About the Ole Miss opening

I’m sure you’ve seen at least some of the speculation surrounding who will ultimately be hired to replace Freeze for the long run — my heart is torn between Junior and SOD, if you must know — but there are two contradictory factors in play with regard to the search.

On the plus side, Freeze walks away without a buyout, so the school has a lot of money to throw around.  Ole Miss will likely need every penny of it, too, if they hope to find a quality hire.

There’s a big problem, though.  Last year’s recruiting class imploded and that’s almost certainly going to be the story for the program’s 2018 class.  Add to that the threat of extended sanctions imposed by the NCAA, and you’d think whoever may be coming in is going to want the security of a long-term deal to ride out the storm in the here and now.  Unfortunately,

https://twitter.com/justinallen4/status/889515892257718273

Four years might get you a retread like Les Miles, who’s in his mid-60s and probably isn’t looking to coach for another decade, but it won’t get you a younger hot shot around whom you could rebuild the program after sanctions are lifted, even if you were willing to toss $5 million a year on the table.  Ole Miss seems to be in a tough spot, although you can see why it doesn’t hurt to let the interim coach take the hit on this year.