sports the Mississippi football and women’s basketball programs are subjects of the investigation. One source with knowledge of the probe said the bulk of the potential violations relate to women’s basketball. The source said the current football staff of head coach Hugh Freeze is not believed to be implicated in any major violations, and that much of the football inquiry dates back to actions by a previous Ole Miss staff. Freeze is in his third year at the school. The source said there have been no new allegations, all NCAA interviews have completed and the school is waiting for the NCAA Department of Enforcement's next step. Rest of article.

Ole Miss also stands accused of  resisting public records requests:

32. The other key component of the University’s false and misleading PR scheme involved Ole Miss going to great lengths to resist the predictable public records requests from journalists who were seeking to discover the details of the NCAA’s investigation. In several instances between 2014 and 2017, the University’s “deny/delay/distract” approach to handling public records requests on this topic was evidenced by their assertions of various exemptions and redactions that were for the most part based on unprecedented and/or specious legal positions, the University’s self-serving view of public policy, and other clear departures from the letter and spirit of the Mississippi Public Records Act. Ole Miss’s wrongful refusal to disclose the NOA until May 27, 2016 was a crucial component of its strategy to protect its head football coach at all costs knowing full well that its deceptive communications would do immeasurable damage to Coach Nutt’s reputation. (Note: JJ has filed a public records complaint with the Mississippi Ethics Commission on this very issue.)

Mr. Nutt then engages in a bit of psychoanalysis of Coach Freeze:

33. It is common knowledge among sports journalists that Coach Freeze does not take kindly to criticism. Since the moment the NCAA investigation was first made public, Coach Freeze has distinguished  himself  from  other  Division  head  football  coaches  by:  (a)  consistently exhibiting behaviors that are massively defensive; (b) going to extraordinary lengths through social media and otherwise to promote his self-image as a deeply spiritual Godly man who’s done nothing wrong and is being persecuted; and (c) attempting to cultivate personal relationships with sports journalists for the purpose of promoting his self-image through positive news stories (Hugh knew?) and, as further alleged below, exploiting their trust and deliberately misleading them into tweeting and  writing news stories that furthered Coach Freeze’s agenda. These personal characteristics contributed to Coach Freeze’s decision to play the leading role in the self-serving smear campaign that foreseeably damaged Coach Nutt’s reputation.

Wow.  However, Mr. Nutt claims more journalists were involved in this alleged scheme:

 40. In a 12-minute telephone conversation that Coach Freeze initiated with Journalist #2 beginning at 2:18 p.m. on January 21, 2016, Coach Freeze told the journalist a version of the false narrative. The following week, Journalist #2 tweeted: “Source: Majority of alleged football violations at Ole Miss tied to Saunders/Academics/previous staff, not current coaching staff.” Shortly thereafter, the bold-face text used in this message was reinforced when a large photograph of Houston Nutt was posted beneath the original tweet. The false narrative Journalist #2 tweeted was re-tweeted 183 times. 

The journalist was Matt Wyatt:


But wait, there is a #3:

 41. In a 7-minute telephone conversation that Coach Freeze initiated with Journalist #3 beginning at 5:24 p.m. on January 21, 2016, Coach Freeze told the journalist a version of the false narrative. The following week, Journalist #3 tweeted: “The other football-related stuff dates back to  the Houston  Nutt  era.  Hearing that  stuff is  six  years old.”

Then there is the big one: ESPN:

  Later that afternoon, Journalist #6 posted a story that strongly reinforced the false narrative and quoted a source who had talked to his ESPN colleague (Journalist #7). The story said:

"Allegations connected to Mississippi's football team largely derived from the 2008-11 tenure of Houston Nutt, sources said. Freeze was named the Rebels' coach in December 2011

"Sources told ESPN.com that the new football violations in the NCAA's report centered primarily on the Tunsil case.

"This is a fraction involving our current football staff," a source told ESPN's [Journalist #9]. "Some of those things we've already self- imposed some penalties around and already dealt  with. This just happens to be part of a broader process." (emphasis added)"

More journalists and examples of supposed manipulation are cited in the complaint that are variations of the same theme.  Coach Freeze repeatedly spoke to journalists off of the record who in turn reported the information he gave them through various outlets such as news reports and social media.  The reporters included those who work for the AP and other national media outlets.  The complaint claims Mr. Bjork participated in this media manipulation as well.  Mr. Nutt called the resulting media coverage that placed most of the blame for the NCAA allegations on him a  "Category 5 media storm."

Mr. Nutt sued for breach of contract and breach of duty and good faith dealing.  He asked for actual and punitive damages.  He is represented by Little Rock attorney Thomas Mars and Ridgeland attorney Walter Morrison.  The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers and referred to Magistrate Judge Roy Percy.